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What are the best hotel promos for April 2017?

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UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.  Thank you.

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Welcome to our monthly round-up of the best hotel promotions currently running.  All of the information in this article can be found on our ‘Hotel Promos’ page which contains details of all of the current offers, together with links to our major articles on each hotel scheme.

Where should you credit your stays this month?

Most major hotel groups use Easter as a convenient break between promotions.  What this means, if you look at the list below, is that a lot of deals are closing this week and we don’t yet know what will replace them.

Once we get beyond 15th April, you can forget about IHG, Starwood and Marriott.  However, with VERY strong offers from Hilton, Accor and Club Carlson running beyond 15th April, you won’t be short of options.

Chains still offering deals beyond 16th April

Hilton (Hampton, Conrad, Waldorf-Astoria etc)

The Hilton offer also looks good and is very straightforward.  You will receive 2,000 bonus Hilton Honors points per night, which I would value at £6-£8.  This offer stacks with the ‘earn up to quadruple Avios’ deal so you can earn both on the same stay.

I wrote about the ‘doubling up’ aspect of this offer here.  Here is my main article on the ‘2000 points’ offer.  You should get the 2000 points per night on reward stays too.

Both of these offers run until 30th April.  Importantly, the ‘2,000 bonus points’ offer kicks in from your first stay so it is a bonus you can hit even if you’re only doing one stay over the next few weeks.

Both offers need registration – the links are in the articles above.  The Hilton home page is here.

Club Carlson (Radisson Blu, Park Inn, Park Plaza, Radisson Red)

Club Carlson has just launched a new offer which I will hopefully cover tomorrow.

The headline details are:

triple points on all stays before 30th June

5000 extra bonus points if your stay includes a Sunday or Monday (and 10000 points if it includes both!)

3000 extra bonus points for your first app booking

This has the potential to be very generous indeed if you stay the right combination of nights.  A full analysis of this deal is on the way.

Le Club AccorHotels

Le Club AccorHotels is offering a generous ‘triple Avios’ promotion until 30th June.

This is good for stays at Novotel, Sofitel, Pullman, Mercure, Ibis, M Gallery etc.

You will earn at least 7.5 Avios per €1 you spend, except at Ibis where the rate is lower.  If you have Accor status you will earn even more.  A £500 Novotel stay would earn you 4,500 Avios points which is certainly not to be sniffed at.

The promo is a little fiddly and you need to send the Avios to Iberia Plus, not BA, before moving them across to BA via ‘Combine My Avios’.  Full details are in this article.  The Accor home page is here.

World of Hyatt

Hyatt has just launched a new offer.  Called ‘Double Points for Being You’ (?!), it is a simple offer.  You will receive double World of Hyatt base points on all stays between 1st April and 30th June, starting with your second stay.

Full details can be found in this article.

Chains with offers ending on 15th April

If you are booking a last minute break for the Easter, you should also consider these deals:

IHG (Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental, Indigo, Staybridge Suites etc)

The Spring version of IHG’s ‘Accelerate’ is probably the best choice for most people with lighter schedules.  As targets are personalised it is totally dependent on what you were offered but you should be able to rack up a significant number of bonus points with just a few nights.

‘Accelerate’ only runs until 15th April.  This was the article I wrote on it.

Everyone has individual targets, but they are generally fairly easy.  You can earn around 30,000 bonus points with the points starting to flow from your first stay.

My wife, for example, got this for 41,000 points:

  • 3,000 points on her next stay
  • 1,000 points for a stay in January
  • 10,000 points for staying five nights
  • 2,000 points for applying for an IHG Rewards Club credit card
  • 3,600 points for booking a Bonus Points Package
  • 21,400 points for completing three of the four targets above excluding the January bonus

This is exceptionally easy.  All she has to do is make ONE stay, for one night, on a Bonus Points Package rate!  As long as she also applies for the free IHG credit card, that will be 30,000 points banked.

You need to register for ‘Accelerate’ – the link is in the article above – although with only four days to go you won’t achieve much!  The IHG home page is here.

Starwood (St Regis, Westin, Sheraton, Element, W, Luxury Collection etc) and Marriott (Renaissance, Ritz-Carlton etc)

This is less exciting, unless you have an expensive stay planned.

Starwood and Marriott are basically running the same promotion following their merger – double points for your first three stays at each chain.  It certainly isn’t a reason for shifting business to either chain but you should obviously register if you will be doing a stay anyway.

It is too late to register for these offers if you haven’t done so already.  Registration closed on 15th March even though both offers run until 15th April.  Full details are in this article.

Conclusion

Whilst IHG, Starwood and Marriott don’t have anything to offer you beyond Saturday, the remaining offers are particularly attractive.

Having a choice of (beyond the 15th April):

at least 7.5 Avios per €1 from Accor (Novotel, Sofitel, Mercure etc)

or

triple points from Club Carlson plus 5000 points for Sunday and Monday nights plus 3000 points for an app booking

or

2000 Hilton bonus points per night plus, if you choose ‘points and miles’, up to quadruple Avios

…. is not a bad choice to have.

PS.  If you booking a luxury hotel, remember that we can offer you exclusive additional benefits at Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Peninsula and similar hotels.  Click here for details of our luxury hotel booking service in association with Bon Vivant / Virtuoso.  Feedback from readers who have used this service so far has been excellent.

Hotel offers update – April 2024:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

  • Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.
Category

Accor Live Limitless, Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, Radisson Rewards, World of Hyatt

Comments (43)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • sprout7 says:
    12 Apr12 April 12:20

    Think I can guess the answer to this… 😉
    If I book a Hilton stay through a cash back website presumably I won’t get any points for the stay?
    Therefore, unless your employer is paying for the stay, surely it’s better to book leisure stays with a cash back site as you often get around 10% cash back?

  • Pid says:
    12 Apr12 April 12:38

    Used it on Mon. Just bought £30 worth of food and handed over my PP to cover the bill for both of us. Very easy! We could of claimed a further £30 as my wife could of used hers with me as a guest but did not have the room for any more snacks for the plane!

  • John says:
    12 Apr12 April 13:07

    OT: Booked four flights after registering for the BA Triple Avios promotion: 1 x BA, 3 x Iberia.

    Single Avios credited for all four – neither BA nor Iberia will budge on the single rate as booking was made direct with Iberia (London > Marrakech). Both airlines claiming the other is responsible.

    Not impressed with either TBH.

    Has anyone else had problems securing Triple Avios from the ‘book and travel before 31 March 2017’ offer?

    • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:
      12 Apr12 April 20:28

      Worked for me every time (even got an economy [LCY-TXL] booking upgraded with avios to post as triple club avios and TP). BUT I always booked and flew BA.

  • Sam says:
    12 Apr12 April 13:20

    OT: I have a reservation at Conrad Tokyo coming up. It’s two nights on Visa certificates (one mine and other gf) and two nights paid. I’ve e-mailed the hotel and they’re happy to keep us in the same room. I’ve recently become Hilton Gold – would we get the benefits (i.e. breakfast) on check in or will they only see my gf’s silver (as her certificate is the first night)?

    • John says:
      12 Apr12 April 13:37

      Strictly speaking you should only get it on 3 of the 4 nights (if the paid nights are booked under your account) and Japan is a stickler for rules usually, but I think they will let you have it as long as you clarify the situation at check-in. Why didn’t you put your own free night first…?

      Btw, you won’t earn any base points for the stay as it is a paid combined with award (though you might because Hilton often erroneously credits points).

      However, if your free night was first, then your gf’s, then the paid stay, you yourself would have checked out, “gone away” for 1 night and then checked in again, and the paid stay would earn base points – again assuming that it’s under your account – which would also get you more points as Gold than Silver. It may be worth trying to rebook if possible

      • Sam says:
        12 Apr12 April 15:03

        Thanks for this. When we booked we were both Silver and weren’t expecting to get to Gold so it didn’t really matter who went first. Will see what they say.

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      12 Apr12 April 17:44

      I would email the hotel and ask them to add the gold card Honors # to the booking. This worked for me (funnily enough in Osaka) where I was Diamond but my OH was Gold.

      Conrad Tokyo is great. Would definitely recommend a late-night swim. Their pool is on a high floor with floor-to-ceiling windows.

    • Julie M says:
      13 Apr13 April 08:18

      I stayed at the Hilton Tokyo in Shinjuku last month, booked using my husband’s account on points (he’s a blue member) and on check in showed them my Diamond card. The gentleman at the front desk was very helpful and changed the booking from my husband’s account into mine so we got full breakfast and lounge access. Not sure if all the front desk staff would have done the same thing or we just got lucky.

  • Liz says:
    12 Apr12 April 14:40

    OT can you transfer e.g. 9150 MR pts to SPG or do they have to be in multiples of 1000. Also I am 6150 KR miles short for my upcoming redemption so going to get hubby to transfer his MR pts to his SPG account and then transfer to my SPG account. Can he transfer 6150 SPG to me or does that have to be multiples of 1000 pts ? Don’t want to transfer more than I need to.

    • Jonny says:
      12 Apr12 April 15:25

      Points have to be transferred in multiples of 400, so will need to be 8800 MR points (for 4400 SPG) or 9200 (for 4600 SPG).

      Whole process will take just over a week probably (i.e. husband MR account to your SPG account). When Amex MR site asks for your SPG number, add in “0000” beforehand for it to work…!

  • krys_k says:
    12 Apr12 April 15:53

    OT, but linked. Heads up about the Hilton price guarantee. Booked Hilton Mexico City 36 hours out, spotted a cheaper room, same spec, for 30% less on third party site. Used online form, was told it wouldn’t be honored as I needed to have made the claim 24 hours before day of booking…but how is the possible when I only booked 12 hours out! Don’t think they are honoring the spirit of the guarantee.

    • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
      12 Apr12 April 17:44

      I believe the intent is to exclude last-minute bookings from the guarantee.

      • krys_k says:
        12 Apr12 April 18:56

        Get it, Thanks. Will still try to discuss situation with the duty maanger…

        • krys_k says:
          13 Apr13 April 03:56

          Just to say…Mexico City Hilton…really great. Staff are super, upgrade to top floor etc. a really great experience.

        • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
          13 Apr13 April 11:33

          Best bet in this sort of situation is probably just to contact reservations at the hotel directly before you book and ask them to match the rate.

  • Sunny says:
    12 Apr12 April 16:44

    OT: how long does it normally take for the £15 lounge club charge to appear on Amex Gold statement when you use it beyond the two free visits?

    • Johnny_c-l says:
      12 Apr12 April 18:29

      First time it took about 6 weeks, but subsequent visits have taken about 5 days.

      • the real harry1 says:
        12 Apr12 April 20:40

        some people seem to get away with never/ not charged

        is that why you’re asking, Sunny?

  • ankomonkey says:
    12 Apr12 April 20:26

    4 of us travelled in Feb with 2 PP cards. Spent around £53 and all charged to PP. It covered our lunch and water for on the plane nicely and saved us money we would have had to spend otherwise.

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