The Best Hotel Credit Cards for Free Nights and Hotel Stays
Do you love to travel? If so, you know that one of the biggest expenses is often accommodation. That's where hotel credit cards come in, as these cards offer a variety of benefits, including points that can be redeemed for free nights at hotels.
There are many different hotel credit cards available, so it's important to choose one that's right for you. For this article, we’re going to focus on the three biggest chains with credit cards in the USA: Hyatt, Marriott, & Hilton. Here, we'll discuss the best hotel credit cards for free nights factoring in 4 main factors: free night availability, sign-on bonuses, annual fees, and point return on everyday spending.
But First, Why Get a Hotel Credit Card?
There are many reasons to get a hotel credit card, regardless of if you stay at hotels frequently:
Save money on hotel stays: One of the biggest benefits of a hotel credit card is that you can earn points that can be redeemed for free nights at hotels.
Get other travel benefits: Many hotel credit cards also offer other travel benefits, such as early check-in, late check-out, complimentary upgrades, and much more! These benefits can make your travel experience substantially more enjoyable and convenient.
Earn hotel points for everyday spending: Most hotel credit cards also offer rewards for everyday spendings, such as gas, groceries, and dining. This can help you earn additional points even when you're not traveling.
Best Hotel Credit Cards for Free Night Awards
Before we start, there is an important disclaimer: hotel points are not equivalent across brands! Hyatt points, Marriott Points, and Hilton points are not worth 1:1:1, with certain brands and properties typically giving much better redemption values. We’ll discuss more on this later, but for now, remember that just because one hotel company’s card gives more points than another, doesn’t make it necessarily more valuable.
With that out of the way, let’s look at the best hotel cards:
World of Hyatt Visa
The World of Hyatt credit card may just be the gold standard for hotel cards, and this certainly holds for trying to get free nights. With the World of Hyatt card, you get 1 free night a year after your card anniversary at a category 1-4 hotel (which covers most standard hotels, plus an extra night every year you spend $15,000 on the card), 9x points back on Hyatt purchases, 2x points on transit, restaurants, cafes, flights, and gym memberships, and then 1x points on everything else. With this card, you also get free Hyatt Discoverist status, which allows for free premium internet, room upgrades, priority check-in, and late check-out. As well, this card offers a sign-up bonus of 30,000 points after you spend $3,000 in the first three months, then an additional 30,000 points by doubling your points return on your second $15,000. Let’s be honest, from a number standpoint, this is a weak sign-on bonus.
However, the power of the World of Hyatt credit card comes from 2 main points:
Hyatt’s 1:1 point transfer with Chase
The (frankly ridiculous) value of Hyatt points
Hyatt has definitively the best point redemption value in the game, with clear categories and prices that rarely vary between properties. You can consistently stay at hotels for a value of over 2 cents per point, and sometimes even upwards of 5 cents per point! I have personally stayed at Hyatt properties that cost $500 a night using ~20,000 points on multiple occasions, without having to do any extra research about particular dates. To top this off, you can transfer Chase points 1:1 with Hyatt, meaning that if you already are accumulating Chase points, getting free nights at Hyatt with the World of Hyatt card is incredibly easy. To learn more, check out our review of the World of Hyatt credit card!
Overall rating for free nights: 4.5/5
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Visa
If Marriott is your preferred hotel chain, the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Visa card from Chase is an incredibly effective card for getting free nights and points! The Bonvoy Boundless gives 17x points back per dollar spent at Marriott properties, 3x points at grocery stores, gas stations, and dining, and 2x points on everything else. While this may seem like a ridiculously large point redemption, Marriott points are typically worth far less than points from Hyatt or Chase (there’s a real “point-inflation” problem)—as a general rule, divide the number of points at Marriott by two to get a better comparison! However, this is offset by Marriott having far more hotels in the USA than Hyatt, which makes redeeming these points at convenient locations easier.
However, how is this card for free nights? For now, the card gives a sign-on bonus of free nights instead of points: when you spend $3,000 in the first 3 months of having the card, you get 3 free nights. This is a super unique sign-on bonus and means you don’t have to worry about matching your points to your redemptions. As well, you get an additional free night on each of your account anniversaries. When you combine this with the points you get from any other spend on the card, it actually ends up being a really solid option for free nights at Marriott, and for only a $95 annual fee!
Overall rating for free nights: 4/5 (while this sign-on bonus lasts)
Hilton Honors Surpass American Express
The Hilton Honors Surpass® Card is a good value for those who want free nights at Hilton properties and can take advantage of the benefits offered by the card. The current sign-up bonus is decently generous, giving back 130,000 points and a free night when you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months of having the card. The Surpass also gives automatic Hilton Gold status, 10 complimentary Priority Pass visits, and an additional free night after you spend $15,000 in a year.
The combined sign-on bonus with the additional free night for only $95 a year is why we particularly recommend this of the other Hilton cards. Even though the Aspire card gives a bigger sign-on bonus, it also costs over $270 more per year—for the purposes of free nights, paying more for the card negates the free night benefit! However, Hilton has the same issue with Marriott, where the point system has become extremely inflated over the years. While Hilton has over 5,000 properties in the USA, prices can often range between 30,000 and 50,000 points per night at many common hotels, making it hard to get a lot of value out of each individual point.
Overall rating for free nights: 3.5/5
Summary
These are our picks for the best common-chain (Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton) hotel credit cards for accumulating free nights. Depending on which chain you think you’ll get the best value out of, and which has the best locations for your destinations of choice. You may be wondering, “why isn’t IHG on this list?” Unfortunately, IHG has an issue where many of their hotel locations do NOT take points, essentially making it impossible to get consistent free nights.
For Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton, these three cards listed here are the best cards for free nights! If you’re interested in learning which cards to use for each category of spending, make sure to check out our guide.