Building up hotel points is one of the best ways to make travel more affordable and accessible. I have been on several international trips that have been paid for entirely through hotel points (Marriott) which somehow made the trips even more enjoyable knowing they were “free.”
The most extravagant trips I have been on have been courtesy of my father’s points, who has been saving up with Marriott for roughly 40 years. Of course, saving up points for this long is abnormal and most people won’t ever save up this many. However, he knew he wanted to be able to cash his points in on a huge family trip eventually which encouraged him to only use a few of his points on rare and sporadic occasions throughout the years. My dad dubbed myself our family’s de facto travel advisor when I became interested in travel several years ago, so I finally was able to plan our first big point-based trip for the summer of 2022. We utilized hotel points to stay for free in Barcelona, the Maldives, and Dubai and even used flight points for one of the legs of our trip. What would have been a very, very expensive trip (the J.W. Marriott in the Maldives costs upwards of $5,000 per night…) suddenly became affordable with his points. And even after all of that, he still has over 1 million points left (Southeast Asia this summer here we come!).
Now if you are anything like me, you are probably not as good at saving points as my father is. As someone who flies by the seat of their pants when solo traveling, I often find myself not booking hotel rooms and/or hostel beds until I’ve already arrived in the city I’m visiting. This means that I have found myself using my own Marriott points on random short-term trips I take spontaneously when hotels cost more than I would like to pay. I have a Chase Marriott Visa card (which is my primary credit card) as it is so easy to build up hotel points.
If you use a credit card then getting one that has additional travel benefits is probably worth it. In addition to building up points quickly, I also get awarded free nights on occasion which I gladly accept. When I first signed up for this card I even got 5 free nights which really came in handy as I had just moved to New York for school but could not move into my actual apartment for a whole week after I arrived there. In the same vein as credit cards that build hotel points, having a credit card that builds flight points is something else to look into. I have the basic Delta American Express which is great when I travel domestically and I am able to build up Delta points quickly. It is important to note when traveling internationally that a lot of places will not accept American Express and you should probably have a Visa on hand as they are pretty much universally accepted. (This is not sponsored- I genuinely just enjoy the benefits of having these cards).
All-in-all, saving hotel points with a chain that has a plethora of international locations can save you a lot of money in the long run and is something that you should start on as early as possible to reap the best benefits.
