Written by It was just about a year ago when I first started learning about chasing points and status. When I first joined Marriott Rewards and Hilton Honors to accumulate points, I thought my points were just points, plain and simple.
A good friend of mine, the person responsible for turning me into the hotel wh0re that I am today, recently taught me how to calculate how much my points are worth and if I’m spending my hard earned money wisely. Talking to him and reading similar topics on Flyertalk, MilePoint and Loyalty Traveler, it shed a new light on how I view my investment. When you start calculating the return on investment, you won’t look at your points as “just points” anymore. It’s straight cash money!
Using Hyatt’s Spring Promotion as an example, let’s say you spend $500 ($100/night) to get your 5 nights and 10K bonus Hyatt points.
Multiply your bonus points by the value of a Hyatt point (typically 1.5 cents) to find out how much value you received out of your $500 investment.
10,000 x 0.015 = $150
So you spent $500 out of pocket, but received $150 worth of Hyatt points in return. Your net cost is now $350. This was a pretty simple example but as you start racking up points and wondering when/how to redeem them, you can easily use this type of calculation to help determine if investing or spending the points is going to be worth it.