My take on Daily Getaways 2023 hotel points offers

Daily Getaways 2023 is the deal I have been waiting for to reload my account points balances after spending about 400,000 Choice Privileges points and 400,000 IHG points over the past year, primarily for hotel stays in Europe. 

Daily Getaways 2023 posted the offers yesterday for June 12-16 and June 19-23 and they are heavily front-loaded on hotel points available for purchase.

Hotel Points on Sale

IHG One Rewards $5 per 1,000 points (June 12)

Hilton Honors $5 per 1,000 points (June 13),

Marriott 20% off Gift Cards (June 16)

*Choice from $5.19 per 1,000 points (June 19)

^Wyndham Rewards $175 for 15,000 points = $11.67 per 1,000 points. (June 22)

*Best Western Rewards $5.50 per 1,000 points (June 23)

* Lowest price of year.

^Wyndham Rewards sold points last month through its website for $9.80 per 1,000 points.

The Deals

IHG One Rewards points Monday June 12

• 100,000 IHG points = $500. Quantity: 534, maximum purchase is 5.
• 50,000 IHG points = $250. Quantity: 549, maximum purchase is 5.
• 25,000 IHG points = $125. Quantity: 601, maximum purchase is 5.
• 5,000 IHG points = $25. Quantity: 700, maximum purchase is 5.
• 2,500 IHG points = $12. Quantity: 250, maximum purchase is 5.
• Maximum purchase across IHG offers = 16 package sets. 

Value of IHG points deals:

• IHG members can buy up to 880,000 points at $5.00 per 1,000 points.
• More than 2,500 points packages for sale. 
• IHG member can buy up to 16 packages total.
• IHG Chase Mastercard 4th night free award stays are real deal for hotel discounts using points.

The price of $5.00 per 1,000 points is a common promotional price from IHG throughout the year. The deal here is the amount of IHG points that can be purchased through Daily Getaways is far higher than allowed directly through IHG’s periodic promotional sales. IHG members can buy 16 packages of points for a potential purchase of 880,000 points at $4,400.00.

I would not hesitate to buy the maximum number of IHG points if I had that kind of discretionary cash available. At present, I have over 400,000 in IHG points tied up with upcoming IHG hotel stays.

IHG has an annual purchase limit of 150,000 points through its own buy points program. When there is a 100% bonus points offer, then a member can buy up to 300,000 points in a calendar year. In recent promotional offers this limit has been increased to 250,000 points. There is the potential to buy 500,000 points through regular IHG channels in 2023.

My strategy is buy 100,000 points with Daily Getaways 2023 offer, then later in the year I can buy 200,000 to 300,000 more points through IHG. When the clock resets January 1, 2024 I can buy another IHG 300,000 to 500,000 points in 2024 if needed. That should be sufficient until 2024 Daily Getaways. [Update: June 19 – I purchased 300,000 IHG points on June 12. Within 24 hours of purchase these points posted and within an hour I redeemed 292,000 for 16 nights at InterContinental Hotels in Europe for travel in winter 2024.

The ‘Chase IHG 4th night free’ discount points 4-night award stay as a Chase IHG Mastercard member benefit is probably the best deal in hotel loyalty programs right now for a significant hotel rate discount at a vast number of hotels.

 

Hilton Honors points Tuesday June 13

• 250,000 Hilton Honors points = $1,250. Quantity: 176, maximum purchase is 1.
• 100,000 Hilton Honors points = $500. Quantity: 225, maximum purchase is 1.
• 30,000 Hilton Honors points = $150. Quantity: 450, maximum purchase is 3.

Value of Hilton points deal:

• $5.00 per 1,000 points matches low price Hilton sells points during 100% bonus points promotion.
• Maximum purchase is 440,000 points with Daily Getaways.
• Hilton currently has sale through July 18, 2023 on its own website at price $5.00 per 1,000 points with a maximum purchase of 320,000 points.
• Potential to buy 760,000 Hilton Honors points combining these two offers.

I currently have a need for 60,000 Hilton points for a planned stay in Croatia. In general, I do not find many hotels where buying Hilton points is a good deal. Since the Hilton sale is available until July 18, I plan to wait on buying Hilton points so my credit card purchase payment will be due a month later than other Daily Getaways purchases.

 

Marriott Bonvoy eGift Cards June 16

• Marriott Bonvoy $100 eGift card for $80: 1,070 available, maximum purchase is 3 cards.
• Marriott Bonvoy $250 eGift card for $200: 252 available, maximum purchase is 2 cards.
• Marriott Bonvoy $500 eGift card for $400: 200 available, maximum purchase is 1 cards.

The Deal: 20% off Marriott paid rate is likely a better value than the high points rate Marriott typically charges for award nights. Potential to buy $1,300 in Marriott eGift cards.

My recent analysis on Loyalty Traveler compared Marriott points needed for reward stays to paid best flexible rates and I concluded it is generally better value to pay for Marriott rooms compared to redeeming points. That makes this offer of 20% off Marriott eGift cards a good deal to me.

Past years of Daily Getaways sales showed these eGift cards are a popular item and sell out quickly. Be ready at 1:00pm eastern Friday June 16 if these are items you desire.

 

Choice Privileges points Monday, June 19

• 55,000 Choice Privileges points = $285. Quantity: 1,193, maximum purchase is 4. ($5.18 per 1,000 points).
• 42,000 Choice Privileges points = $220. Quantity: 975, maximum purchase is 4. ($5.24 per 1,000 points).
• 28,000 Choice Privileges points = $155. Quantity: 1,171, maximum purchase is 4. ($5.54 per 1,000 points).
• 14,000 Choice Privileges points = $84. Quantity: 860, maximum purchase is 4. ($6.00 per 1,000 points).

The opportunity to buy Choice Privileges points for around $5.20 per 1,000 points is the deal of the year for me. I have purchased over 200,000 Choice points most years for two reasons.

1.My strategy for airline tickets to Europe frequently involves flying from Stockholm, Copenhagen or Oslo to San Francisco round trip. Current ticket prices are $400 or less round trip with all three alliance carriers for travel originating from Oslo and Stockholm to SFO from September 2023 to March 2024. This flight ticketing strategy means I regularly need hotel rooms in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm. Choice Privileges points are without a doubt the best deal for hotels in these cities.

2. There are a couple dozen hotels in other European countries where Choice Privileges points are commonly the best deal for an inexpensive hotel award stay. This is due to the fact that Choice Privileges still has fixed seasonal reward rates and some hotels offer higher category rooms for standard reward rates. Australia is another country where Choice Privileges points can offer huge hotel rate discounts.

[Update: June 19 – Purchased 304,000 Choice Privileges points. Buying the first 220,000 was easy since my laptop clock correlated with atomic clock to less than a second. I was into the sale within 2 seconds. The initial sale for 4 sets of 55,000 points at $285 each went through smoothly. You have 5 minutes to enter your Choice Privileges number and initial information, then another 5 minutes to complete purchase. All packages of points were reserved when I got back to DailyGetaways.com to try to buy 84,000 more points. I hit refresh repeatedly for 42,000 points, then switched to try 28,000 points where I got to a landing page. Repeated same routine, message showing all points reserved, and after several refresh browser clicks I hit another package of 28,000 points. I repeated a third time for another 28,000 points.

Four Daily Getaways 2023 purchases for 304,000 Choice Privileges points at a cost = $1,605.00.

I estimate these 304,000 points will be worth around $4,000 with 16 to 25+ room nights over the next year. There are some great deals using Choice Privileges points for award stays at Ascend Collection hotels in the USA from September 16 – November 30, 2023, dropping 60% from current summer 2023 award rates at many hotels across the country.]

 

Wyndham Rewards points Thursday June 22

• 15,000 Wyndham Rewards points = $175. Quantity: 766. Maximum purchase is 2 sets.

Two reasons I do not like this offer is Wyndham Rewards sold points last month for $9.80 per 1,000 points. This Daily Getaways offer is $11.67 per 1,000 points. Wyndham Rewards is the only hotel loyalty program not matching their best buy points deal of the year. The other reason is the limit of 2 sets of points means this deal only buys 2 nights at most hotels for $350 or only one night at hotels priced at 30,000 points. 

I suppose this can be a good deal for someone who wants a vacation home stay with Wyndham Vacasa. Greg at Frequent Miler has booked some nice lodging opportunities with Wyndham points.

Wyndham had a few years of real deals from 2014 to 2018 for the common traveler with great GoFast rates requiring only 3,000 points and a fixed copay. Some hotels even offered suites at these low rates. The value of Wyndham points dropped out of my bookings when the program changed to GoFast rates set at 70% of the Best Flexible Rate and most hotels no longer offered suites at standard reward rates. Wyndham Rewards also has the worst customer service center of any major hotel chain I have dealt with over the past decade.

Best Western Rewards Friday June 23

• 10,000 Best Western Rewards points = $55. Quantity: 835. Maximum purchase is 5 sets.

Best Western is another program that had far better deals five years ago than I see today. Two changes have made the program less useful for me.

Firstly, some hotels used to offer higher category rooms, including suites for standard reward rates. Now each higher category room costs more points. And generally speaking, at most hotels junior suites and suites are not offered for points. 

Secondly, reward rates have increased significantly for most hotels. I used to find many hotels at the 8,000 and 12,000 points level and a large number of hotels were priced at 16,000 points. These days most hotels I find are 24,000 and 28,000 points, which at $5.50 per 1,000 points is $132 to $154 per night. That is more than I want to spend for a Best Western hotel.

The other drawback to this offer, like Wyndham Rewards, is the maximum purchase is 50,000 points. That only buys 2 or 3 nights at the vast majority of Best Western hotels.

Final Note:

This basically leaves only Hyatt points still to come for Daily Getaways hotel points deals. The price is generally a bit over $10 per 1,000 points. The problem is Hyatt offers very few packages, typically 25 or fewer points packages per item.  There is an extremely low probability of actually being able to purchase one of their points packages before they are sold out. Last time I landed on a Hyatt purchase page was 6 to 8 years ago.

I have no interest in the other Daily Getaways deals for purchasing hotel stays, theme park tickets and car rental deals.