| | Redeeming for the best hotels at a solid points value | | by Brian Kelly | |  | My points strategy is constantly evolving, and I'm always looking for the best ways to maximize my points redemptions for airfare and hotel stays. While we've seen airfare dropping on some of the popular routes we track — domestic airfares are down a whopping 11.28% year over year, and international prices are down 6.2% — we haven't actually seen hotel prices coming down.
This is why doing your research is more important than ever to find the best price using cash or points, especially if you want to splurge on a luxury hotel stay. There are actually ways to stay at non-points luxury hotels and still use points ... including a brand-new way I'm pretty excited about.
I just returned from Paris, and I will say, it was probably my favorite visit yet, and a lot of that had to do with my fabulous hotel stay at Cheval Blanc. This was my first time booking a hotel through The Edit by Chase, and it was a great experience.
Cheval Blanc is a 72-room boutique hotel in the heart of Paris, overlooking the Seine. It offers incredible amenities and service, and even its standard rooms are 600 square feet. I used my $100 hotel credit for a massage at the hotel's Dior Spa, which had the nicest treatment rooms I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of treatment rooms).
How to book
Historically, if you wanted to stay at a non-points luxury hotel and use points, you'd get 1 cent per point from most credit card travel portals. The Chase Sapphire Reserve® offered 1.5 cents per point, but with Chase's new Points Boost feature, Chase's collection of luxury hotels, The Edit, is now bookable at an impressive 2 cents per point.
If you haven't used Chase Travel yet for hotel bookings, I encourage you to check it out, especially if you are a new or existing Sapphire Reserve cardholder and get the annual $500 hotel credit for The Edit stays (this credit is available immediately for new cardholders, but existing cardholders will have it take effect Oct. 26. Two-night minimum stay required).
It's similar to American Express' Fine Hotels + Resorts, where you get elitelike perks such as room upgrades, hotel credit, free breakfast, early check-in and late checkout, just to name a few, but you have that added benefit of using Points Boost.
This program can unlock stays that might have otherwise been out of reach, especially when you also use the new Points Boost feature. I was able to book Cheval Blanc for 114,484 points per night versus $2,290 in cash. Before Points Boost, this would have cost 152,646 points per night, making it a great use of my Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
Paris travel tips
While we are talking about Paris, I want to share a quick tip that getting around Paris is much easier using the G7 app for taxi rides. You get up-front pricing, and G7 taxis can access the priority travel lanes to avoid traffic and save time that Uber and other taxis cannot access.
Also, don't miss the fabulous David Hockney exhibit on display at La Fondation Louis Vuitton through Aug. 31 — I absolutely loved it. Outside the museum is a cute amusement park for kids, so it's a great place to have a Parisian adventure.
Have a great weekend,
BK
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