Which Hotel Card Should You Get If You Just Want the Most Free Stays

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Recently, someone posted a message in my facebook group asking which hotel credit card they should get. I asked my usual set of questions: Which hotel brand do you stay with the most? Which hotel brand do you like? Where do you plan to travel?

The lady answered that she didn’t really care where she stayed and that she mostly wanted to get the most bang for her buck. She also said she planned to travel in the next year but had no idea where.

With those answers in mind, I told her that I wasn’t sure she should get a hotel credit card at all. Since she was unsure where she wanted to travel but wanted a broad range of options when it came to redeeming her points, I told her she was probably better off with some sort of flexible travel credit card.

When You Don’t Need a Hotel Credit Card

Don’t get me wrong. I love hotel credit cards. I have had my IHG ® Rewards Club Select Credit Card, for example, for years. I continue paying the $49 annual fee for the annual free night award. I also like the fact that this card gives me automatic Platinum status.

Get more information about this card and other travel rewards cards here.

I’ve also had just about every other hotel credit card on the market, from the Marriott Premier Rewards Credit Card to the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express. These cards and others like them offer healthy signup bonuses plus perks that make them keepers for many travelers. For a list of hotel credit cards that offer bonus hotel points and rewards, head here.

Still, hotel credit cards aren’t ideal for everyone. If you don’t have any idea where you want to travel, for example, it’s impossible to make sure a hotel brand has options available in the area. And if you don’t have any intentions of being loyal to a specific hotel brand, then extra perks like hotel status probably won’t matter a lot to you.

Which Cards to Get Instead

For this lady, I suggested the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Since she wanted free hotel stays but didn’t want to commit to a specific brand, this would work great for her. I told her because she could use her points for a ton of different lodging options without having to commit up front. Get more information about this card and other travel rewards cards here.

Here’s why this card is such a good option for someone who wants free hotel stays but isn’t picky about the brand:

• She would get a large signup bonus (50,000 points worth $625 in travel) after using her card for $4,000 in purchases within 90 days. And while this card does come with a $95 annual fee, it is waived the first year.
• She could transfer her points to hotel partners like IHG Rewards, Marriott, Ritz Carlson, and Hyatt if she wanted. She could also use her points to book with numerous hotel brands through the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal.
• If her travel plans fell through, she could redeem her points for cash-back at a rate of one cent per point.

I also told her about the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, but she didn’t seem too keen on paying a $450 annual fee regardless of the benefits she got in return.

The Bottom Line

If you don’t really know what kind of travel you want, you’re almost always better off with a flexible travel credit card. This way, you don’t have to commit and you can rack up points now then decide how to redeem them later.

In this lady’s case, I think she’ll be happy with all her options once she builds a large stash of points to work with. And if she’s not, she’ll at least have the option to redeem her points for a large sum of cash back.

 

What card would you get in this scenario? Any card suggestions you would add?

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