How to Earn a Fourth or Fifth Night Free on Hotel Award Stays

Miles and points are an incredible tool to slash the cost of various travel expenses, but most often for flights and hotels. Hotel points can be one of the harder currencies to earn depending on where you are on your miles and points journey, but equally as important as frequent flyer miles. Utilizing them both can result in a significant discount on your next vacation.

Hotel loyalty program points and elite status can go even further in saving you money on your next stay through an additional benefit. When you make a points redemption booking for a set number of consecutive nights, many hotel loyalty programs offer you an additional night for free.

Let’s take a look at how you can earn the fourth night or fifth night free when making a points booking with three different hotel loyalty programs: Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, and IHG One Rewards.

What is the Fourth or Fifth Night Free Benefit When Making a Hotel Award Booking?

Loyalty programs are based around rewarding consistent users and customers, so it makes sense that a hotel loyalty program would offer an additional free night when redeeming a large sum of points for a booking.

With the fourth or fifth night free benefit, you receive an additional night when making a points-only hotel booking for a minimum number of nights within a hotel loyalty program. The nights must be consecutive, within one booking, and only use points as a way of paying for the booking. Hybrid payments of cash and points are not allowed.

Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, and IHG One Rewards are all hotel loyalty programs that offer this benefit, albeit in different ways.

Each program has a few caveats when it comes to taking advantage of this benefit and how it actually functions, which I will capture in the relevant sections below. Some may require having a certain elite status to take advantage, whereas others require holding a specific credit card. While all of these benefits are similar, the details are different, so don’t assume they all function the same.

Unfortunately, receiving the fourth or fifth night free is not a benefit that is offered by the two other major hotel programs: World of Hyatt and Wyndham Rewards. 

While this might seem like a major drawback, and it would be nice if it was available through these programs, the World of Hyatt program has a much more reasonable award chart than the other programs captured in this article and doesn’t have dynamic pricing.  Great value can still be had when redeeming points in that and other programs.

How Many Points Are Saved By Using The Free Night Benefit?

The total number of points that you will save depends on the hotel loyalty program you are using this benefit for and the nightly points rate of the hotel you are staying at. 

Obviously, the more expensive and luxury hotels will result in bigger savings, but it will also be a higher cost points redemption than a middle-of-the-road property. Let’s look at an example with the Marriott Bonvoy and Hilton Honors loyalty programs to showcase the value this benefit can offer.

As I’m planning on visiting Bora Bora in 2025, I’ve booked the Westin Bora Bora Resort & Spa for five nights at a total cost of 356,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. Using the fifth night free benefit with Marriott results in them wiping out the cheapest night of the stay, which in this example saved me 87,000 Marriott Bonvoy points or $1,600 CAD if I paid with cash for that night.

For a recent stay at the Conrad Tokyo, I redeemed 380,000 Hilton Honors points for a five-night stay. In actuality, I redeemed 95,000 points per night, for four nights total, and received the fifth night free. Utilizing this benefit saved me 95,000 Hilton Honors points or $680 CAD, which is what the last evening of my stay would have cost.

No matter the amount, points or cash savings are always good, and utilizing this benefit is definitely worth it if you can incorporate it into your travel plans.

Marriott Bonvoy – Get The Fifth Night Free

Marriott Bonvoy offers the fifth night free when making a consecutive five-night hotel booking using Bonvoy points. This benefit is available to all members with no status or other requirements and is only available on bookings that are entirely paid for with points (so cash + points bookings are not eligible).

Marriott Bonvoy free night certificates cannot be used towards the fifth night free bonus benefit. This means that if you wanted to redeem a free night as part of your stay, you would be better off making a five-night booking on points to receive the fifth night free, and then add a sixth night for free by redeeming a free night certificate.

Marriott Bonvoy is unique in how this benefit is actually implemented, as they effectively wipe out the point cost of your cheapest night. Since Marriott Bonvoy redemptions are dynamically priced, this can either be a fantastic deal or just a great deal, depending on what the points costs are looking like for your stay.

What this means is that if you make a five-night points redemption that includes four nights at 100,000 Bonvoy points and one night at 80,000 Bonvoy points, the 80,000 point night will be free and you will be charged a total of 400,000 Bonvoy points for your five-night stay.

It can be worth it to consider buying Marriott Bonvoy points to top-up your points balance to make a fifth night free redemption. Watch for when promotions are offered for either reduced pricing on points or additional points on a purchase.  Such promotions are typically offered several times a year.

How To Get The Fifth Night Free with Marriott Bonvoy

Utilizing the fifth night free with Marriott Bonvoy is easy. Members will need to visit the Marriott Bonvoy website or use the Marriott Bonvoy mobile app to search for their destination for at least a five-night stay and ensure they check the “Use Points/Awards” box before searching.

Once you land on the search page that lists all of the hotels in the destination you searched for, you’ll see the below message that denotes that you will receive a fifth night free for every four nights you book using Marriott Bonvoy points:

Selecting the hotel and room type that you want to book will bring you to the payment page. If you expand the “Summary of Charges” dropdown, you’ll see the nightly cost of your stay broken down, including the free night and the previous points cost for that night that is now free.

While the example pricing used above was to book a basic Marriott in Edmonton for five nights, this benefit still saved me 10,500 Marriott Bonvoy points for no extra effort.

Hilton Honors – Get The Fifth Night Free

Hilton Honors offers a similar benefit to Marriott Bonvoy. Mmembers will receive the fifth night free when making a consecutive five-night booking using Hilton Honors points. This benefit is capped at four free nights on a consecutive 20-night stay, so if you are planning on exceeding that limit you will need to check out and check back in under a different booking number.

However, this benefit is not available to all Hilton Honors members, as members must have at least Hilton Honors Silver Elite status to take advantage. Silver Elite only requires that members stay 10 nights during a calendar year, so it’s not a stretch to earn. Silver Elite status is also awarded as a benefit on the American Express Hilton Honors card (US), so it can be worth adding that card to your wallet if you’ve started with US credit cards.

However, Hilton Honors Gold is much more attainable for the miles and points enthusiast as it is offered on a number of credit cards both in Canada and the United States. Not to mention, Gold status also comes with the valuable Hilton breakfast benefit, so eligible cardholders should look to add the Gold status to their toolkit as soon as possible.

Finally, members cannot use Hilton free night certificates to take advantage of this benefit. This means that if you make a five-night booking, but one of those nights is completely free as a result of a free night certificate redemption, you would not be eligible to receive another free night through this benefit. 

Thus, if you want to use a free night certificate as part of your stay, it would make the most sense to add a sixth night on top of your booking, so you receive both the fifth night free benefit plus utilizing your free night certificate for an additional free night.

While buying miles and points is not something we typically recommend, buying Hilton Honors points to take advantage of this benefit can often make sense when they run promotions, as points can cost as low as 0.5 cents per point USD. If purchasing a small sum of points allows you to take advantage of this benefit and will save you far more than your cost of purchasing, it would definitely be worth it.

How To Get The Fifth Night Free with Hilton Honors

Receiving the fifth night free when making a five-night Hilton Honors redemption booking is simple. Visit the Hilton Honors website or open the Hilton Honors mobile app and search for the desired city or hotel you wish to visit.

In the below example, I’ve searched using the Conrad Koh Samui (one of my favorite hotels) which has a standard award availability rate of 95,000 Hilton Honors points per night. Standard award availability means it is the lowest rate available and usually books into the base room type.

Ensure you are searching for five nights, but if you don’t select specific dates you will receive the below calendar which is much more user-friendly when it comes to finding award availability fast.

Once you select your desired date, find the room type that offers the “Standard Room Reward” availability and click on that option.

Once you reach the payment screen, you won’t see anything that mentions that the benefit has been applied, but the total points required will show only what is required for four nights, yet you are making a booking for five nights.

Without the fifth night free benefit, this booking would have cost 475,000 Hilton Honors points, so you can see that you have saved 95,000 points by implementing your knowledge of this benefit.

IHG One Rewards – Get The Fourth Night Free

IHG One Rewards members will receive the fourth night free when making a four-night consecutive booking on points. This is the best deal out of the three hotel loyalty programs that offer this benefit, but definitely least useful for Canadians as IHG Rewards points are difficult to earn and the chain may not be as desirable as staying at Marriott & Hilton properties.

The fourth night free benefit is not available to all members as a default. Instead, IHG only offers the fourth night free benefit to members who hold one of their IHG co-branded credit cards, issued by Chase Bank in the United States:

• Chase IHG One Rewards Premier card
• Chase IHG One Rewards Premier Business card
• Chase IHG One Rewards Traveler card

When making an eligible four-night booking on points, IHG will automatically remove the cost of the fourth night. Members also cannot use any earned free night certificates as part of their four-night points booking if they wish to remain eligible for the fourth night free benefit.

Members can also purchase IHG One Rewards points to top-up their balance before making a redemption so they can take advantage of the fourth night free benefit on their next IHG award booking.

How To Get The Fourth Night Free with IHG One Rewards

Visit the IHG One Rewards website and type in your destination, dates, and other details, while ensuring you select “Reward Nights” in the “Rate Preference” dropdown box.

Select the hotel that has available reward nights, and you will be able to see how much a one-night stay costs before you select your room type.

If you hold an eligible credit card that grants you the fourth night free benefit, you will see the reduced total pricing on the payment page. For the above example, you would only have to pay 58,500 IHG One Rewards points for a four-night stay if you held an eligible credit card with the benefit, versus 78,000 IHG One Rewards points if you don’t hold an eligible card.

How To Get The Most Value From The Free Night Benefit

The fourth or fifth night free benefit is excellent no matter the property you are staying at. Cutting your effective redemption cost by up to 20% for Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors stays, or up to 25% for IHG One Rewards stays, is massive.

If you are looking to get the maximum value from this benefit, you want to look towards redeeming your hard-earned hotel loyalty program points for expensive and luxury properties. While they will cost a great number of points to stay for five nights, you will also save the greatest amount of points. 

This can in turn result in a massive saving on the potential cash rate for the room, but I’m also not one to pay $1,000 a night for a stay so I don’t consider this in my value proposition.

Additionally, getting the most value out of this benefit means actually implementing it. If you were planning on staying for four nights on points, consider adding an extra night onto your vacation. Even if you are flying out in the late evening, having your hotel room for the entire day would be a massive win, and considering that you wouldn’t be out of pocket for any additional points, this is a no-brainer benefit to take advantage of.

Conclusion

This is one of the best benefits available to members in the Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, and IHG One Rewards loyalty programs, and is a key tool in maximizing miles and points when it comes to hotel redemptions. Understanding how this benefit works and structuring your stays so you can take advantage will save you a significant amount of miles, points, or cash in the long term.

Frequently Asked Questions