Luxury hotel programs

  Hotel Strategies

Staying at fancier hotels can cost a substantial amount of money, and unless the hotel belongs to a brand that is part of one of the bigger hotel companies, it is often impossible to book a free stay with points.

If you are going to splurge, you want to make sure to get your money’s worth. And the best way is to take advantage of luxury travel programs. After all, savvy travel is not only about finding the absolutely cheapest room or flight—it is about maximizing the value you get with your travel spending.

Our normal advice to book directly with the hotel doesn’t apply to luxury hotels. If you can’t find a great rate, you should book through a luxury hotel program, which entitles you to hundreds of dollars of valuable perks with your stay.

A typical package of extra benefits includes free breakfast, a room upgrade, late checkout, early check-in, free wi-fi, and a $100 hotel, food, or spa credit.

Many of the hotels that participate in these programs are super-high-end hotels, with room rates above $500 per night. However, most programs also include less expensive optons, such as more than a dozen of the casinos in Vegas, all of Starwood’s hip W hotels, and the occasional nice hotel in the $200 per night range. When you use a program to book a less expensive hotel, you can get sometimes get more value in perks, than your wind up having to pay out-of-pocket for the room in the first place.

Jump to

• The three types of luxury hotel programs
• Tips for maximizing the benefits
• Credit Card Luxury Hotel Collections
• Summary of credit card luxury hotel program benefits
• Virtuoso Hotel Program
• Chain-based luxury hotel programs
• Free nights on longer stays

The three types of luxury hotel programs

There are three different types of luxury hotel programs.

1. Credit Card Luxury Hotel Collections. Several different luxury programs are available to cardholders of different credit card companies. If you have a credit card that has an annual fee (and if you are following our advice, you are likely to have several), you are probably eligible for at least one of these programs. Each credit card program offers a different set of benefits, and a different collection of participating hotels.
2. Virtuoso Hotels. Virtuoso is the name of a network of over 15,000 luxury travel agents. The Virtuoso Hotel Program provides a lucrative benefit packages with about 1,200 luxury hotels. While some more moderate hotels are included, this program leans towards the most expensive hotels at each destination. There is a lot of overlap with the Amex Platinum Card’s Fine Hotels collection..
3. Hotel-chain Travel Agent Programs. Most of the luxury hotel brands, like Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental, have their own special programs that they operate with participating travel agents. If you book through one of those agents, you’ll get a set of additional benefits on any stay. Starwood has its own variation, that includes every St. Regis and W hotel, as well as some hotels from their other brands (e.g. Westins).

Often you can book the same hotel, with slightly different benefits and rates, through multiple programs. For example, the Carlyle hotel in New York can be booked by a participating travel agent through the Virtuoso program, or the hotel’s own Rosewood Elite program. It can also be booked through the Amex, Chase, or Mastercard Luxury Hotel Collections.

Maximizing the benefits from luxury hotel programs

• Take advantage of multiple services to increase your hotel options. Each program only has a limited number of hotels—typically around 1,000 hotels, spread around the world. In any given different destination, a few hotels might be members of multiple programs, but many of the participating hotels won’t overlap. If you have access to multiple programs, check them all, to increase the number of hotel options.
• These programs can be especially valuable when you can use them to book less expensive hotels. While most of the hotels in luxury travel programs have rate of over $250 per night, some hotels can have less expensive rates. At these hotels, the value of the benefits you receive can represent a significant percentage of the room rate. For example, when rates are cheap in Las Vegas, you might be able to book a hotel for under $100 per night, that comes with a $100 food credit, and a free breakfast worth another $80.


As another example, one of us recently booked used the Amex Fine Hotels & Resort Program to book the Loews Chicago hotel, one of the top hotels in town. Their $139 rate included free breakfast, plus another $100 in food and beverage credits, along with a room upgrade and other benefits.


• Luxury Hotel Programs are most valuable for stays of a single night—sometimes, you can break up a multi-night stay to receive additional value. While you get breakfast and some other benefits for every night of your stay, the additional hotel amenity is only given once per visit. For example, you might get a single $100 food credit, regardless of whether your stay is one night or three.

If you are planning to visit a destination for multiple nights, you could book multiple single-night stays at different hotels to get multiple “amenities” (usually $100 credits). Or you can often book separate stays on consecutive nights at the same hotel, by using a different luxury hotel programs for each night, or by booking one night with your name, and the next night via a travelling companion. Simply booking back-to-back nights as separate reservations with the same name, through the same program, will be combined into a single stay.

• General hotel credits are most valuable, Spa credits are usually the least valuable. The hotel amenity will be different for each hotel, and can differ for each program. You need to factor in the type of credit when evaluating your hotel options. You can never use these credits to pay for your actual room, but a general hotel credit can be used for the widest variety of incidental purchases. Most often, the credit you receive will be a food and beverage credit that can be used at any of the hotel’s restaurants and bars (but since breakfast is usually included as well, it can be harder to get full value from this type of credit). Sometimes, the offer is a spa credit. Due to the very expensive prices of spa services at most of these hotels, a Spa credit won’t usually cover the cost of even the least expensive spa services. So, it works more like a Spa discount.

• Make sure to check the regular rates. While we all appreciate free breakfast and other benefits, they aren’t really free if you have to pay a higher room rate when you book through a luxury hotel program. In many cases you’ll pay the same amount of money to book through the program, as you would have to pay directly. However, sometimes better rates will be available elsewhere. Make sure to check the price for the hotel, ideally through several of the better websites, rather than blindly booking through the luxury hotel program.

Credit Card Luxury Hotel Collections

Chances are that you have, or will soon have, access to multiple credit card luxury hotel collections. Visa, Mastercard, Chase, and Amex provide access for anyone who has one of their travel and rewards credit cards. If you have a small collection of travel-oriented credit cards, you are likely to have access to every program, except perhaps the American Express Fine Hotel Collection, which is limited to cardholders of the high-annual-fee Amex Platinum card.

Here are convenient links to each of the programs:

• Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection. Available with any Visa Signature card, which includes most travel and reward Visa credit cards that have annual fees. The package of benefits is somewhat less valuable than the Mastercard, Chase, and Amex Fine Hotel and Resorts programs. On the other hand, they have a best rate guarantee, that helps ensure you aren’t paying any extra to receive the benefits. The program also includes a broad range of hotels, not just the most expensive hotels in each destination. The Visa Infinite Hotel Collection, available with a handful of Visa Infinite cards, is essentially the same program.

• Mastercard Luxury Hotels & Resorts. Available with any World or World Elite Mastercard, including the AAdvantage cards, Barclay Arrival cards, and Citi Prestige card (among others). Great benefits, but you’ll pay a premium to book as part of the program, although usually far less than the potential extra value you’ll receive. Mastercard’s website makes it easy, showing you room rates both with and without the added benefits. Often, the rate with the luxury benefits is only $5-15 more, but sometimes there is a more significant price difference.

• Chase Luxury Hotel & Resort Collection. Available with most of the annual-fee-based Chase cards, but not included with the Hyatt and IHG cards (as the program potentially competes with these hotel companies). The website is a pain to use, and room rates are often $50-100 higher than you can find elsewhere. However, Chase offers a good package of benefits that can often justify these higher prices, and sometimes has competitive rates—it is always worthwhile to see what they have available.

• American Express: The Hotel Collection. Available with the American Express Gold and Platinum cards. This is the least valuable of the various credit card programs. For starters, you can only use it to book a (minimum) two-night stay. And the primary benefit is a $75 credit (per say), rather than breakfast each day, and an additional per-stay benefit. However, you won’t have to pay a higher rate to get the credit, and due to its place alongside the more exclusive Amex Fine Hotel program, it focuses on more moderately priced hotels. Like the Visa program, it is a good way to get a little extra value as part of your hotel reservation.

• American Express Fine Hotel & Resorts. Available only to holders of the Amex Platinum Card. Rates are sometimes the same as you’d pay if you booked directly, and sometimes higher. Like the Mastercard website, Amex will show you side-by-side rates for each hotel, in case lower rates are available without the benefits. Tends to focus on the most expensive hotels in each destination, with a lot of overlap with the Virtuoso program. For many of the hotels, you’ll also get a 3^rd or 4^th night free, which can make the program incredibly valuable.

Summary of the credit card luxury hotel program benefits

Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Program	Mastercard Luxury Hotels & Resorts	Chase Luxury Hotel & Resorts	Amex The Hotel Collection	Amex Fine Hotel and Resorts
Free breakfast, for 2
continental	usually	yes	no	continental
Unique property amenity (such as lunch, dinner, spa treatment, $50-100 hotel credit)
$25 food credit	Yes	Yes	$75 food credit	yes
Room upgrade when available
yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Free Wi-Fi
yes	usually	–	–	yes
Late checkout, when available
yes	yes	yes	–	yes, guaranteed
Early check-in, when available
–	yes	yes	-	yes
Best rate guarantee
yes	–	–	yes	–
Requires 2-night stay
–	–	–	yes	–
Earn points / elite night credits
yes	sometimes	yes	yes	yes
Must use credit card to book
yes	yes	yes	any Amex on the same account	any Amex on the same account

Virtuoso Hotel Program

The Virtuoso Hotel Program provides benefits at a collection of over 1,200 luxury hotels, generally the most expensive hotels at each destination.

• When you book one of these hotels, you’ll get a set of “Virtuoso Amenities” which typically include breakfast for two, $100 hotel credit, room upgrade, early check-in, and late check-out. These are essentially the same set of benefits that you get from the Amex Platinum, Chase, and Mastercard programs, but with only a partially overlapping set of hotels. You usually get slightly higher priority for a room upgrade when you book with Virtuoso, rather than with a credit card program.

• You can view all of participating hotels and the extra benefits you get on a hotel directory on their website, in their iOS app, or through a glossy hotel catalog.
• What you can’t always see online are the rates for the participating hotels. To get that information, and to book the hotel, you’ll need to work with one of over 15,000 Virtuoso travel advisers. Many of these travel agents won’t charge you any additional fees to book the hotel—they still receive a commission on the booking. However, some will charge an additional service fee, so make sure to ask.

Working with an agent can be somewhat frustrating for people who are used to being able to help themselves online. It requires some back and forth on the phone or by email, and it can feel a little awkward if you wind up making a bunch of changes, or not booking a hotel. At the same time, these are experienced travel professionals that can often provide valuable additional guidance or services.

You can find a Virtuoso travel agent using an advisor directory on the Virtuoso website. Agents are located all over the world. If you don’t need a ton of destination-specific advice, we recommend building up a relationship with one advisor for all your trips, rather than searching for an “expert” for every trip you take. You might want to start with an advisor located in your home town.

Other luxury hotel programs (available via travel agents)

• The other way that a luxury travel advisor can get you extra benefits is by participating in one or more special programs run by individual luxury hotel companies. Each luxury hotel company runs a program that allows participating travel agents to offer special benefits to their clients. When you book through one of the travel agents that are part of the program, you’ll get a set of extra benefits that aren’t available when you book online, or through other agents.

• Many of the hotels, from these luxury hotel brands, are also part of the Virtuoso hotel collection. However, the benefits through Virtuoso, and the benefits through the hotel’s own program, can be somewhat different. A Virtuoso travel agent that belongs to the hotel’s program may be able to get you access to any non-overlapping benefits from both programs. You won’t receive two different $100 hotel credits, but if one program gives you early check-in, and the other gives you free parking, you are likely to get both.
• The hotel programs are designed to be “exclusive”—only a small number of travel agents participate with each program. So, you’ll need to search around to find an agent that participates in the program you want to take advantage of. However, many of the larger luxury travel specialists are likely to both be part of the Virtuoso program, and to participate with multiple individual luxury hotel programs.
• If you are thinking about staying at a hotel that is part of one of these brands, it is worthwhile to hunt out a Virtuoso travel agent that also participates in the hotel’s enhanced luxury program.
• Belmond Bellini Club. $200 resort credit.
• Dorchester Diamond Club. ull breakfast, guaranteed upgrade, resort credit.
• Four Seasons Preferred Partner. Usually can be tacked on to existing rates, including other promotions. Full breakfast, upgrade upon availability, resort credit.
• Langham Hotel Couture. Welcome amenity, confirmed upgrade on booking, six extra hours at check-in or check-out.
• Jumeirah Passport to Luxury. Breakfast, upgrade upon availability, $100 credit.
• Mandarin Oriental Fan Club. Full breakfast, confirmed upgrade, $100 credit.
• Oetker Collection Pearl Partner. Full breakfast, confirmed upgrade, E85 (one night) / E170 (multiple nights) resort credit.
• Peninsula PenClub. Full breakfast, upgrade upon availability, free spa treatment.
• Relais & Chateaux Preferred Partner Program. Free breakfast.
• Ritz Carlton STARS. Applies to any rate, amenities are different at each hotel.
• Rocco Forte Knights. Upgrade upon availability.
• Rosewood Elite. Full breakfast, upgrade upon availability, resort credit.
• Shangri-La Luxury Circle. Full breakfast, $100 (or 10%) credit, additional amenities.
• Sofitel STEP. Upgrade upon availability, welcome amenity.
• Starwood Luxury Privileges. Available for a most of the hotels in the Luxury Collection and St. Regis brands, as well as some of the W Hotels. View a full list of hotels and benefits. Breakfast, upgrade upon availability, amenity with $100 value.

Free nights on longer stays

• One of the added benefits of the Amex Platinum Card’s Fine Hotel & Resorts program is that they offer a third or fourth night free on many of the hotels in their collection. Getting a bunch of valuable benefits is great, but getting a free hotel night on top is even better.
• The third or fourth night free offers change all the time. The American Express website will show you the current set of offers when you are searching for a hotel. If you want to stay up to date on new offers, as they become available, you can use a useful website called FHRNews.

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