Citi has added Preferred Hotels & Resorts as a transfer partner. You can transfer 1,000 Citi ThankYou points and receive 4,000 I Prefer Points. Website states that award nights start at 15,000 points per night with the most expensive properties costing 150,000 points per night. Unfortunately it’s difficult to find availability as it’ll show availability and then when you click through it only shows cash + points or cash as an option rather than straight points. If availability improves (or even if there is a better way to search) then this could become a very good transfer partner.
Keep in mind that the hotels in some countries can charge an undisclosed amount of tax later. I booked some time ago through Choice what seemed to be a good rate, then got charged a tax per person times % on the corresponding secret $ amount they’ve got paid from Choice. I felt that I would have paid lower than that tax had I booked a revenue stay
I think no one is able to find award space because they are looking on the wrong site. Head over to iprefer <dot> com, then “Offers” -> “Reward Nights”. Everything there should be bookable 100% on points and I see a lot of availability.
It seems that I can find some availability with Choice points at some of these hotels. I guess there is a difference between availability using I Prefer (their own reward point system) and Choice points?
Read the posts below. No one has yet reported finding points-only redemptions through I Prefer, only points discounts on cash rates. While Choice only offers full redemptions (and generally not proportional to cash rates, given that they don’t tend to change from one week to the next week as cash rates change), if they offer any. So a bit hard to compare, isn’t it?
Another website (TPG) just stated that out of 300 Preferred Hotels, they only found 3 with redemption rates thought I Prefer. So I guess they exist, but they’re apparently really rare.
Checked three local Preferred Hotels. No points-only rates available. 10K – 20K points buys a slightly better cash rate. Good cpp return for the points for the cash rate buy-down, but overall, useless for outsized value unless you had plans to stay anyway on a cash rate. Dead to me, unless I read about improved points-only availability and check again.
new credit card launching? Would be nice to get out of the big 4 of IHG, Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton.
No points only redemption effectively makes this a coupon book offering.
my local option: Nemecolin woodlands in SW Pennsylvania:
2 points options are 20k for 200$ off a king room in the “Chateau” (the hotel like portion, they also have cabins/townhouses), or 20k for 100$ off a 2 double room. so 0.5-1 cpp (2-4 cpp thank you points)
small discount only (200 off 500-1.2k$ per night), very limited options, but not a bad cpp if you’re staying there anyway.
Y’all never going to find a room available with points only.
Based on what? Your previous experience searching for points only availability?
Been almost exclusively using Citi for the 1:2 transfer for Choice -> Preferred Hotels bookings. The One Palácio da Anunciado in Lisbon is a wonderful hotel.
Will have to research to see if using Choice or I Preferred transfers will be better.
how many Preferred points per night does the One Palácio typically cost?
Last I looked it was 75,000/night for Preferred. With Choice, it was 27,000/night when I booked my trip. So if you transfer Citi TY points, it’d be 18,750/night for Preferred or 13,500/night for Choice.