Annual Free Night Certificates: List, Rules & Best Uses

There are a lot of hotel credit cards that come with an annual free night certificate, it can be worth paying the annual fees on these cards purely for this certificate. Below is a list of the credit cards that offer free night certificates, along with any restrictions and then the best use of each of these certificates.

List Of Cards That Offer Annual Free Night Certificates

• Chase IHG credit card. Annual free night certificate which can be used at any property in the IHG portfolio. Annual fee of $49.
• Citi Hilton Hhonors Reserve. Annual weekend free night when you spend $10,000 or more in previous card member year.
• Fairmont credit card from Chase. Annual free night certificate when you make $12,000 or more in purchases the prior card member year, annual fee of $95.
• Hyatt credit card from Chase.  Annual free night certificate at any category 1-4 property.
• Marriott Premier Rewards (personal & business). Annual free night certificate at 1-5 category. Annual fee of $85 on the personal card and $99.

Obviously the Chase IHG is the pick out of this group, it has the lowest annual fee, doesn’t have a spend requirement and can be used on any IHG property. Below are the rules of each of these certificates.

Rules For Each Certificate

• Fairmont.
  • Requires $12,000 or more in spend on the credit card within a card member year
  • You’ll receive the certificate within 4-6 weeks of your anniversary and it can be viewed at http://www.fairmont.com/fpc (then click “my certificates”)
  • Can be used at any Fairmont hotel or resort worldwide for any single or double standard room
  • There are blackout dates, these are available here for 2015
  • Covers the room rate and taxes, excludes any resort fees
  • You can use more than one certificate (e.g  FPC Room or Suite Upgrade Certificates or other free night certificates)
  • Can only be transferred if you’re a platinum member and then it can only be transferred to immediate family members
• Hilton.
  • Requires $10,000 or more in spend on the credit card (starting from the annual fee date)
  • Account must stay open for at least one billing period after the annual fee date
  • You’ll usually receive your certificate within 6-8 weeks after the annual fee date
  • Certificate can be used for one weekend night at any property within the Hilton portfolio, with a few exclusions.
• Hyatt.
  • No annual spend requirement
  • Your annual award certificate will be available 4-6 weeks after your anniversary date
  • Certificate can be used on any category 1-4 Hyatt property (cannot be used at Hyatt Zilara or Hyatt Ziva properties)
  • Must be used and stay completed within twelve months of being issued
  • Valid for one standard room rate, including taxes
• IHG.
  • No annual spend requirement
  • Your annual award certificate will be available for use on your renewal anniversary date each year, you can call Chase for this exact date.
  • Must be used and stay completed within twelve months of being issued.
  • These certificates can be used on any hotel in the IHG portfolio without any limits or black out dates.
  • You can cancel your award stay online, like normal. The certificate is immediately refunded to your account for use. The  cancellation policy for each hotel still applies. (Cancelling an award stay will not extend the life of an award night)
  • Valid for one standard room rate, including taxes.
• Marriott.
  • No annual spend requirement
  • Can be used at any category 1-5 property
  • Certificate must be used within 6 months of being issued (Update: All E-Certificates issued prior to 4/25/15 will have an expiration of 6 months and all E-Certificates issued on or after 4/25/15 will have an expiration of 12 months)
  • Allow 6-8 weeks after your anniversary date for the certificate to be issued.

Best Use Of These Certificates

Roomer Travel

Roomer Travel is a website that allows you to resell non refundable hotel rooms, other users on the site have the option to purchase these rooms for a discount. You can use free night certificates and resell them on Roomer Travel (at least IHG certificates will work). This presents an interesting opportunity when hotel rooms are going for an excessive price.

The most obvious example of this is New York City on New Years Eve, hotel rooms regularly sell for in excess of $1,000 a night. Let’s assume you discount the room by 80% (this will be enough to get it to appear at the top or near the top of their “amazing deals” section), it would be listed for $200. Roomer takes a 15% cut which would leave you with $170, given than the annual fee is only $49 you would be making a profit of $121.

Obviously there is risk involved, your room might not sell or something else could go wrong and your booking could be cancelled. I actually saw a few people try this tactic last new years eve, but they priced their rooms at only a 60% discount. It looked like one or two of them sold, but there was excess inventory that didn’t sell.

If free award night certificate has a refund policy as a regular paid stay, so you could always book early and then cancel your stay if it doesn’t sell in time. The better option is to get a bit more creative and try to find other opportunities outside NYE in NYC, what you want to look for is this:

• An extremely popular event
• An event that people would travel for
• An event that is short in nature (if it’s something people will need to stay two nights for, having a discounted night won’t be that helpful)

It’s important to note that most of these hotels have terms that specifically disallow this sort of reselling, especially on free night certificates. For example, this is taken from the Fairmont offer terms:

 Certificate will be void if listed or advertised for sale or auction on the Internet, in newspapers and magazines, or other similar means

Fairmont

It’s important to remember that this card requires $12,000 in spend to get this “free” night certificate. If you put that spend on a 2% cash back card you’d get $240. If you put it on the Fairmont card you’d get a free night certificate and 12,000 – 60,000 Fairmont points and you’d have to pay an annual fee of $95. Personally I only think doing this makes sense if you’re actually doing paid stays at Fairmont properties.

• Best hotels to redeem free nights for a Fairmont Premier noobie by Flyertalk

Hilton

• The Best Hilton Properties – Worldwide, to use your Hilton Free nights from the Citi Reserve Visa- Part 1 Category 10 Hotels by Saverocity
• The Best Hilton Properties – Worldwide, to use your Hilton Free nights from the Citi Reserve Visa- Part 2 Category 9 Hotels by Saverocity

Hyatt

Keep in mind the annual fee of $75 and the fact it can only be used at category 1-4 properties.

• Best Hyatt Category 4 Hotels by Travel is Free
• Best Hyatt Gold Passport Redemptions: Category 4 by Points Chaser

IHG

The pick of the bunch when it comes to free night certificates, low annual fee and no real restrictions.

• Best Use of an IHG Free Night Certificate by Travel is Free

Marriott

Remember it can only be used at a category 1-5 property and must be used within 6 months of being issued.

• Best Use Of Your Marriott Category 5 Certificates by Travel is Free (little old)

Final Thoughts

I think it’s a fun mental exercise to look at hotels that give you the most “value” out of your free award certificates. That being said, if you spend $500 to get to Bora Bora for a single night (or end up paying $1,000 per additional night) you’re not really getting good value. The most important thing is to make sure you actually use your certificates, there is absolutely nothing wrong with redeeming them for a $100 a night hotel. That is infinitely better than letting it sit unused all year waiting for the perfect redemption, for it never to materialize.

I think the Chase IHG card is really the only card worth keeping for the annual free night certificate, although a case could be made for the Marriott cards as well. The Hyatt, Hilton & Fairmont cards really only make sense if you stay at those properties regularly and can utilize the other benefits.

Let me know your thoughts on free night certificates and if there are any other resources on the best uses of these certificates that you’d recommend I add.