What are the best hotel promos for May 2021?

UPDATE – APRIL 2024:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.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.

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

Keep up to date with new hotel offers by signing up for our free daily or weekly newsletters.

As travel begins to restart, we are bringing back our regular round-up of the best hotel promotions currently running.  It was November 2019 when this feature last appeared …..

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 15,000 email subscribers – means we run this monthly article as a handy summary.

Here are quick summaries and links to the registration pages you need for each offer – do it before you forget:

Accor Live Limitless, Marrott Bonvoy and Radisson Rewards are not currently running global promotions.

Where should you credit your stays for May 2021?

In general, the hotel chains have a problem with global promotions at the moment. Whilst it is almost ‘business as usual’ in the two major markets – China and the US – there are major restrictions elsewhere.

It is hard to create a global offer which is generous enough to drive stays in countries with sharp restrictions in place, whilst not appearing too generous in countries which are functioning relatively normally.

The chains are also dealing with the fact that their customers are primarily leisure travellers at the moment, and this segment – where people are spending their own money, not their employers – responds differently to special offers.

Hilton (Hampton, Conrad, Waldorf-Astoria etc)

Hilton has an Summer offer called ‘More Nights More Points’.  You can register here.  Our full article is here.

You will earn DOUBLE Hilton Honors base points for every stay of 1-2 nights between now and 6th September. 

Stay 3+ nights and you will receive TRIPLE base points.

For most brands, you will earn 10 base points per $1 spent, plus an additional 10 or 20 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.  38 points per $1, which is what a Gold member would receive for a 3-night stay, is a 17.5% rebate on your ex-VAT spending.

You need to register in advance via the Hilton website here.  Existing bookings count and all Hilton Honors hotels are taking part.

Hilton is still status matching too (if the form starts working again).  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 2023 – I explain how to get a Hilton status match in this article.

The Hilton booking page is here.

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

The new IHG Rewards promotion starts on 15th May and runs until 16th August.

It is a little weak. You get nothing on your first qualifying stay after registration, double base points on your second stay and triple base points on your third stay.

There clearly isn’t anything here for you if all you are planning is one major trip over the coming months.

My article on IHG’s ‘Triple Points’ offer is here.  You can register on the IHG site here.

Existing bookings count and all IHG hotels are taking part.

The IHG home page for bookings is here.

PS. IHG is also offering a special deal if you sign up for InterContinental Ambassador – see here. If you join or renew before 31st July, you will receive a voucher for a free reward night (costing up to 40,000 IHG Rewards points) when you stay at any InterContinental, Kimpton or Regent hotel by 31st August 2021.

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.

The offer runs to 15th June but you must register by 15th May. You can sign up here if you are not already registered.

You will receive 2,000 bonus points for every two nights you stay. Note that these do NOT need to be consecutive nights. We value a Hyatt point at 1.2p so you are getting £12-worth of bonus points per night, on top of your standard base points.

If you manage 10 nights during the promotional period, you will also receive a free night voucher for a Category 1-4 hotel.

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 over £1.3 million 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.