A good Cyber Monday deal from …. Preferred Hotels

The Black Friday flight and hotel deals we’ve covered over the last couple of days have been, to put it politely, average.

Things are picking up a little today – Monday 27th November only – with an interesting offer from independent luxury hotel booking consortium Preferred Hotels.

Details are on the Preferred Hotels site here.

To put the deal simply:

• book a three night stay at participating hotels and only pay for two nights

• you will also receive 30,000 bonus iPrefer points, worth a free night at 35 properties

There are over 140 participating hotels. In the UK, the selection is a bit slim:

• Royal Lancaster London (overlooking Kensington Palace)
• Sopwell House, St Albans
• Old Course Hotel, St Andrew
• The Fitzwilliam Hotel, Belfast
• Hotel Saint, London (Aldgate / City)
• The Londoner (the huge new hotel in Leicester Square)

The small print includes the following points:

• you need to be a member of the Preferred Hotels iPrefer loyalty scheme (join here, click on ‘Join’)

• you must book for stays completed by 31st March 2024

• use code MKTCYB when booking the ‘3 for 2’ deal, although it should be added automatically

• the 30,000 bonus points must be used within 12 months

• the bonus points do not count towards tier promotion

• you can book multiple stays under the ‘3-4-2’ offer but you will only receive the 30,000 bonus points once

What hotels can you book with 30,000 bonus points?

You can take a look at the redemption list here.

You can pull up the list of hotels at 30,000 points. There are 35 of them although only three are in Europe – Prague (The Emblem – image below), Budapest (Mystery Hotel) and Munich (EXCELSIOR by Geisel).

You could also get two free nights at one of the eight hotels costing 15,000 points per night, although none of these are in Europe.

You’d obviously end up with more than 30,000 points after your qualifying stay, but at 10 points per US$ spent this is unlikely to make a big difference to your redemption. The next level up after 30,000 points is 50,000 points. Under the scheme rules, a hotel is only obliged to give points on your room rate – it is ‘discretionary’ if points are awarded for food, drink, spa and other spend.

You can also redeem your 30,000 points for a gift voucher

You can also redeem your iPrefer points for a Preferred Hotels gift certificate.

This isn’t hugely lucrative, however.

31,509 points gets you a £50 certificate, and this is roughly what you’d have after your stay with the bonus points. You can also order vouchers in $ or € depending on where you plan to redeem.

Obviously £50 towards a future stay is better than nothing, but you’d do far better using your 30,000 iPrefer points from this offer for a free night.

Conclusion

This is a decent offer. The sweet spot would be a three night stay in a low cost hotel, potentially in Asia, which would trigger the 3-4-2 offer and get you 30,000 points which could be used for a free night in a more expensive location.

That said, getting 3-4-2 at a more expensive hotel will lead to a bigger £ saving and you can treat the 30,000 points as an extra bonus.

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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.