Booking Free Nights at the New Conrad St. James London
I am going to be going to London in October and needed one more night on a Saturday night and thought it would be a perfect time to use my Hilton free night certificate from the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card. Hotels in London, especially nice ones in good locations, are quite expensive. I was very excited to hear that the new Conrad London St. James will be open in time for my visit. I really like the Conrad hotel chain and especially enjoyed my stay at Conrad Tokyo last December. The Conrad St. James was previously an InterContinental property and just joined the Hilton portfolio. The cheapest rate for my dates is 304 GBP (or $500) and that’s for a prepaid rate!
However, because I can see the standard rate of 80,000 points is available, I know I can book with my free night certificates. This is a Category 9 hotel and costs 80,000 points year round. The way I figure, anywhere I stay in London in a good location, I am going to be paying a lot for my room anyway. So this is a great time to use my certificate and get free breakfast with it too.
How I Booked My Stay
When I signed up for the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve credit card, it came with two certificates for free weekend nights in any participating Hilton Category 1-10 hotel after making $2500 in purchases within 4 months of account opening. It also offers Hilton HHonors Gold status as long as I have the card and this is a status I like as it comes with complimentary breakfast at many properties and often gets me room upgrades. It also offers another free night at the one year anniversary provided one spends $10,000 during the membership year on the card, which I did. The card has a $95 annual fee.
I used my first two free nights at the Hilton Bentley South Beach in Miami for a weekend last October. I got extremely lucky and was upgraded to a one bedroom ocean view suite. I also got to enjoy the breakfast buffet with my Gold status. For the Conrad St. James, I am using my free anniversary night.
Anyway, I am definitely looking forward to my visit to London and checking out the new Conrad St. James!
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A quick search on Kayak gave me a prices of $393 to $413 for that hotel on Saturday. Each Hilton point costs around 0.5 cents, so 80k is $400. You’re not saving anything when buying with points. And you can probably buy the same hotel on Priceline even cheaper than that.
Thanks for looking into that… however, I am not using points. I am using a free night certificate, which is not tied to a specific number of points. It also depends on which Saturday and my Saturday costs $500. Also, given I am not buying the points for 0.5 cents each, I am saving the cost of what I would otherwise pay for a hotel.
I looked up all the Saturdays in October. Don’t book directly via Hilton’s web site, it’s overpriced. There are some cheaper options around.
I see. I am still not going to pay $400 for a hotel so happy to use my certificate :)
Yes, you can’t cash the certificate. But can you sell it online somewhere?
I’m not into the hotel credit cards, because they don’t give me a lot of benefits. I only have Club Carlson, and SPG. Club Carlson is good value, but it seems to me that SPG is better value when transferred to the airlines.
That makes sense with Chase points as they do have an actual value (1 cent each or 1.25 cents in airfare), but I am not in the business of trying to trade my miles or certificates. Trading may be beneficial to some, but it takes time and you have to count in that cost… so if I find a good use that will save me a few hundred dollars, I am happy to use it.
I’m always looking up cash price before booking. If it comes up less than using points, which I can cash at 1c each, then I’m paying cash. In 90% of the cases cash price beats points. I can cash out points and pay for the hotel that way, if I wish (Chase, Citi, etc).
Depending on the life of your certificate, doesn’t points and money make more sense? 32,000 + £98 means that, assuming 0.5c per Hilton point is fair value, if you used it elsewhere for somewhere costing over $320 you’d be better off.
I am sure you will enjoy your stay at the hotel as it’s absolutely gorgeous! However, it’s a bit unfortunate that you got it at the Conrad rate as opposed to what was a much cheaper rate back when it was InterContinental. Either way, you can’t go wrong with this hotel. I stayed there at the beginning of this month and I’ve got a review here in case you’re looking for a recent perspective! http://goo.gl/wwJdDA