Breaking up a Hotel Stay to Save Even More With Citi Prestige
TPG-Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
I recently booked a hotel stay in Waikiki Beach at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for Christmas break. As this is peak travel season, I was looking to reduce the price as much as possible. On the Hilton website, the rate for an eight-night stay was $465 per night. However, I noticed something interesting: If I broke the booking into two four-night stays, the rate for the first half was $332 per night and the rate for the last four nights was still $465. Simply breaking the reservation in two saved me $532 plus tax.
As I used the Citi Prestige Card's concierge to make the reservation in order to use the 4th Night Free benefit, I asked the agent to make the reservation in this manner. They were able to confirm with the hotel the rates I found. As you can only get the fourth night free once per stay (there needs to be a 24-hour gap in reservations to get it again), they said they would give me the free night on the second four-night stay (the higher rate), which would save me $465.
Under the new Citi Prestige rules, the 4th Night Free perk is based upon the average cost of the four nights and does not include any resort fees or taxes. The concierge said they could link the two reservations so we wouldn't have to change rooms.
Interestingly, if I had booked the first four nights as four separate reservations, the rates would have come out even less expensive — $275 each for the first two nights and $351 for the second two nights, averaging $313 a night, which would save me an additional $76 plus tax. For simplicity's sake, I left it as two four-night stays.
Had I booked the entire trip as one long stay, the price would have been $4,563, including taxes and resort fees. By breaking the reservation into two four-night stays combined with using Citi Prestige, the total comes to $3,491, a significant savings of $1,072 — $607 including taxes for breaking the reservation in two and $465 for using the 4th Night Free benefit.
Bottom Line
For hotel stays, always look at individual nightly rates or the price for groups of nights, as the total may be lower than if you were to book one longer stay. And combining this strategy with the Citi Prestige Card's 4th Night Free perk can garner you extra savings.
Have you used this strategy to save money when booking hotels?