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How to Get Priority Club Hotels for $35 a Night: Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza on Point Breaks

ByThe Miles Professor

Last year, on my first ever trip to Africa, my two cousins and I stayed at Intercontinental Nairobi for three nights. It was among the nicest hotels in Nairobi and only cost us $35 a night thanks to a trick with being able to get 5,000 Priority Club points for $35 and use them to stay at Priority Club Point Breaks Hotels.

While the hotel regularly costs $230+ a night, it happened to appear on the Priority Club Point Breaks list for a limited time and was available at 5,000 points a night.

Intercontinental Nairobi on Priority Club Point Breaks
Intercontinental Nairobi costs $230 a night, but we got it for $35

The deal is this: When you book a reward stay with Priority Club, they let you make up the difference in cash when you are 5,000 or 10,000 points short. The cash portion they charge is $70 for 10,000 points. They then allow you to cancel award bookings, but don’t redeposit the what you paid back to your credit card. Instead, they deposit the award points you bought into your account. After all is said and done, you’ve bought 10,000 Priority Club Points for $70.

Here are the detailed steps to buying the points at 0.7 cents each:

1. Have 5,000 Priority Club Points in your account. If you already have these, skip to the next step. 

In order to be able to do this, you need to start with at least 5,000 Points in your Priority Club account. You only need these once and, as long as you have at least 5,000 Points sitting in your account, you’ll be able to keep buying more Priority Club points. If you don’t already have 5,000 Priority Club points in your account from hotel stays or other promotions, there are a few ways to get them:

  • Transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards: Priority Club is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards. These points transfer at a 1:1 ratio.
  • Purchase points from Priority Club: You can buy up to 50,000 points a year in 1,000 increments for $13.50 each. Simply visit the Priority Club Member Information Page, log in and go to the option to Purchase Points. 5,000 points will cost you $67.50.

2. Find a hotel that costs exactly 15,000 points a night and make a reward booking

My go-to hotel for this trick is Candlewood Suites in Indianapolis, IN. It’s 15,000 points a night and you can find availability pretty easily (as long as you weren’t trying to book during SuperBowl 2012!).

Go to the Priority Club Reservation Page and search for your hotel after logging in. Make sure to select Reward Nights * under Rate Preference.

Priority Club Reward Nights
Select Reward Nights ** to get the options with points

On the next page, once you find your 15,000 Point Hotel, you will see a few options. The option for 5,000 Points + $70.00 USD is the one you want. Select the button for this option and Click on ‘Select Hotel’ to complete your booking. You will be asked for all your information as well as a credit card to pay $70 for the 10,000 Points.

Priority Club Reservations
Select 5,000 Points + $70

3. Cancel the reward booking you made in Step 2. 

Now that you have your stay at Candlewood Suites booked, go ahead and cancel it right away. You can actually cancel with these hotels up to 6 pm the day before check-in, but there is no reason to wait. They don’t pay interest on the points they’re holding!

4. Wait for the points to redeposit to your account and, Voila, you just bought 10,000 points for $70!

The point redeposit usually happens within 48 hours, but it can be much quicker than that. Once you bought your first 10,000 points, you can repeat the process as many times as you want for as many points as you want.

Priority Club Point Breaks Hotels for $35 a Night

Intercontinental Fiji Priority Club Point Breaks
Intercontinental Fiji

Priority Club publishes a  Promotional Point Breaks list every two months. Any hotel on the list will cost 5,000 points a night for the following two months.

In my opinion, this is one of the best deals in travel anywhere if you can find a hotel that fits your plans! Once you know how to buy Priority Club points at 0.7 cents each, you can stay at any hotel on the Priority Club Point Breaks list for $35 a night. Previous lists have included:

Intercontinental Amsterdam
Intercontinental Amsterdam

Any Priority Club Hotel for $350 a Night

You can also buy Priority Club points to undercut the cost of staying at one of the higher-end hotels. With their rewards chart topping out at 50,000 points a night, you can get any Priority Club hotel for $350 a night. While this is not a cheap hotel rate by any means, their top properties can go for much higher than that. A few examples:

  1. InterContinental AMSTEL Amsterdam
  2. Intercontinental Paris Le Grand
  3. The Willard Intercontinental, Washington DC
  4. Intercontinental Carlton Cannes