How to use Awayz to improve your hotel award searches

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I first heard of Awayz by Odynn when Bilt launched a hotel award availability tool powered by the site. Awayz is one of many apps and websites entering the market to make award redemptions easier to find and book.

Although I frequently use Point.me — a tool for finding award flights — I'd mostly ignored hotel award availability tools despite living out of hotels as a digital nomad. Although these tools can be useful for snagging difficult-to-find hotel availability, I usually redeem my points at value-focused hotels where award availability is rarely an issue.

But, especially after trying out Awayz when writing up the news about its integration with Bilt Rewards, I was eager to look closer at the full Awayz product and see whether it could help me find better hotel redemptions. Here's what I learned and how Awayz can be useful for travelers.

What is Awayz?

Awayz is a tool that helps travelers find hotels they can book with points in specific destinations. The tool also helps travelers decide when to redeem points and when to book a paid rate for a specific stay.

Awayz retrieves live award availability and rates so travelers can compare their options without needing to individually search with each hotel loyalty program. Finally, Awayz also offers the option to set award availability alerts if a hotel you want to book on specific dates isn't currently bookable with points.

Related: Apps and websites make award redemptions easier to find

What hotel programs does Awayz cover?

Currently, Awayz covers the following hotel loyalty programs:

• Accor Live Limitless
• Choice Privileges
• Hilton Honors
• IHG One Rewards
• Marriott Bonvoy
• World of Hyatt
• Wyndham Rewards

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Awayz quickly added many of these programs, though. So, if Awayz doesn't cover a hotel loyalty program you frequently use, it may be added eventually.

Related: How to choose a hotel loyalty program

Researching a stay with Awayz

The primary use of Awayz is to research hotel stays, so let's consider a sample five-night stay in Austin.

Enter your desired dates and deselect any undesired hotel loyalty programs under the "All Hotels" dropdown. Expand the "Advanced Options" area to sort your results by cash, points, distance from center or star rating. You can also choose to only see results that you can book with rewards from select transferable points currencies or only see results you can book with specific free night certificates. Once you've gotten everything set up, click "Search."

Once you click "Search," you'll see award rates and paid rates for hotels at your destination for your dates. These rates aren't cached, so what you see is what was bookable when you clicked "Search."

You can click on any property's pin on the map and see the night rates in points and cash. Awayz will also tell you whether it believes you should redeem points or book a paid rate based on its points and miles valuations (which may differ from your own). You'll see in the example below that Awayz is considering the fifth-night free perk for Hilton Honors elite members and Marriott Bonvoy members.

Awayz is also useful when researching stays in cities and regions with few major hotel brands. For example, I was able to use Awayz to quickly learn there is only one hotel in Zermatt, Switzerland, that participates in any of the major hotel loyalty programs I use.

One aspect that frustrates me about Awayz is that when I zoom in and click "Search This Area," I'd like the results to update to only show hotels in that area. Unfortunately, this functionality doesn't work as expected. Instead it re-centers the search on that point but still displays results for hotels in a larger radius.

Related: Mistakes to avoid when redeeming hotel points

Organizing your Awayz wallet

As you might imagine, Awayz becomes more useful once you customize it. For example, you can tell Awayz you have specific cards that offer perks — such as the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card and its fourth-night reward when you redeem IHG points for stays of four nights or more. You don't need to enter personal information, such as your card number or even when you signed up for the card. Instead, you select the cards you currently have.

You can also add your bank and hotel reward balances, which Awayz would presumably consider when deciding which results to show you. However, there's no requirement to enter your balances. You can also click on Preferences on the top navigation bar and select your preferred hotel loyalty programs. Again, there's no requirement to do so.

Currently, Awayz uses a set of valuations for points (that you can't alter) to guide its recommendations to redeem points or book a paid rate for a specific stay. Hopefully, Awayz users will eventually be able to set their own valuations for each program's points if desired.

Related: The inside scoop on how much hotels get paid when you redeem points

Setting an Awayz award availability alert

I loved my stay at IHG's Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives in 2021 for its affordable — at least in terms of international resorts in the Maldives — excursions and easy speedboat from the airport. I'm planning another trip to the Maldives for the second half of 2024 and would like to return to the Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives. However, the resort isn't showing any award availability on my dates.

So, I went to Awayz and set up an award availability alert. To do so, I searched for the property by name and then clicked on its tile.

As expected, Awayz showed no award availability for my dates. I clicked on the green arrow on the right-hand side of the tile.

Then, I clicked on the "Availability Alert" button on the right-hand side of the screen. Doing so created an award availability alert for this property on these dates.

To check my Awayz award alerts, I can click the "Upgrade" button in the upper right of the window to go to my account page. On my account page, I can scroll down to see my current award availability alerts.

I expect to get an email when (or if) award availability becomes available at the Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives for my desired dates.

Related: The best hotel rewards programs in the world

How much does Awayz cost?

Awayz offers a free trial which is a good place for new users to start. The free trial offers five award searches and five award availability alerts.

If you like Awayz during your free trial, you may want access to more award searches and availability alerts. You can purchase 72-hour trip passes as needed for $4.99 each. These 72-hour trip passes give you 50 searches and 10 award availability alerts. Or you can enroll in a premium subscription for $11.99 per month (or $8.33 per month when billed annually), giving you 250 award searches per month, 20 award availability alerts and access to hotel deal alerts.

Awayz also offers a pro subscription with more award searches per month and additional award availability alerts. This option has no stated rate.

All Awayz members — from free trial to pro subscription members — get access to live cash and award pricing as well as a 12-month award availability outlook on their searches. All members can also search for hotel free night certificates and see award pricing that considers fourth- or fifth-night free benefits on their searches.

Finally, remember that you can use Awayz within the Bilt Rewards app or website to see availability with the Bilt Rewards hotel transfer partners: IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy and World of Hyatt.

Related: How and why you should maximize your hotel stays by using multiple loyalty programs

Bottom line

Awayz is a useful tool for researching upcoming hotel stays, especially if you are traveling to one or more new destinations and have a variety of hotel points (and transferable points that you can transfer to various hotel loyalty programs). The 72-hour trip pass is reasonably priced at $4.99 and provides 50 searches and 10 award availability alerts. This is likely enough for most travelers who may want to spend a few days planning one or more upcoming trips.

I'm hopeful the Awayz team will continue to improve the tool and add new features. As noted above, I'd love the ability to set my own valuations for hotel points — or at least know the valuation Awayz is using when it advises me to book a stay with points or cash.

Related reading:

• Best hotel credit cards
• When is the best time to book a hotel? Experts weigh in — and debunk a few myths
• The best credit cards to reach elite status
• A comparison of luxury hotel programs from credit card issuers
• Which credit cards offer the most lucrative rewards for hotel stays?
• The best hotel rewards programs in the world