Buying La Quinta Points to Book Significantly Cheaper Luxury Hotel Rooms!

I was just browsing through the La Quinta Rewards site and found something that sparked a huge interest! I actually have about 40,000 points in the La Quinta program and was trying to figure out what I could do with them. I noticed that La Quinta recently added an option where you can redeem your points at a ton of luxury hotel options worldwide. After a quick google search, it looks like back in February 2016, La Quinta partnered with PointsHound (a 3rd party hotel booking engine) to allow their members to book hotels through their travel platform even though they are not part of the La Quinta chain. This include other chain hotels (i.e., Hyatt, Hilton, IHG, Marriott, Starwood, etc.) as well as boutique properties.

I checked a random date in New York City for February to see how many points it actually requires to book a stay at one of these “luxury” hotels. As luck has it, the Grand Hyatt New York is available for only 12,450 La Quinta points. A steal in my mind especially considering it can typically cost more points to redeem at a La Quinta property which is probably not nearly as nice.

I then checked to see the cost to purchase La Quinta points. To buy 13,000 points (enough to cover one night at the Grand Hyatt New York) is only $143! While I know February is an incredibly cheap time to stay in NYC, $143 all in at a nice hotel is a great find.

Hyatt is selling the exact same room for $180 + tax (for a total of $209.02). That is for both the member rate and the AAA rate.

This means that buying La Quinta points to redeem at this Hyatt hotel, for example, is $66.02 less expensive! This is a great way to get a discount at a more expensive hotel! I actually checked a few other examples and found that every time purchasing La Quinta points to redeem at a luxury hotel is less expensive then booking through the hotel directly.

Unfortunately though, you are capped at purchasing 40,000 points per account per calendar year. So while this can work for a few nights a year, you will not be able to go crazy buying points to redeem elsewhere. Also, the number of points required to redeem for a free night differs based on the going rate of the hotel during that timeframe. To redeem your points at the same Hyatt hotel over Christmas, for example, is going to require many more points.

To take advantage of this:

• Check this La Quinta site to find the number of points required to book at a luxury hotel
• Find out the cost to purchase La Quinta points -points can take up to 24 hours to post to your account but should be pretty instant

This loophole is a nice way to stay at a luxury hotel for less! Or, for those that have La Quinta points, another option to redeem at a higher end property!