Points vs. cash: how to actually decide

The 10-second math

Take the room’s cash price, divide by the points price, and you have cents-per-point: a $300 night for 50,000 points = 0.6¢ per point. That single number is what your points are buying you tonight.

The catch: 0.6¢ is a great answer at one chain and a poor one at another, because points aren’t equally hard to get. So compare it to the program’s break-even — the realistic price of acquiring that point (buy-points sales, card spend, transfer value). Above break-even, points win. Below it, pay cash and keep the points.

The break-evens we use

• Hilton Honors — about 0.5¢/point (points are plentiful (big card bonuses, frequent sales), so they're cheap).
• Marriott Bonvoy — about 0.7¢/point (scarcer than Hilton points, and the certs anchor their value).
• IHG One Rewards — about 0.5¢/point (regularly sold at ~0.5¢, so any night below that is cheaper bought).
• World of Hyatt — about 1.25¢/point (transfer 1:1 from Chase Ultimate Rewards, so each point carries UR value).
• Wyndham Rewards — about 0.7¢/point (flat award tiers; the buy-points price sets the floor).
• Choice Privileges — about 0.7¢/point (point sales land around this price — below it, buying beats earning).

These aren’t aspirational “maximizer” valuations — they’re floors. A redemption that can’t beat the price of simply buying the points isn’t a redemption, it’s a donation.

The two classic traps

• Burning points on cheap nights. A $120 room for 30,000 points (0.4¢) feels “free” but costs you a future night where the same points buy $300+. Cheap nights are what cash is for.
• Anchoring on the sticker rate. Compare against the price you’d actually pay (member rate, tax included), not the rack rate the redemption “saves” you from.

Seeing it per hotel, per date

Every hotel page on Stayplot has a rate calendar with the cash price and points price side by side for every date — the division above, done for you, a year out. The map’s value badges grade each hotel on its own program’s curve (here’s the method), so a “good deal” means good for that currency, not just a big number.