Which Hotels Are Extending Free Night Certificates?

One of the best perks of many hotel credit cards is the annual free night certificate. Those free nights are potentially a tremendous value that will easily make up for the annual fees you’ll pay for the credit cards.

But with COVID-19 canceling so many of our travel plans, the annual free night you’d earned may be about to expire. I have nearly every hotel credit card that offers a free night, but two of these certificates are scheduled to expire in April. So let’s take a look at what each of the major loyalty programs are doing for their customers.

Hilton Honors

Hilton Honors was the first major loyalty program to set a policy for their free night certificates – one that’s setting a high bar for other programs. For any unexpired weekend night certificate as of March 11, 2020, along with all new certificates issued through August 30, 2020, Hilton will extend those expiration dates to August 30, 2021. That’s a pretty generous extension.

I get an annual free weekend night through the Hilton Honors Aspire card from American Express. You can also get a free weekend night with the Hiltons Honors Surpass card, but you need to spend $15,000 with the card each year.

My free night was set to expire in August 2020. Now with an expiration date more than a year beyond that, I’ve got no worries about being able to use it.

In addition, Hilton is extending the expiration of status and points, as spelled out on Hilton’s website:

• 2019 Status Extension. All members whose 2019 status was scheduled to be downgraded on March 31, 2020—whether it’s Diamond, Gold or Silver—will automatically receive an extension through March 31, 2021.
• 2020 Status Extension. We are extending your 2020 member status through March 31, 2022. This means you will continue to enjoy all the Diamond, Gold or Silver benefits you have access to today for the next 24 months.
• Points Extension. We will pause the expiration of all Points scheduled to expire between now and December 31, 2020.

Marriott Bonvoy

For most customers, Marriott will extend free night awards set to expire after March 1, 2020 through January 31, 2021.

Customers from Greater China have a slightly different policy. For those customers, Marriott will extend any active free night award in 2020 for another twelve months. For example, if you’re a Greater China customer and your free night award was set to expire on June 1, 2020, it would now expire on June 1, 2021. Marriott says these extensions will be reflected in customer accounts by the end of April.  

Free Night Certificates are available with several Marriott credit cards:

• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card from Chase – Free Night Award Value to 35k points
• Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Credit Card from American Express – Free Night Award Value to 50k points
• Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card – Free Night Award Value to 35k points

Intercontinental Hotels Group

The IHG Rewards program hasn’t given their customers any guidance on the status of free night certificates. But I have a certificate set to expire in April and called IHG’s Customer Care number. The agent quickly looked over my free night awards and extended my expiring free night certificate through October 6, 2020. Without a policy in place, customers need to contact IHG and talk one-on-one. It’s not the most ideal way to handle things, especially when nearly all travel companies are dealing with high call volumes. But for now, this is how they’re handling extensions. The customer service agent also looked at my free night certificate from the IHG Premier Credit Card from Chase and the annual free weekend night on a two-night stay that comes with every Ambassador membership. Neither of those were in danger of expiring and thus no action was taken.

 IHG Rewards is taking a different approach to elite status requirements for 2021. They are simply lowering the number of nights/points needed to attain status in each of their tiers.

World of Hyatt

UPDATE (4//3/2020): Hyatt has finally communicated with its members and will be extending free night certificates, Club upgrade awards, and Suite night awards.

• Unused awards expiring between March 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 will be extended through December 31, 2021. If you earn additional awards during 2020, those awards would at minimum be valid through that date.
• It’s worth noting that Suite night and Club access awards typically are valid until the last day in February two years later, coinciding with the expiration of any earned status. Thus, any Suite night or Club access awards earned in 2019 would have expired on February 28, 2021. By my reading, this means there will be no change to those expiration dates.
•  Whatever status members held on March 31, 2020 will be extended for another full year, through February 28, 2022. If you’re an Explorist this year, you will keep this status at minimum for next. Of course, you can always earn top-tier Globalist status if you’re able.

Here’s the remainder of the original post….

I’m generally a big fan of Hyatt. Their loyalty program makes it relatively easy to spend your way to status, and they’re big on free night certificates. You’ll earn an annual free night certificate with the World of Hyatt credit card, plus a second free night certificate once you’ve spent $15,000 on the card each year. Hyatt also hands out a free night for reaching its mid-tier Explorist status, and again when you reach top-tier Globalist. Hyatt even encourages you to try out its different brands with a free night once you’ve stayed at five different brands, and another free night when you stay at five more of their brands. In one year, you could have as many as six free nights – nearly all redeemable for hotels up to Category 4. The exception: your free night for reaching Globalist status would be valid for a hotel up to Category 7.

But unless you’re an Asia Pacific customer (more on that in a moment), Hyatt hasn’t given any indication of what it plans to do with its customers free night certificates or status extensions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anecdotal reports have suggested that Hyatt will offer points to replace an expired certificate, but they have thus far not offered full value. For example, The Points Guy says that Hyatt has been offering to replace some Category 1-4 certificates with 10,000 points. With points, you could turn that free night into two nights at a Category 1 property (5000 points each). Or you could apply those points toward any hotel stay you choose – an option you don’t have with the certificate. But let’s face it, you’re trading a free night that could be worth as much as 15,000 points for just 10,000. It’s better than nothing, but we’re all wondering if there is a better deal out there.

Perhaps this is what status and free night extensions will look like at Hyatt. Doctor of Credit has reported that some customers are getting emails from World of Hyatt that extend basically everything in their accounts. Free night certificates, Club access awards, and Suite upgrades that would have expired in 2020 are being extended through December 31, 2021. Hyatt is extending tier status for a full year, through February 28, 2022. It’s worth noting that these extensions are exactly the same as what’s being offered to World of Hyatt members in the Asia Pacific region by policy, although it seems that not everyone receiving these emails would qualify.

It’s also worth noting that Marriott’s policy was very generous for its members in Greater China, but members in the rest of the world are now receiving less generous extensions now that the global nature of the COVID-19 pandemic is apparent. Hyatt could follow Marriott and eventually offer a stingier policy for its customers beyond the Asia Pacific region, but my instinct tells me that Hyatt will err on the side of its customers, ultimately offering the same extensions to all members.

Of course, an extension down the road doesn’t help any of us with expiring certificates.  So if you’re thinking of taking the points instead, remember that nothing in the terms and conditions says Hyatt needs to give you points in lieu of a free night certificate. It’s a customer service. My advice is to wait until your certificate expires, basically kicking the can down the road as far as possible. That will give World of Hyatt more time to figure out a good policy for their U.S. and global members.

Final Thoughts

Your free night certificates should be safe; and in most cases, can be extended. But some hotel chains have yet to offer their loyalty members any direction at all. And that’s understandable. All of them have bigger fish to fry. Hotels are undergoing dramatic changes to their businesses, and their industry. The unique thing about a hotel is that when one unlocks its front door and opens for business, that door will likely remain unlocked for a very long time. But with the COVID-19 pandemic, many hotels have temporarily closed their doors altogether and upended their employees’ lives. Compared to that, a free night certificate is a minor issue, but one that will be resolved in due time.  

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Photo: Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa