What are the best hotel promos for July 2018?

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Welcome to our regular round-up of the best hotel promotions currently running.  Apologies that this edition is a little later than usual.

All of the information in this article can also 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.  However, a positive response from readers – especially our 11,800 email subscribers – means I am now running this monthly article as a handy summary of what is going on.

Where should you credit your stays in July?

The promotions are falling away as Summer begins.  The current Starwood and Marriott offers end on 20th July, and I have only briefly included them here because registration is closed and you needed to do three stays to qualify.

IHG’s current Accelerate offer ends on 30th July.  Even if you only have one night to book for the next couple of weeks, I would still consider IHG as even one stay should trigger one or possible more Accelerate targets.  I would expect Accelerate to be repeated from 1st August but I have absolutely no proof!

Hilton’s ‘double points’ runs until 31st August.  This is one I am mining this weekend with a stay in Hamburg.  Radisson Rewards has also launched a ‘double points’ offer until 31st August but a minimum two night stay is needed.

I also recommend you take a look at the current Kaligo.com promotion.  Book £1000-worth of hotels in August, for stays until 28th February 2019, and you will receive 20,000 bonus Avios.  You must be a BA Amex cardholder to take part.  Bookings via Kaligo.com will not earn you hotel loyalty points and you are unlikely to receive any status benefits due.

On the redemption front, remember that IHG Rewards Club is offering a 10% discount on the cash element of UK and Ireland ‘points and cash’ redemptions booked by 27th July.  Details are here.

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

The new Summer 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.

The latest round of ‘Accelerate’ began on 1st May and runs until 31st July.  This is my article on the offer.

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

This was my target for 55,700 points maximum, comprising:

• 2,000 points for a stay in May
• 2,000 points on my next stay
• 10,000 points for staying five nights
• 9,600 points for two stays booked via the IHG app
• 2,500 points for three stays booked via my corporate rate
• 12,000 points for two stays in any country in North America, South America, Central America, Caribbean, Greater China, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa
• 1,000 points for ANY redemption, including a cheap digital download
• 2,000 points for getting either of the IHG credit cards
• 14,600 points for completing six of the seven targets above, excluding the May bonus

You need to register for ‘Accelerate’ – the link is here where you will also find your personalised targets.  The IHG home page is here.

And don’t forget …..

IHG Rewards Club has launched a new promotion for ‘points and cash’ reward bookings in the UK and Ireland.  If you book before 27th July, IHG Rewards Club members can save 10% on the cash part of a points & cash redemption.  See here for details.

Going to Amsterdam ….?

Until 31st July Head For Points readers will get 5,000 bonus IHG Rewards Club points when booking a stay at the Kimpton De Witt in Amsterdam for check-in dates between now and 31st December 2018.  Kimpton De Witt is the first European outpost of the very well regarded American chain that IHG acquired a few years ago, famous for its nightly free wine receptions and other quirks.

The 5,000 points are worth £20 based on our current valuation of 0.4p which makes this a lucrative deal especially for one night stays.

Importantly, this does NOT impact any other promotion.  You will also get your points for the current Accelerate promotion on top of the 5,000 bonus points.  Here is the Kimpton De Witt homepage if you want to take a look at the hotel, but remember that you must book on the Head For Points special offer page here.  Our recent Kimpton Amsterdam review is here.

Hilton (Hampton, Conrad, Waldorf-Astoria etc)

The Hilton offer is very straightforward.  You will receive double points on every stay from 1st May to 31st August.  There is no minimum stay required and every Hilton hotel is participating.

I wrote about Hilton’s double points offer here.

Hilton is still status matching too.  If you have status with another hotel programme, Hilton will match you to Gold or Diamond for 90 days – I explain how to do it in this article.

You MUST register for the double points offer by visiting this page of hilton.com.  The Hilton booking page is here.

PS.  Remember that, as of 1st April, you can no longer collect airline miles with your Hilton stays.  The previous ‘points and miles’ and ‘points and points’ options have been replaced.  I wrote more about that here.

Radisson Rewards (Radisson Blu, Park Inn, Park Plaza, Radisson Red)

Radisson Rewards has just launched a new ‘Double Points’ promotion.  It runs until 31st August.  There are two snags:

the rules say that stays must be booked and consumed between 9th July and 31st August, so existing bookings may not qualify

you need to stay a minimum of TWO nights

You must register for the offer – but that is easily done by clicking here.

If you can work around the minimum stay and new booking restrictions, this could work out nicely.  You would usually receive 20 base points per $1 spent, which would double to 40 base points per $1.  Given that I tend to value a Radisson Rewards point at around 0.33p (0.44c) you are getting a return of 17.5% on your spending.

If you have Radisson Rewards status – and American Express Platinum cardholders get Gold status in Radisson Rewards for free – you would earn 45 points per $1 in total, meaning a return of almost 20%.

The registration page for the double points offer is here.  The Radisson Rewards booking page is here.

Le Club AccorHotels

Best Western Rewards

Best Western Rewards is not running a global promotion at the moment.

However, Best Western UK has launched a promotion giving guests a £20 Best Western gift card if they stay at a UK Best Western property this Summer.

You must register on this special promotion page before booking which means existing bookings are excluded from this promotion.  The £20 Best Western gift card will be awarded for stays between now and 3rd September 2018 and is limited to one per person.  The Best Western booking site is here.

World of Hyatt

World of Hyatt is not running any global promotion at the moment.

Starwood (St Regis, Westin, Sheraton, Element, W, Luxury Collection etc)

The current Starwood offer, ‘More Nights, More Starpoints’, ends on 20th July and in any event registration closed on 30th June.

You will earn 250 bonus points per night which I would value at £3.75, but the bonus only kicks in from your third night from 16th April.  Full details are in this HFP article.  The article includes a link to the list of non-participating hotels.

Marriott (Renaissance, The Ritz-Carlton etc)

Now that Marriott has acquired Starwood, the two groups are running similar offers.  The current Megabonus offer also ends on 20th July and registration closed on 30th June.

You will earn 750 bonus points per night which I would value at £3.75.  However, the bonus only kick in from your third night from 16th April.  Full details are in this HfP article.  The Marriott booking page is here.

Kaligo.com

Hotel booking site Kaligo.com has launched a new promotion which can earn you up to 20,000 bonus Avios for hotel bookings made before 31st August.  You must be a British Airways American Express cardholder to participate and £1000 of spend is needed to get the full bonus.

There are two good things about the way this offer is structured:

The bonus you receive is based on CUMULATIVE spending up to 31st August.  You don’t have to hit the target in one booking.

ANYONE take part, even if they are already registered with Kaligo.com and even if they earned a bonus from a previous promotion.  The only condition is that you are a British Airways American Express cardholder.

You have until 28th February 2019 to complete your stays.  Details of the offer, and the link to register, are here.

You will NOT earn hotel loyalty points when you book via Kaligo.com and you won’t receive any status benefits you are due, unless you book at a Marriott hotel where status benefits are honoured.  Kaligo.com pricing can also be uncompetitive at time – but fine at other times – so do your homework.

And …..

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 and we have booked over £720,000 of rooms so far.

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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.