When it comes to hotel awards, a good search tool can make all the difference. The right tools will help you find award availability for your dates, so you can book that dream stay with ease.
When looking for award night availability, some hotels add minimum stay requirements and get rid of standard rooms over peak dates, so it’s important to be aware of those restrictions.
Hyatt
Hyatt Hotels is one of the most popular hotel chains in the world. They have over 1,150 properties worldwide and are a great option for both business and leisure travelers.
The World of Hyatt loyalty program offers a variety of award search options. The website allows you to find award availability by room type and rate, as well as filter your search by destination or travel dates.
You can also use the app on your phone to search for awards and book a stay directly from your mobile device. The app also provides access to exclusive promotions that could help you save more money on your next stay.
World of Hyatt is unique among hotel programs in that it allows members to upgrade to premium suites and Club level rooms for a reasonable upcharge when they qualify for free night awards. Many other programs don’t allow this or charge an exorbitant upcharge for it.
StayWithPoints
Many of us aren’t experts at using points and miles for travel. However, if you’re not an expert but are still looking to maximize your hard-earned rewards, there are several tools available that will make your life easier and help you find hotel and flight award availability so you can spend those points on what matters most: traveling how you want, when you want and where you want to go.
One of the most useful tools is StayWithPoints Hotels, which tracks award availability for a large number of popular hotels. It also offers calendar displays of award availability and the ability to set flexible alerts so that you’ll be notified when new award space becomes available.
For example, StayWithPoints showed that many days at Andaz Maui were available for 40,000 points per night. This is the cheapest award bookable, but it isn’t available all the time.
AwardMapper
AwardMapper is a free hotel award search tool that will save you the trouble of looking for hotels on your own. It will show you the number of hotels available for each hotel chain in your preferred destination and tell you the points you need to book your room.
It also color-codes the hotel chains so that you can easily spot them in a sea of hotel options. Then it links you directly to the hotels’ website, so you can sign-in to your account and book your stay.
AwardMapper is great for folks who plan trips to new destinations. It can also be helpful for people who travel to a particular city often and want to save time.
Open Hotel Alert
One of the most challenging aspects of using points to pay for hotel stays is finding award rooms. This is particularly true if you have a specific date to book your stay and want to avoid paying the nightly rate.
But with a little bit of patience and some luck, you can often score a room at your favorite hotel for a fraction of the price. Open Hotel Alert Hotels is a free service that lets you set up room alerts for a hotel of your choice and then texts or emails you when a room becomes available.
The site offers search results that are sorted by star rating, chain, location, point value, and cost per night. The best part is that the site is completely free to use, with no monthly subscription fees. It also has a handy list of hotels in your area that have availability and ones that are sold out. It has a few bugs to iron out, and will probably require a little tweaking in the future, but for now it’s an impressive tool that will make your next award trip more rewarding.