Two hotel loyalty programmes made headlines this week for opposite reasons - one is handing out its most generous bonus of the year, and the other just found a creative way to strip elite members of a perk they paid good money to earn.

Quick question before we get into it...

When you convert 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to Avios, how many Avios do you actually receive?

The answer is waiting near the bottom... keep scrolling 👇

The Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card has tripled its sign-up bonus to 60,000 points - but the offer closes tonight, Tuesday 27 May. This is only the third time this card has ever seen such a generous offer, and it typically appears once a year at most.

The spend requirement is reasonable: £3,000 within your first three months of card membership. That's not a stretch for most people who put regular household spending on a card.

So what are 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points actually worth? Let's do the maths:

The Avios angle is particularly interesting for UK collectors. If you value Avios at 1p each, that 25,000-Avios conversion is worth £250 - not far off the hotel cash value, and potentially more if you redeem smartly on short-haul redemptions.

Heads up: The Amex 24-month rule applies - you cannot have held a personal Amex card in the previous 24 months. However, holding an Amex Business card, or being a supplementary cardholder on someone else's personal Amex, does NOT disqualify you. The 24-month rule only applies to primary cardholders on personal cards.

If you haven't held a personal Amex in two years, this card also gives you a clean runway to go after the BA Premium Plus or Platinum bonuses further down the line - both remain available to you after taking this card first.

Beyond the sign-up bonus, the card delivers 15 Elite Night Credits every year. That's enough to start you at Silver Elite immediately and, critically, means you only need 35 actual hotel nights (not 50) to reach Platinum Elite status - the tier where room upgrades, lounge access, and guaranteed 4pm checkout kick in. The annual fee is £95.

One more card trick worth knowing: if you also hold a Marriott Bonvoy Debit Card, you can stack up to an additional 20 Elite Night Credits per year on top of the 15 from the Amex. That gives you 35 Elite Night Credits annually - just 15 stays short of Platinum - without stepping foot in a hotel.

The annual fee is £95. Representative APR 52.5% variable including the annual fee. Representative APR on purchases 29.1% variable. Eligibility criteria apply.

Here's a frustrating one. The Park Hyatt Sydney - one of the most iconic city hotels in the world, sitting under the Harbour Bridge with opera house views - has quietly reclassified itself as a resort.

This isn't just a semantics issue. Under World of Hyatt's rules, resorts and convention hotels are exempt from the guaranteed 4pm late checkout that Globalists (Hyatt's top elite tier) would otherwise receive. By claiming resort status, the Park Hyatt Sydney can now decline that perk at will.

Park Hyatt Tokyo has done the same thing. Two of the programme's most celebrated properties - both deeply urban, neither with a beach or spa farm in sight - are now technically 'resorts'.

This follows a broader pattern we've seen across hotel loyalty programmes: companies sell elite status on the promise of certain benefits, then find contractual loopholes to avoid delivering them as the programme scales. Hyatt has historically been better than most at holding the line here, which makes this move sting more than it would from, say, a mass-market brand.

Bottom line: if you're planning a Hyatt Globalist redemption in Sydney or Tokyo and you were counting on late checkout, call ahead and ask directly. Don't assume the guarantee applies.

Hilton Honors has announced a summer bonus promotion running from 1 June to 15 August 2026. This one is structured differently from the previous flat-rate offers - it favours stays of more than one or two nights, which makes it better for leisure travellers than quick business overnight stops.

The key thing to know: you must register before your first eligible stay. Miss that step and you'll earn nothing extra on stays that could have qualified. It takes about 30 seconds on the Hilton website.

If you've got a summer break in the pipeline at a Hilton property - anything from a Hampton at Edinburgh Airport to a Conrad in Maldives - this is free money on stays you'd be making anyway.

Heads up: UK readers holding Hilton Gold through an Amex Platinum card are still eligible for this promotion. The bonus stacks on top of your regular Hilton Honors earning rate.

IHG Hotels is currently running a third-night-free promotion on premium rooms and suites at participating properties worldwide, for stays between now and 30 September 2026. The booking window is open now.

The maths works out nicely for a three-night city break: book a suite at an InterContinental in London or Edinburgh, and the third night is effectively free. For a £300-per-night suite, that's £300 back in real money.

Warning: not all properties participate, and the offer is targeted at premium room categories specifically - standard rooms don't qualify. Check the IHG website to confirm your chosen hotel is included before booking.

The deadline to book is open-ended at this stage, but stays must be completed by 30 September 2026. Given that summer dates will fill up fast, this is one worth acting on sooner rather than later.

If you're short on Hilton Honors points for a summer redemption, Hilton is currently running a 100% bonus on purchased points - meaning you get double what you pay for. The sale ends **this Thursday**, 29 May.

Bought points are currently priced at 0.5¢ each before the bonus, which means with the 100% bonus you're effectively paying 0.25¢ per point. Hilton redemptions can push past 0.4-0.5p per point at premium properties, so there's a reasonable case for buying if you're topping up for a specific booking.

Warning: only buy points if you have a specific redemption in mind. Buying points speculatively is rarely good value. Check the Hilton website to confirm availability on your target hotel before purchasing.

The answer is 🟣 25,000 Avios.

Marriott Bonvoy converts to airline miles at a 3:1 ratio, so 60,000 points would give you 20,000 Avios at the base rate. But here's the bonus: when you transfer exactly 60,000 points in a single transaction, Marriott adds a 5,000-mile top-up bonus. That brings the total to 25,000 Avios - a meaningful sweetener that many people miss when calculating the value of this card's sign-up bonus.

Use our Virgin Atlantic Points Calculator or the Points Converter to model out what 25,000 Avios (or miles in another programme) could get you before deciding where to send your Bonvoy points.

Have you ever transferred Marriott Bonvoy points to Avios or another airline - and was the redemption worth it? I'm genuinely curious whether readers find the hotel-to-airline transfer route useful, or whether you prefer to keep Bonvoy points in the hotel ecosystem. Hit reply and let me know - I read every response!

That's everything for today - but one final nudge: the 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy Amex bonus closes tonight. If you've been sitting on the fence, there's no later train on this one. The next time this bonus appears will almost certainly be 2027.

See you Friday.

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These are the top credit card welcome bonuses we're tracking. Offers change frequently - see all cards.

1. Platinum Card: 75,000 points after spending £10,000 in 6 months (£6.5/yr)

2. HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard: Receive 60,000 reward points when you spend £3,000 on your card in the first 90 ... (£2.9/yr)

3. Gold Card: 40,000 points after spending £5,000 in 6 months (£1.95/yr (waived first year))

Looking to redeem your points? Here's what's available right now (via Award Travel Finder):

Hotels:

Status Matches:

• Flying Blue Status Match - Air France / KLM (SkyTeam)

• Flying Blue UK (BA Status Holders) - Air France / KLM (SkyTeam)

• Flying Blue (Iberia) - Air France / KLM (SkyTeam)

Buy Points & Miles Deals:

Browse every award deal we track at AwardTravelFinder.com →

Award Travel Finder hunts down the best redemptions so you don't have to.

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