- Best hotel credit cards compared
- How to get free hotel stays with a hotel credit card
- What is the best hotel rewards program?
- General-purpose credit cards with large hotel networks
- Best hotel credit cards for automatic status
- Methodology
- Sources
- About the author
- User questions & answers
- Expert opinions
Best Hotel Credit Cards Compared
Credit Card | Best For | Initial Bonus Offer |
Choice Privileges® Select Mastercard® | Winner | 60,000 points |
Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card | Best Hilton Credit Card | 130,000 points |
IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card | Best IHG Credit Card | 140,000 points |
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card | Best Marriott Credit Card | 3 Free Night Awards |
The World of Hyatt Credit Card | Best Hyatt Credit Card | 30,000 points |
Wyndham Credit Card | Best Wyndham Credit Card | 100,000 points |
Best Western Premium Credit Card | Best Credit Card for Best Western | 80,000 points |
World Of Hyatt Business Credit Card | Best Hotel Credit Card for Business | 60,000 points |
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card | Best Credit Card for Any Hotel | 75,000 points |
In general, the best hotel credit cards tend to have big initial bonuses and ongoing rewards that allow you to quickly rack up free nights. But you also have to consider your lifestyle and spending habits. That means you should only get a specific hotel’s credit card if it’s affiliated with a chain you patron regularly or could easily commit to moving forward. It also means getting a card with good rewards at any hotel if you like to shop around for the best hotel deals.
On that note, there aren’t many hotel rewards credit cards for people with fair, limited or bad credit. So if you have less-than-good credit, your options are likely limited to secured cards as well as credit cards with rewards that don’t emphasize hotel stays.
You can see if your credit is good enough for elite hotel rewards by checking your latest credit score for free on WalletHub. You can also check out our editors’ picks for the best overall rewards credit cards to see which of hotel cards made the cut.
How to Get Free Hotel Stays with a Hotel Credit Card
To get free hotel nights with a credit card, you first need to choose the right credit card for your spending habits, then use the card enough to qualify for free-night bonuses and earn points redeemable for reservations.
Some cards will give you free nights (or at least enough points for free nights) after you open a new account and spend a certain amount on purchases in the first few months. Other cards will give you a free night after each account anniversary. Those free-night opportunities are in addition to the nights you can get by trading in the rewards you earn for making purchases, which all hotel credit cards provide.
Earning free hotel stays with a credit card also requires you to manage your account responsibly. If you don’t pay the bill in full monthly when your card’s regular APR is in effect, interest charges will set back your efforts considerably. Similarly, if you don’t redeem your rewards regularly, you could wind up losing some of what you earn.
Learn more about how to get free hotel nights.
What Is the Best Hotel Rewards Program
Wyndham Rewards is the best hotel rewards program, according to WalletHub’s research, because it offers the most rewards value per $1 spent by its members as well as flexible redemption options. Wyndham Rewards points are worth roughly 1.11 cents on average, per our calculations. Wyndham has solid geographic coverage, too, with 9,280 hotels and resorts across more than 90 countries.
Best Hotel Rewards Programs:
Below, you can find some additional analysis from our latest hotel rewards program report.Best Hotel Rewards Programs Comparison
Hotel Rewards Program | Best For | Number of Hotels | WalletHub Score |
Wyndham Rewards | Overall | 9,280 | 70.63 |
Radisson Rewards | Most Additional Features | 1,241 | 68.63 |
World Of Hyatt | Fewest Earning Limitations | 1,000+ | 66.09 |
Hilton Honors | Best Redemption Policies | 6,721 | 64.09 |
Marriott Bonvoy | International Travel | 8,028 | 60.68 |
General-Purpose Credit Cards with Large Hotel Networks
Instead of being affiliated with one specific hotel brand, several credit cards have ties to a network of hotels, allowing cardholders to easily earn, transfer and redeem with any of those hotels. You can find some notable examples of travel rewards credit cards with that sort of framework below:
American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts: 1,000+ hotels across more than 60 brands, at which people with The Platinum Card® from American Express or The Business Platinum Card® from American Express receive special perks.
Chase Hotel Partners: IHG Rewards Club, Marriott Bonvoy and World of Hyatt. Chase credit card users can transfer points to these hotel loyalty programs at a 1:1 ratio. Two of the best cards for transferring points to Chase’s hotel partners are Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve®.
Best Hotel Credit Cards for Automatic Status
Hotel Chain | Card Name | Automatic Status Level | Annual Fee |
Wyndham | Wyndham Credit Card | Wyndham Platinum | $75 |
Best Western | Best Western Premium Credit Card | Best Western Platinum Elite | $89 |
IHG | IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card | IHG Platinum Elite | $99 |
Hyatt | The World of Hyatt Credit Card | Hyatt Discoverist | $95 |
Marriott | Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card | Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Elite | $650 |
Hilton | Hilton Honors Aspire Credit Card | Hilton Diamond | $550 |
It’s also a good idea to get acquainted with the major hotel loyalty programs if you’re thinking about applying for a hotel credit card tied to a particular chain. Some hotel rewards programs are better than others, just like hotel credit cards.
Methodology for Selecting the Best Hotel Credit Cards
To select the best credit cards for hotel rewards, and make sure the list stays up to date, WalletHub’s editors regularly compare more than 1,500 credit card offers in search of the top deals for different types of hotel-goers based on factors such as rewards, initial bonuses, interest rates, fees and other WalletHub Rating components.
As a result, we consider credit cards with standout general-purpose travel rewards, good for stays at any hotel, in addition to hotel credit cards affiliated with a specific chain. We then rank the cards based on two-year cost (the lower the better) to identify the most rewarding options overall.
How Two-Year Cost Is Calculated
Two-year cost is used to approximate the monetary value of cards for better comparison and is calculated by combining annual and monthly membership fees over two years, adding any one-time fees or other fees (like balance transfer fees), adding any interest costs, and subtracting rewards. Negative amounts indicate savings. When fees or other terms are presented as a range, we use the midpoint for scoring purposes.
Rewards bonuses and credits have been taken into account for two-year cost calculations. However, bonuses applicable to only a very small portion of cardholders are not considered. For example, credits and bonuses awarded for spending or redeeming rewards through a company portal with non-co-branded cards have not been taken into account. Similarly, bonuses and credits related to spending with specific merchants using a non-co-branded card have not been taken into account (for example, if Card A offers credits with DoorDash, this feature would not be factored into calculations because it is hard to assess how many cardholders would use the benefit or exactly how much value they'd get from it).
Cardholder Spending Profiles
Given that people have different goals and are likely to use their credit cards differently, we identified spending profiles that are representative of different users’ financial priorities and behaviors. For each cardholder type, we have assumed a specific amount of monthly spending by purchase type (e.g., groceries, gas, etc.), as well as an average balance, balance transfer amount, amount spent on large purchases and average monthly payment. Spending assumptions are based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for consumers and PEX data for businesses
Sources
WalletHub actively maintains a database of 1,500+ credit card offers, from which we select the best hotel credit cards for different applicants as well as derive market-wide takeaways and trends. The underlying data is compiled from credit card company websites or provided directly by the credit card issuers. We also leverage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to develop cardholder profiles, used to estimate cards’ potential savings.