Way back in 2014, I wrote about a crazy expensive IHG Anniversary Free Night we weren’t going to book. The booking was for New Years Eve at a property in New York City.

Due to COVID, Kim and I have a bunch of hotel free nights expiring at the end of the year.

Rather than create unnecessary weekend trips while we’re busy, I’m hoping to use most of them during winter break.

A little over a week back, I redeemed 72,000 British Airways Avios for a flight which would’ve cost $1,279.24! For the Avios and $44, we’ll be heading to Memphis over winter break!

We haven’t finalized the plans for our trip but I decided it was best to look into hotels for New Years Eve since I know the price can be greatly inflated that night as well as on the days leading up to it.

I searched Marriott, IHG and Hyatt to see if anything was available.

I was happy to see that a Hyatt Centric had recently opened (in mid April 2021). The big question was, would it be available to book with a Hyatt Free Night certificate for New Years Eve?

Hyatt Centric Beale Street Memphis is a Category 4 property which goes for 15K points per night. When I did my search, the room was going for $385.48 for a total of $477.09 with tax for New Years Eve!

Considering the Hyatt credit card has a $95 annual fee, booking a room which costs close to $500 for a night is definitely a deal!

I decided that it would make more sense to book the Hyatt Centric for two nights. This brought the average price of the room down to approximately $363 per night, making the two night stay $897.51. Still a great value for two Hyatt Free Nights!

Besides putting two hotel free nights to use towards an upcoming trip, Kim and I will also each now have a new Hyatt brand checked off in our accounts. This will help towards earning another Hyatt Brand Explorer Free Night!

When and where have you received the most value from hotel free nights?