My 55,000 MeliaRewards points Black Friday €165 gift card has arrived

One of the most interesting Black Friday offers was one launched by MeliaRewards in Spain.

As this TravelWeekly article explains, Melia has decided to sell its points via Amazon.  On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, they launched the deal with a 50% discount – but only if you bought via Amazon Spain.

(You can buy these gift cards via amazon.co.uk – click here to see the listing.  You can see exactly the deal works from the T&Cs.  The current UK price is £293.80 and it looks, given the delivery date, that they come from Spain anyway.  If you want to buy from the Spanish site – which is quicker as they courier it – you can buy here.)

I decided to jump in on Friday and buy a gift card for the maximum 55,000 MeliaRewards points for €165 (£146) plus €7 for express delivery.  Amazon Spain was not messing about, and my gift card arrived by DHL on Tuesday afternoon.

Whilst the card itself is credit card sized, the leaflet it is stuck to is A5:

The instructions were simple enough that even my rudimentary (ie non existent) Spanish could follow them:

You log into the Melia website and head to ‘My Points’

Filter the earning and spending options by ‘Shopping’

Click on Amazon.  As well as explaining how to redeem your points for amazon.co.uk gift cards, there is a box to deposit your gift card.  I typed in the number and the 55,000 points immediately appeared as you can see below.

Having spent more time now exploring the MeliaRewards redemption chart, it is not as random as it first seemed.  It is simply that hotels have totally weird redemption values which makes them appear random.

INNSiDE New York, which we reviewed here, is 23,098 points per night.  Where this number comes from I have no idea.  There is real value here – I found dates in May 2019 where cash rates are over £350 per night, whilst I would be paying under £70 if I redeemed my gift card points here.

In London, the Melia White House is 24,286 points per night.  I am tempted to cash out my points here, because I always get my brother two rooms in London in July when his family comes to visit and when prices are high.  The alternative would be to spend 100,000 to 160,000 Hilton Honors points or 90,000 Marriott Rewards points or 100,000 – 140,000 IHG Rewards Club points, and I value all of those options at far more than the £152 including postage that I paid for my Melia points.

In theory you cannot transfer these points out to Avios.  That said, I can’t prove it.  I tried to do a test transaction and it appeared to process, but insisted on sending a verification code by email.  When I input the code, I got an error message.  I tried again, same result.  It seems we don’t know.  That said, whilst this is a decent deal if you want Avios (18,000 Avios for £152, so 0.83p per point) there is far better value using the points for hotel rooms or meals in Melia’s London hotels.

If this offer comes back with a 50% discount, I will let you know.

If you want to check the current price, click here for the Spanish site and here for the UK site.

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How to get MeliaRewards Gold status from American Express (April 2024)

Do you know that holders of The Platinum Card from American Express receive FREE MeliaRewards Gold status for as long as they hold the card?  It also comes with Marriott Bonvoy Gold, Hilton Honors Gold and Radisson Rewards Premium status.

We reviewed American Express Platinum in detail here and you can apply here.

You can discover the benefits of MeliaRewards Gold status on the Melia website here. It includes three vouchers per year worth 20% off any booking.

Small business owners may want to consider American Express Business Platinum instead:

(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.)