Cheaper to book through Qantas Hotels?

[burnt]

I was just checking the HH points cost for an Exec room 1 night 18th to 19th Sept on HH site and comparing the cost to booking the same room on Quantas Hotels and paying with QFF points, it looks a lot cheaper to book the same room with QFF points, eg the Exec room is 65,807 QFF points ( and also earns you nearly 1,000 back) but the price by paying in HH points is 92,937 and even the King room is 70,664 HH points which would give an upgrade to the Exec floor for Diamonds.

It would seem that with the points cap per month on the Macquarie Hilton card at 4,000 PM at 1:1 and then .5 to 1 after that it may be better value to book with QFF points, your thoughts.

 

[earlyriser]

It would seem that with the points cap per month on the Macquarie Hilton card at 4,000 PM at 1:1 and then .5 to 1 after that it may be better value to book with QFF points, your thoughts.

I am looking in the terms and don't see a cap on 1:1 HHonors points earn with the HHonors card. Maybe I have misunderstood your point but I just want to be sure because I am currently trying to get up to $40K spend for Diamond. Sorry for slight change of topic!

 

[burnt]

Yes, a cap earn at 1:1 from 11th May, also when they said no earn for ATO.
You can still get the Diamond up quickly, but if you do it in less than 10 months, you will not earn the full 40,000 HH points that you otherwise would have if you used the limits.

Also just compared Conrad Singapore 25th to 26th Sept, on Qantas Hotels is 66,734 QFF points but on HH site is 108,605 points and more interestingly the standard room is 60,000 HH points but the cost when paying by QFF is only 48,846.

It seems like it may be time to just use the Hilton card to keep the Diamond level ( if you don't have enough stays PA) and concentrate on the QFF points and use them for Hilton as well?

 

[earlyriser]

Yes, a cap earn at 1:1 from 11th May, also when they said no earn for ATO.
You can still get the Diamond up quickly, but if you do it in less than 10 months, you will not earn the full 40,000 HH points that you otherwise would have if you used the limits.

Also just compared Conrad Singapore 25th to 26th Sept, on Qantas Hotels is 66,734 QFF points but on HH site is 108,605 points and more interestingly the standard room is 60,000 HH points but the cost when paying by QFF is only 48,846.

It seems like it may be time to just use the Hilton card to keep the Diamond level ( if you don't have enough stays PA) and concentrate on the QFF points and use them for Hilton as well?

Sorry, maybe I am blind (I do wear strong glasses) but still not seeing it:
http://www.macquarie.com.au/dafiles...terms-conditions/hhonors-terms-conditions.pdf

Perhaps we are talking about different cards? I can see the QFF earn has gone down.

"e. Is there a limit to the amount of HHonors Bonus Pointsthat I can earn?There is no limit to the amount of HHonors Bonus Points thatcan be earned on Eligible Purchases."

My HH pending points earn for the current month appears to be in order (~5000) although I haven't pulled the calculator out to check.

 

[burnt]

I guess we can just check your next statement to see how many points were earned for this months spend, just make sure that you do spend greater than the $4,000.

You are correct, that I also see nothing in the T&C for the Hilton card, but I was going on something that I read?

My next statement closes on 23rd June so if mine is prior to yours I will post a comment here.

 

[drron]

Now things may have changed a lot but even I who scorns QFF would not think that an HH point is equal in value to a QFF point.
Just an example-1 SPG point gets me 1.25 AA miles but it takes me 10 HH points to get 1 AA mile.
It really should take a lot more HH points in the examples given to make the QFF option cheaper.
To me QFF points = 1-2 cents.HH points= diddly squat but at most 0.5 cents.

 

[burnt]

Is there a credit card that will earn SPG points for general spending, might be a back door way of getting AA points at a good rate?

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Now things may have changed a lot but even I who scorns QFF would not think that an HH point is equal in value to a QFF point.
Just an example-1 SPG point gets me 1.25 AA miles but it takes me 10 HH points to get 1 AA mile.
It really should take a lot more HH points in the examples given to make the QFF option cheaper.
To me QFF points = 1-2 cents.HH points= diddly squat but at most 0.5 cents.

I was about to type the same thing. I value a HH point at roughly AU0.5c and an airline point (QF/VA) at roughly AU1.5c. Of course it's all ambulatory.

 

[earlyriser]

I guess we can just check your next statement to see how many points were earned for this months spend, just make sure that you do spend greater than the $4,000.

You are correct, that I also see nothing in the T&C for the Hilton card, but I was going on something that I read?

My next statement closes on 23rd June so if mine is prior to yours I will post a comment here.

Just an FYI, paid a $1700 bill on Monday and 1700 HHonors points were added to the account details tally today. I am over $4000 so should be able to reach diamond over the next 2 months then head back to cards with better earn value.

 

[Buzzard]

I would not use QF points for hotels, I think it represents poor value. Better to use for flights or upgrades.
Use the HH points for stays or just pay cash.
That said I would not use HH points for stays in Australia.

 

[drron]

And if you book with QFF points would you get your elite benefits.By the T&Cs the hotel doesn't have to.

 

[Jleno]

So I've spent the last week and a half checking out hotels on daily (ie booking multiple one/two day stays) and here's what I've found FWIW

- Qantas Hotels - total waste of time. They don't cover as many hotels as other sites and their prices are always more expensive, even AFTER you include the $30 voucher you get from Qantas.
- Hotels.com / Expedia.com / Bookings.com - these are all very competitive with each other. It comes down to (1) which user and search interface you prefer to filter your searches (2) who has the better site-based promotion (eg free night after x number of nights or referral fees) and (3) which site has the higher percentage of Cashbank offers
- Specific hotel websites - 80% of the time, this is cheaper than booking through the aggregator sites.

So my process now is to use one of the big aggregators to find which hotels are the cheapest / has the best offers, then go to the hotel website directly to see if it is cheaper.

An additional tip I found is that sometimes, if you're booking for multiple nights, the prices may be higher than if you booked separate single nights provided you are happy to swap rooms. For example, there may be no availability in a standard room for 2 nights, so when you choose two nights, you're only given the option of a deluxe room for both nights. You may well be happy to stay in a standard room for one night and then the deluxe room the next night and therefore reduce the cost of your overall stay. There is of course the hassle of having to change rooms but (1) sometimes this can result in a big saving if for example, the room availability means that for one of the nights, only the more expensive rooms are available, you could end up booking a 3 or 4 night stay in that room at that nightly rate and (2) often cancellations means that the hotel may well 'upgrade' the one or two nights which you separately booked a cheaper room (assuming you told them in advance when checking in that you made multiple bookings in different rooms).