For those wondering what makes them so great, Club Level Rooms have several advantages over standard rooms. Often, these rooms are on higher floors and offer better amenities. More importantly, they offer access to the hotel’s club lounge, where guests can enjoy complimentary breakfast, snacks/appetizers, drinks, and wifi throughout the day.
This can be a great value if you can manage to get a club level room on points. So what is the best way to do it via manufactured spending?
In most cases, hotels will upgrade Diamond members at check-in free of charge. This is preferable to the other alternative – having to provide them with complimentary breakfast at the hotel restaurant. However, if you’re not a Diamond member and you want to ensure you get a Club Room, there are a few options:
Book with cash and upgrade with points
Sometimes, depending on the day of the week and other factors, you stumble upon a cheap standard rate. It might make sense to use 3,000 points per night for a Club Room upgrade. Again, this depends on the rate you’re paying as well as the category hotel you’re booking—it may be more prudent to just book the Club Room on points entirely, but this will vary.
If you are considering a 3,000-point nightly upgrade, consider the nightly cash rate, how much manufactured spending is needed to offset it, and compare that to the point redemption rate for a Club Room in that particular category.
Book a Club Room on cash
Sometimes (either online or at the time of check-in), you may be offered a Club Room upgrade for a heavily discounted rate. I’ve received offers as low as $40 extra per night. In these cases, it makes more sense to pay the cash rate with your Arrival Plus card and redeem a travel statement credit than to utilize a 3,000 point nightly upgrade. Why? Because you are earning Arrival miles at double the rate of other currencies. So long as the upgrade cost is under $66, you are better off using Arrival Miles.
Redeem points for a Club oom
Club rooms can be booked for about 40% more points than a standard room. Club room redemptions range from 7,000 to 39,000 points per night, depending on the hotel category. Sometimes, the difference between a suite and a club room is just 1,000 points. In this scenario, booking a suite is a better value.
In any case, you should always weigh the cost of a club room on points against the cash rate. Factor in the rate of point accumulation to decide which option is best.
Below, I’ve outlined the amount of spending required for each redemption type and when it makes sense to pay the cash rate and redeem Arrival Plus miles instead of using Ultimate Rewards Travel to book the stay. This part is important because if you can find a paid club room rate at or below these rates, it’s better to charge the entire stay to your Barclay Arrival Plus Card and redeem Arrival miles for it.
The amount of manufactured spending required at those levels may be less for the Arrival card than the Ultimate Rewards-earning credit cards (barring category bonuses).
Note: Scroll right to see calculations past Category 6
Someone asked me in an earlier post why I don’t factor category bonuses into these calculations. Many of the Ultimate Rewards earning credit cards offer category bonuses of 2-5 points per $1 spent.
To keep things simple, I’m basing my calculations on earnings of 1 point per $1 and the assumption that these miles will be generated at non-bonus category merchants like Simon Malls and via American Express gift cards (breaking even on the Amex gift card purchases).
Helpful post. Thanks.
Thanks! Helpful is what I was aiming for.