Comparing IHG's 4th-night-free with Marriott and Hilton's 5th-night-free

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I was reading Danny the Deal Guru’s write-up of the latest Chase IHG Rewards signup offers and something jumped out at me: the 4th-night-free benefit offered to cardholders, including those who hold the no-annual-fee IHG Rewards Traveler card. To be clear, this isn’t a new benefit, it’s just one I haven’t had a chance to think about in depth.

Generally speaking, I don’t rate IHG or their rewards program very highly, because while they have an enormous global footprint, they’re rarely competitive compared with the main hotel programs I rely on, Hilton and Hyatt. For example, I regularly visit Portland, OR, which on a sample search turned up two downtown Hyatt properties priced at 12,000 World of Hyatt points, a Hilton priced at 37,000 Hilton Honors points, a Marriott priced at 30,000 Bonvoy points, and a Kimpton priced at 25,000 IHG Rewards Club points (plus a nightly “amenity fee”). For a one-night stay, it would be ridiculous to choose the IHG property unless you’d built up a large orphaned balance through various shenanigans.

Since my framework is manufactured spend, not signup bonuses, it’s easy to make a direct comparison between the options:

  • 12,000 World of Hyatt points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards is worth $120 in cash.

  • 37,000 Hilton Honors points earned at 6 points per dollar with the American Express Surpass co-branded card is between $123 (if the same $6,200 in spend had been put on a 2% cashback card) and $185 if the points were purchased for 0.5 cents each, an offer which is regularly available, including now through March 7, 2023.

  • 30,000 Marriott Bonvoy points are worth between $240 (if you bought the points during one of their periodic promotions) and $300 (if you transferred the points from Chase Ultimate Rewards.

  • 25,000 IHG Rewards points are worth between $150 and $175 if you buy them using the “points and cash” trick (purchasing points while making an award reservation, then cancelling the reservation and having the points refunded to your account).

This makes comparing the four sample reservation options, and indeed comparing all reservation options at the four chains, easy, if on average:

  • World of Hyatt points cost 1 cent each;

  • Hilton Honors points cost 0.42 cents each;

  • Marriott Bonvoy points cost 0.9 cents each;

  • and IHG Rewards points cost 0.65 cents each;

then on a one-night stay you can convert the points cost of any property into the cash cost of manufacturing, transferring, or purchasing the required points. In the concrete example above, we saw that Hyatt and Hilton were quite competitive, while Marriott and IHG Rewards were significantly more expensive options.

On four-night stays, the equation changes, but only for IHG Rewards points. On four-night stays at the other three chains, the cost per point remains the same, while the 4th-night-free benefit offered by the IHG Rewards credit cards increases their value by 33% or decreases their cost by 25% to 0.49 cents each — same difference. The four-night IHG Rewards stay now costs just $122 per night, putting it squarely in the middle of the “competitive” pack of Hyatt and Hilton, or even on the cheaper end (ignoring that pesky Kimpton amenity fee, which you obviously shouldn’t in practice).

Moving to a five-night stay, the equation shifts again, but this time against IHG Rewards, since Hilton and Marriott both offer the fifth night free on award stays. The cost per night on the sample five-night stays with Hilton is $123 per night, with Marriott is $216, and with IHG $130. Hyatt doesn’t offer free nights on longer stays so their cost per night remains flat at $120.

Reference Card

I wanted to use a specific example to explain why I personally don’t care for IHG Rewards, but in case you want to bookmark this post or paste the values into your notes app, here are the shortcuts when calculating the cost of stays of various lengths.

Stays of 1-3 nights:

  • World of Hyatt: 1 cent per point

  • Hilton Honors: 0.42 cents per point

  • Marriott Bonvoy: 0.9 cents per point

  • IHG Rewards: 0.65 cents per point

Stays of exactly 4 nights:

  • IHG Rewards: 0.49 cents per point

Stays of exactly 5 nights:

  • World of Haytt: 1 cent per point

  • IHG Rewards: 0.52 cents per point

  • Hilton Honors: 0.34 cents per point

  • Marriott Rewards: 0.72 cents per point

Now you can easily calculate the cost of reward stays of up to 5 nights in length in every city in the world — not just in Portland, Oregon!