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What are the best hotel promos for October 2019?

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Welcome to our regular round-up of the best hotel promotions currently running.

All of the information in this article can also be found on our ‘Hotel Offers’ 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 14,500 email subscribers – means I am now running this monthly article as a handy summary of what is going on.

If you’d rather not spend cash on your next stay, this article looks at how to use Avios points to book hotel rooms.

Where should you credit your stays in October?

This is what you have to choose from:

IHG‘s Accelerate, which started on 1st September, has personalised targets so it is impossible to tell if yours are worth doing or not.  You have until 31st December to achieve them.

Hilton‘s new Power Up offer is the easiest.  You get double base points per stay, until 5th January 2020, increasing to triple points if you still have – and pay with – the old Barclaycard Hilton Honors credit card.

World of Hyatt’s Bonus Journeys is offering double base points (triple points on stays at Hyatt Place) on stays until 15th December.  This only kicks in from your second stay after registration.  Registration closes on 31st October.

Marriott is oddly quiet but I expect a new promotion to launch soon.  Radisson Rewards and Le Club AccorHotels are not offering any global promotions.

IHG Rewards Club current promotion

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

IHG is running another version of its Accelerate promotion. It runs from 1st September to 31st December.

Everyone has personalised targets which, in general, are the least generous we have seen for a while.  This is my article on the offer.  You can register on the IHG site here.

Here is a typical set of targets for this round:

25,200 bonus points for staying at four different brands

4,500 bonus points for booking one ‘points and cash’ redemption

2,800 bonus points for staying at three different hotels

8,000 bonus points for four stays using the corporate rate of the company I haven’t worked at for nine years and which very few hotels accept!

Take a look at what you’ve been offered.  You need to register for Accelerate – the link is here where you will also find your personalised targets.

IHG Rewards Club is running a second promotion which doubles up with Accelerate.

You will receive 3,000 bonus IHG Rewards Club points for every stay at an InterContinental hotel before 30th November.  You need to register for this offer here.

If you pay $200 to join the InterContinental Ambassador loyalty scheme, the bonus is doubled to 6,000 points per stay and you will receive an additional 10,000 points with your membership kit.  I discussed the pros and cons of this offer in this article.

The IHG home page is here.

Hilton (Hampton, Conrad, Waldorf-Astoria etc)

Hilton has an Autumn offer called ‘Power Up’.  You can register here.  Our full article on Power Up is here.

You will earn DOUBLE Hilton Honors base points for every stay between 9th September and 5th January.  If you pay with the old Hilton Honors Barclaycard, no longer available to new applicants, you will receive triple base points.

For most brands, you will earn 10 base points per $1 spent, plus an additional 10 promotional points plus any status bonus.

Given that I value a Hilton Honors point at around 0.33p, you are getting a good return on your spending here.  20 points per $1 is an 8.5% rebate and that is before you add in any status bonus.

You need to register in advance via the Hilton website here.  Existing bookings count, there is no minimum stay rule and all Hilton Honors hotels are taking part.

Hilton is still status matching too.  If you have status with another hotel programme, Hilton will match you to Gold for 90 days with a stays target for getting Gold or Diamond until 2021 – I explain how to do get a Hilton status match in this article.

The Hilton booking page is here.

Le Club AccorHotels current special offers

Le Club AccorHotels

Le Club AccorHotels is not running a global promotion at the moment.

However, Accor has launched a new offer for stays in the UK and selected parts of Europe.  Stays in the UK plus Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden are eligible.

You will earn 300 bonus points on your next stay in these countries at these brands: ibis, ibis Styles, Mercure, Novotel, Novotel Suites, Pullman, MGallery and Sofitel.

There are three key points to note:

300 points is OK given that each point is worth 2 Eurocents if you redeem for Accor vouchers.  You would get €6 back in total for your next stay.  300 Accor points is also worth 300 Avios if you convert them to Iberia Plus (but only 150 Avios if you convert to BA Executive Club!).

You must register and book before 27th November, and stay before 31st December.  Existing bookings made before you registered will not count

There is, however a snag.  There is NO ‘register now’ button on the landing page!  This is despite the fact that the rules say you must register before booking.  No idea what Accor is playing at here, or what you can do about it.

Marriott Bonvoy (Renaissance, The Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton, Westin, W, Aloft, St Regis, Luxury Collection, Moxy etc)

Marriott Bonvoy is not running a global promotion at the moment.

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

Radisson Rewards is not running a global promotion at present.

However, Radisson Rewards members will receive 3,000 bonus points when booking in the current EMEA sale. I would value 3,000 Radisson Rewards points at £9+ so this makes a substantial difference, especially if you are booking at cheaper Park Inn hotels.

The sale covers hotels in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  You must book by 31st October and stays must be taken between 1st November 2019 and 29th February 2020.

You can find full details, and book, on this special sale page of the Radisson website.

World of Hyatt

World of Hyatt, which covers Andaz, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt Centric, Hyatt House, Hyatt Place, Hyatt Regency, Park Hyatt, Thompson and many other brands, is offering Bonus Journeys.

This is a decent offer which is spoiled by two unnecessary rules:

registration closes on 31st October even though the offer runs until 31st December

the bonus only starts from your second stay after registration

You will receive double base points on each stay.  Stays at the lower end Hyatt Place brand will earn triple base points.

Our main Head for Points article on Bonus Journeys is here.

And finally …..

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 almost £1m of rooms so far.

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 (61)

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

  • Anna says:
    7 Oct7 October 06:57

    OT but hotel related – if you pay to join the IHG Ambassador scheme, is the free weekend weekend night in addition to the free night from the IHG Mastercard? If you redeem this for a 40,000 point stay in an IC hotel can you stack the two, i.e. one Ambassador night, one free night form the MC plus one paid night?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      7 Oct7 October 07:40

      Yes absolutely. If you do paid in a slightly better room, BOGOF then redemption you might even keep the same better room all stay.

    • Benj says:
      7 Oct7 October 07:41

      The Ambassador free weekend night is a “buy one night, get the second night free” offer, not just a single night you can use on it’s own. You can add the IHG Mastercard free night before or after it though, for a total of 3 nights (might have to do so on separate bookings, but they’ll often let you keep the same room throughout).

    • meta says:
      7 Oct7 October 10:58

      I thought UK free night from the credit card is at any hotel, not capped at 40k points. Has that changed?

    • Anna says:
      7 Oct7 October 13:51

      I know you have to pay for one night, hence in my original post I said IC free night + free IHG night + paid night.

      Thanks for that Rob, I have just checked my IHG MC account and it does indeed say “any hotel” next to the free night counter. That opens up a lot more possibilities! I must have got my info from a US blog.

  • Paul says:
    7 Oct7 October 07:24

    O/T as no bits: I got the Morrison’s 10% Amex Offer, and have used it a few times already. Does anyone know if the purchase of gift cards from Morrison’s will impact the offer appearing on my statement as a credit?

    No rebate / credits have appeared so far :-/

    • Brighton Belle says:
      7 Oct7 October 07:36

      I was only offered 5% on Morrisons. Amex offers have become so unattractive over the last 6 months they are not justifying the fees or benefits.

    • Andrew says:
      7 Oct7 October 08:31

      Shouldn’t impact at all.

      Hope you’ve remembered to collect you 4 Virgin Miles with every £1 spent too on every instore purchase with your Amex at Morrisons. (Obviously also available with every Visa or Mastercard purchase too, but cash is king for me, so I take the 5% at NextJump).

      • Nick_C says:
        7 Oct7 October 11:20

        How do you get Virgin miles in Morrisons? (I know about Waitrose.)

        • Andrew says:
          7 Oct7 October 11:35

          Exactly the same way as Waitrose. Just register your cards on the Virgin site.

          • AndyGWP says:
            7 Oct7 October 12:53

            hmmmmm – I can’t see an option for Morissons instore on mine… just 375 points for online

  • RussellH says:
    7 Oct7 October 08:57

    Got an e-mail from IHG asking me to register for a birthday bonus if I stay “at a weekend”. I registered, but no sign of Ts+Cs anywhere.

    Anyone know what “at a weekend” actually means?

    • John says:
      7 Oct7 October 09:19

      I would guess a Saturday night, and possibly Friday night (or Fri and maybe Thurs in the Middle East). What is the bonus? I wouldn’t be making any changes to my plans for this. IHG gave me 1000 points for my birthday last year but I didn’t need to stay.

    • Andrew says:
      7 Oct7 October 09:28

      It’s usually 2 nights to include a Saturday Night.

  • Benylin says:
    7 Oct7 October 09:35

    First time going Tokyo (as part of a 2 week trip to Japan), what IHG hotel do you recommend in Tokyo?

    There is these 3, all 55k redemption:
    ANA intercontinental
    intercon Tokyo bay
    ANA intercontinental strings bay

    • marcw says:
      7 Oct7 October 10:09

      Unless you swim in IHG Rewards, I’d suggest none.

      Use your IHG in other parts of the world (States?). There is plenty of affordable places to stay in Tokyo and Japan – look for japanese business hotels (avoid the rip off of international brands).

      • Rob says:
        7 Oct7 October 10:22

        There are very few internationally branded hotels in Tokyo. Hyatt has the best ones by far I think. We reviewed one of the ANA’s – it was a mess (mouldy bathroom etc). Conrad is also excellent. Depends how much you feel you need to be in a property with fully English speaking staff.

        • meta says:
          7 Oct7 October 11:08

          It also depends what you want to do. Don’t want to be in Tokyo Bay area if you plan to visit Shinjuku as that can easily add 45+ minutes to your journey. I liked The Strings Intercontinental a lot last time, but then again I needed to be in Shinagawa area. I actually think Park Hyatt is overrated as the rooms are quite old. I’d choose Andaz if going to Hyatt property mainly because of location and access to stations.

        • Simon says:
          7 Oct7 October 13:31

          Just stayed in both Conrad (where the All Blacks were staying 🙂 🇳🇿) & R-C Tokyo, having stayed at Park Hyatt in Feb. Personally, the R-C was my favourite, then Hyatt, then Conrad. Conrad is somewhat out of the way locationwise relative to the others (I say this as someone who used to live in Tokyo), but well-served by the metro station underneath it and still central. If you have status in any of these three chains, that should enter the calculation, needless to say: as a Titanium Elite, I got a Mt Fuji suite at the RC Tokyo (for RC status recognition context, I then also got the Kita corner suite at the RC Kyoto (£9,660.00 on the Marriott site for the week I was there!) plus free breakfast (£560.00 for the week I was there with the missus) on the back of an old Marriott TP. I’m also Spire Elite, but avoid ICs in favour of Marriott/Hilton hotels largely for the status recognition. That said, a quirk of the RCs is that Tokyo doesn’t give you free breakfast whereas Kyoto does.

      • Benilyn says:
        7 Oct7 October 11:46

        Interesting, not swimming in the points really… but collected 55k odd on my card + partners, plus free night each via IHG CC (plus was planning to use the Ambassador offer). Don’t have any hotel points left. Sounds like I save them for another day. Let me know if you have any independents you can recommend, not really after luxury, clean please!

        • Benilyn says:
          7 Oct7 October 11:47

          To add, I will then likely be doing a cash booking, looking at sub £150 going in Apr/Mar 2020.

        • marcw says:
          7 Oct7 October 12:43

          I’m going to stay here in November 4 nights for 42k JPY: Nest Hotel Tokyo Hanzomon. It’s a new building and reviews are ok. I’m also staying in a Nest Hotel in Hiroshima.

          Even though they say “breakfast” is included, it’s just a bread selection. Don’t know really what you are supposed to do with it, but I’d say it’s likely i’ll go out for breakfast.

          I’ll report when I’m back.

          • marcw says:
            7 Oct7 October 13:13

            Oh, remember to book twin rooms… usually slightly bigger than just double bed/queen rooms

        • Nick_C says:
          7 Oct7 October 18:09

          Stayed at The Knot Hotel in Shinkuku last year, and booked it again for December. Good amount of space for your money. About 10/15 minutes walk from Shinjuku station. About £100 a night. Book the largest room – “Deluxe Twin” – 20 sq metres. Hotels.com usually have it as cheap as anyone (collect/redeem). Quite a nice hotel, but even with the largest rooms you don’t get a wardrobe. A few hangers and be prepared to live out of your suitcase. Alternatively pay more than twice the price for the nearby Hilton. It’s a nice place to stay. Live music in the lobby, a coffee shop, decent buffet breakfast (pay locally). FOH staff all speak English and they are mainly European – a result of Japan’s diminishing population and the need to import migrant workers.

    • John says:
      7 Oct7 October 16:34

      Agree with the others, IC ANA was a waste of my free night voucher (and to top it off IHG paid them US$600 for my stay which I wouldn’t have paid more than £50 – note this was long before HFP published its review)

      Would happily stay in the Hiltons if not too expensive.

    • Adam says:
      8 Oct8 October 16:45

      I had a very good stay at Tokyo bay. A bit further away from most sightseeing but really great views. They are quite stingy with upgrades though. Received a club room without club access as spire amb.

  • BJ says:
    7 Oct7 October 10:59

    O/T: Just arrived from Barclaycard (Hilton). Am I missing something here?

    “Due to new regulations, the cash transaction fees we charge will be the same in the UK and abroad. From 25 November 2019, we’re introducing ‘cash fees’ on non-sterling cash transactions at 2.99% (there is a minimum fee of £2.99, except on gaming transactions, where there is no minimum fee). We’ll no longer charge any ‘non-sterling transaction fees’ on cash transactions made in foreign currencies.”

    • Rob says:
      7 Oct7 October 11:09

      The 3% fee you pay for using an ATM abroad is now called a cash fee and not an FX fee!

    • meta says:
      7 Oct7 October 11:14

      Yes, I thought that was odd. Are they saying no FX fees on spend? If you look at the tables it does seem to so.

      • Andrew says:
        7 Oct7 October 11:30

        The table is headed up:-

        “Fees on cash transactions effective from 25 November 2019”

        So regular spend doesn’t appear to be included in the changes.

    • Crafty says:
      7 Oct7 October 11:56

      The email specifically says that non-sterling transaction fees are currently 2.99% and are changing to 0%. Unless incredibly poorly worded, this sounds like the Hilton Barclaycard will become the go to card for all foreign on-card spend? Or have I misunderstood?

      • Crafty says:
        7 Oct7 October 11:56

        Actually, I’ve misunderstood. Andrew above is correct. Highly misleading email to send to people though!

    • BJ says:
      7 Oct7 October 13:15

      Thanks to Rob & Andrew for clearing this up. Glad I was not alone in my confusion 🙂

  • Stu_N says:
    7 Oct7 October 13:36

    Any news on Marriott autumn promo?

    • TGLoyalty says:
      7 Oct7 October 14:19

      or a change from SPG to Bonvoy card /benefits for the AMEX card? free nights like the creation and US cards would be welcome.

    • Rob says:
      7 Oct7 October 15:09

      No!

      • ilou says:
        7 Oct7 October 15:22

        Rob, can you please chase them please ? It’s taking ages to relaunch this UK CC ?

        There is definitely demands, we just need to see the card

        • John says:
          7 Oct7 October 16:25

          Why do you think there will be a new card?

          • ilou says:
            7 Oct7 October 16:34

            Because Marriott has promised a relaunch of creation version in the UK and it doesn’t make sense to keep a brand that doesn’t exist anymore

        • Rob says:
          7 Oct7 October 16:46

          I was out with Rankin and Vicky McClure, amongst others, as you do, at a Bonvoy drinks do last week and I specifically asked about this. Amex has gone very quiet on their plans to relaunch. Creation now looks out of the picture as far as I can tell.

        • Lyn says:
          7 Oct7 October 19:51

          I wonder if this might be a case of be careful what you wish for? The basic Amex SPG in the US was much better in terms of everyday spending than the Bonvoy card which replaced it.

      • Stu_N says:
        7 Oct7 October 15:45

        I guess I’ll push my work travel to Hilton in the meantime. Hilton option is a bit less convenient and usually slightly cheaper, but in the absence of a decent offer from Marriott there’s quite an incentive from Hilton.

        Hilton – £200 stay yields c.6,000 points = £20 value. (I’m HHG via Amex).

        Marriott – £200 = approx 2,500 Bonvoys = £12 value (again Marriott Gold via Amex).

        • TGLoyalty says:
          7 Oct7 October 19:20

          Value depends on where you plan to use the points. 35k gets you a £350 room at The Langley so 2,500 = £25. Or 85k gets you a $1k a night room at the StR NYC (I’d probably only pay half that but the price is the price if you want to try it)

          Tbh I’d just stay at the better hotel.

          • Stu N says:
            7 Oct7 October 20:39

            I take your point but you are looking at absolute top end values for Bonvoy Points.

            There’s often so little in it that earning rates can swing it and I’m happy I can use both schemes for decent values.

  • Clive says:
    7 Oct7 October 19:57

    Looking for a hotel recommendation in HK but not paying silly money if anyone can throw in any suggestions it would be appreciated.

    • Stu N says:
      7 Oct7 October 20:36

      Harbour Grand on HK Island gets my vote, the Club Level rooms are great value and the hotel is only 15-20 mins from Central via MTR (nearest station is Fortress Hill on Island Line).

      • Polly says:
        8 Oct8 October 00:08

        Yes excellent hotel, our first choice when are in HK. Lounge spectacular, and great breakfasts. Let us stay all day, when snowing! A few years bk, until we left for our BA flts. Great staff.

  • Bloke formerly in India says:
    7 Oct7 October 20:00

    I had an IHG email today which appears to be targeted at the fact I’m a business traveler (co is FTSE100) which gave me instant Spire-elite, and a challenge (10 stays in 90 days) to keep it through to Dec 2020, plus an additional 15,000 points if I stay at least 3 times (1k for 1st, 4k 2nd 10k for 3rd)

    Pleasantly surprised.

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