A lot of hotel credit cards offer you automatic hotel elite status or elite status perks. These are cards like the Amex Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Hilton cards, Marriott cards, and many others.
But how much value do these benefits really give you?
WalletFlo’s new Value Tracker feature is designed to help you answer this question in an accurate way, so that you can make more informed decisions for your credit card strategies and keep tabs on the value you’re receiving.
Why track elite status perks?
Before getting into the “how,” you might be wondering why you should even bother tracking your elite status perks.
Beyond mere curiosity, there are some real practical reasons for doing it.
For premium cards that have high annual fees like the Amex Platinum or Hilton Aspire, it’s not always easy to offset the annual fee with perks and credits (that you may not even be using).
If you don’t spend a lot on the card, you might be paying for an annual fee that you shouldn’t be paying for.
WalletFlo’s new annual fee feature (coming soon) will show you if you should pay a fee based on your recorded perks/credits usage.
If you’ve been logging entries into the Value Tracker, you won’t have to think much about what decision to make.
How to track elite status perks
You can use WalletFlo to easily track the value you receive from elite status perks.
In the Wallet screen, find the active card that has the elite status perk and click on it, navigate to the perks tab and you can then click on the perk to begin the tracking process.
You will first input the value of your entry and then some notes and then you’re all done. It’s that simple.
Determining the value on your perks can be very clear-cut sometimes and other times not so clear cut. I’ll give you some examples of how to value your perks below.
Upgrades
You can verify the value of an upgrade by figuring out the difference between the room you booked and the room you were upgraded to.
The day you book your room (or just sometime before you are scheduled to check-in), simply take a screenshot of a few room types or suites that you suspect could be an option for an upgrade.
Once you get the upgrade you’ll know exactly what the price would have been and then you can input the price difference into your Value Tracker.
So if your standard room was $180 per night but the deluxe room you get upgraded to was $200 per night and you were staying for three nights, you could input your upgrade value as $60 since 3 x $20 = $60.
You could also just ask the agent at the front desk how much the upgraded room is going for when you get the nod. You could say something like, “I’m just curious, what is the nightly rate for the upgraded room?”
If you already finished your stay you can look up the rates for the next week and if you are choosing dates on the same weekdays the prices may be the same or similar. But hotel prices can fluctuate a lot week to week so getting the prices before your stay will be the most accurate way to track.
Breakfast
Breakfast is another benefit that is easy to track the value of.
In some cases, like with Hilton you may be issued a daily food and beverage credit so you have a clear limit on the value you can get. (Each use should be documented in your folio whenever you check out.)
In other cases, if you were given a free breakfast you can order from a hotel restaurant that should have specific prices and that can also make it very easy to get a sense of the value.
And finally, you may have access to a buffet and you can just estimate the value from your breakfast.
Think about it in terms of how much you would pay for a breakfast of that quality and go with that. Often this is around $15 unless you’re at a luxury hotel.
Early check-in and late check-out
You can also add value for early check-in and late check-out.
The cost for these can vary. In some cases it could range from free to ~$25 but other times it could be attached to the room rate. It all depends on the hotel and how early or late you’ll be arriving/leaving.
Sometimes these are available to people without elite status so it is difficult to attribute receiving these solely to your elite status all of the time.
But in some cases a hotel will directly reference your elite status when offering you the perk and you can take that as a sign that it’s being offered due to your status.
Welcome gifts
When you arrive at a hotel you may be given the option to receive points, choose something from the market, take a credit for the bar, etc. Often the value of a welcome gift is around $10 or less. For example, 500 Marriott points might be worth around $3.85.
Tip: If you go with points, you can use your points valuation found in your WalletFlo wallet and calculate the amount of value you have been given for the points.
Special benefits
Some hotels will offer you special benefits that you may not expect to receive. For example, elite status could get you a discount on parking or even a property credit. These can sometimes offer some pretty solid value of $20 or more so be on the lookout for these.
Promotions (Advanced)
Some hotel promotions will offer you more points for certain levels of elite status. In that case, you could add the value from your extra bonus points since you would not be receiving that without your credit card.
If you really wanted to keep detailed tracking data you could also track the bonus points you earn on your stays.
So let’s say you normally would not have any elite status with Hilton. In that case you would be earning 10 base points per dollar spent but because you have Diamond status you are earning 20 points.
If you earned 5,000 extra points due to Diamond status and valued Hilton points at .5 cents per point., you could add $25 to your Value Tracker as “Diamond bonus points.”
Other benefits
Some benefits will be much more difficult to quantify the value for.
For example, if you took advantage of a 48 hour room guarantee, how much value would you assign to that?
You can simply enter one dollar if you would like to track benefits received just for the sake of record keeping your use of them.
But in other cases you can just think about how much you would be willing to pay (on top of your room rate) for such a benefit.
Final word
Tracking elite status benefits is great way to determine how much value you are getting from your credit cards. Sometimes you will have a clear indication of the monetary value but other times you may have to make a judgment call.
If you just ask yourself how much you would be willing to pay to receive a specific benefit, that will be good enough in a lot of cases because the Value Tracker is all about tracking the value you are receiving in your eyes (aka your true savings) and not just the price tag attached to it by others (which could be a dollar amount you would never pay for).
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
