What are the best hotel promos for October 2021?

UPDATE – APRIL 2025:  This article is now out of date, but don’t worry.  We produce a monthly summary of the top hotel bonus point offers – please click HERE or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ menu above.  Thank you.

Hilton has just launched two new UK debit cards – and they come with Hilton Honors elite status! You can get Hilton Honors Gold status simply by applying for the Plus debit card. You can learn more here and you can apply here.

Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 29th May 2025. The annual purchase limit is also increased to 240,000 points pre-bonus. Click here to buy.

World of Hyatt is offering a 25% discount (equivalent to a 33% bonus) when you buy points by 14th April 2025. Click here to buy.

Keep up to date with new hotel offers by signing up for our free daily or weekly newsletters.

As travel begins to restart, we have brought back our regular round-up of the best hotel promotions currently running.

All of the information in this article can also be found on our ‘Hotel Offers’ page which contains details of all of the current offers, together with links to our major articles on each hotel scheme.  However, a positive response from readers – especially our 15,000 email subscribers – means we run this monthly article as a handy summary.

Here are quick summaries and links to the registration pages you need for each offer – do it before you forget:

Radisson Rewards and World of Hyatt are not currently running global promotions.

There are also ‘buy points’ bonuses running with IHG Rewards and World of Hyatt:

Where should you credit your stays for October 2021?

In general, the hotel chains have a problem with global promotions at the moment. Whilst it is almost ‘business as usual’ in the two major markets – China and the US – there are major restrictions elsewhere.

It is hard to create a global offer which is generous enough to drive stays in countries with sharp restrictions in place, whilst not appearing too generous in countries which are functioning relatively normally.

The chains are also dealing with the fact that their customers are primarily leisure travellers at the moment, and this segment – where people are spending their own money, not their employers – responds differently to special offers.

There is no ‘best’ offer

Remember that, irrespective of the offers below, there is never a single ‘best’ offer.

Some offers require multiple stays to maximise the bonus, which you might not do. Some require stays to be a minimum number of nights before a bonus is earned.

You need to factor in any elite status you have, which will earn you additional status bonuses.

More importantly, you need to be able to use the points. There is no value in earning a large bonus in a scheme where you will never go on to earn enough points to get a free night.

Accor Live Limitless (Ibis, Novotel, Mercure, Pullman, Sofitel etc)

Accor is currently giving you the opportunity to earn 6,000 bonus points. These would convert into €120 of Accor hotel credit, 6000 Avios in Iberia Plus or miles in various other airline schemes.

You can register here. Our full article on Accor’s Autumn promotion is here.

As usual with Accor, it is more complex than it needs to be.

The promotion runs from 23rd September to 31st December. However:

• existing bookings you made before registration do not count
• bookings must be made by 4th November

You will earn:

• 500 bonus points on your first two night stay
• 2,500 bonus points on your 2nd two night stay and
• 3,000 bonus points on your 3rd two night stay

This could be very generous. If you complete it with 3 x 2-night stays, you would be averaging €20 or 1,000 bonus Avios per night. This is on top of your base points.

You can register here – remember that bookings made before registration do not count.

The Accor home page for bookings is here.

Hilton (Hampton, Conrad, Waldorf-Astoria etc)

Hilton has a new Autumn offer called ‘Power Up’.  You can register here.  Our full article is here.

You will earn DOUBLE Hilton Honors base points for every stay between now and 31st December. 

If you still have, and pay with, the UK Hilton Barclaycard you will receive TRIPLE base points. This card is no longer available to new applicants.

For most brands, you will earn 10 base points per $1 spent, plus an additional 10 or 20 promotional points plus any status bonus.

Given that I value a Hilton Honors point at around 0.33p, you are getting a good return on your spending here.  38 points per $1, which is what a Gold member with the Hilton Barclaycard would receive on every stay, is a 17.5% rebate on your ex-VAT spending.

You need to register in advance of your stay via the Hilton website here.  Existing bookings count and all Hilton Honors hotels are taking part.

The Hilton booking page is here.

IHG Rewards (Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Hotel Indigo etc)

IHG Rewards is offering double or triple base points this Autumn.

It is a little more fiddly than is necessary, to be honest.

The offer runs from 1st October to 31st December. Registration is required which you can do here. Existing bookings DO count.

You will receive

• no bonus on your first stay after registration
• double base points on your second stay
• triple base points on your third and subsequent stays

This clearly has the potential to be attractive if your third stay is an expensive one, but the structure will frustrate many. You may even need to do a cheap ‘mattress runs’ so that you are on triple points by the time an expensive stay comes along.

Let’s assume that an IHG Rewards point is worth 0.4p (which we usually say it is) and that you have Spire Elite status and earn a 100% elite bonus:

• You spend £100 AFTER DEDUCTING VAT
• …. which is equivalent to $135
• You earn 10 base points per $1 at most brands, x3 as part of this offer, plus a 100% Spire Elite bonus on top
• You therefore receive 40 points per $1
• You receive 5,400 points for your stay ($135 x 40)
• At 0.4p, the points are worth £21.60
• You receive points worth 21% of your ex-VAT spending

Our full article on the Autumn IHG Rewards offer is here.

You can register here. The IHG home page for bookings is here.

Marriott Bonvoy (Renaissance, The Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton, Westin, W, Aloft, St Regis, Luxury Collection, Moxy etc)

Marriott Bonvoy has now launched its Autumn promotion.

It is not hugely generous, offering 1,500 bonus points on each cash stay.  I value a Bonvoy point at 0.5p so this is equivalent to a £7.50 bonus per stay.  It is clearly a better deal on cheap one-night stays than expensive week-long holidays.

The promotion started on 14th September and runs to 12th December. Registration closes on 28th November.

Our full article is here. You can register here.

The home page for bookings is here.

And finally ….

If you booking a luxury hotel, remember that we can offer you exclusive additional benefits at Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Peninsula and similar hotels.  

Click here for details of our luxury hotel booking service in association with Bon Vivant / Virtuoso.  Feedback from readers who have used this service so far has been excellent and we have booked over £1.3 million of rooms so far.

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Hotel offers update – April 2025:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points?

• Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 29th May 2025. The annual purchase limit is also increased to 240,000 points pre-bonus. Click here to buy.

• World of Hyatt is offering a 25% discount (equivalent to a 33% bonus) when you buy points by 14th April 2025. Click here to buy.