How Much Is a Credit Card Point Worth? Well, that depends. Admittedly, I have expensive taste. I’m talking first-class airplane seats, five-star hotels, and Michelin-ranked meals. I do not, however, have the budget to support such a lavish lifestyle. Enter: credit card and brand loyalty points. For the last five years, I’ve been learning as much as I can about how to travel in style, without the spend. For our honeymoon, my husband Saúl and I flew in Singapore Suites. Last fall, we stayed at the Madrid EDITION and Hotel Marqués de Riscal in Spain. When we were getting ready to book our babymoon trip to Japan last year, I knew I wanted to stay at some very posh properties, so I got to work researching the best way to make that dream a reality.

The Objective Truth

There are a couple of different ways to consider how much a credit card point is worth. There is an objective valuation, where you compare the value per point to the sticker price of the experience/item. In this case, you’d have a good value redemption if you save money by using points.

You can use a chart, such as The Points Guy valuation chart. TPG is a fantastic resource to learn about booking travel using points. They do their best to consider multiple variables when creating this points calculator, but it isn’t perfect. Since our trip, TPG has come out with an Awards vs. Cash Calculator tool. Some people use a formula to determine the value of each point, but I’ve never done it that way. That’s why I’m so thankful that TPG provides resources like their charts and calculators.

The travel portals from your credit cards offer great insight into the value of each point. This is easy to understand when you see the way that they process points redemptions. Every time you redeem points toward something, the dollar amount for the booking will show up as a pending charge on your credit card statement. That way, you actually earn points on the redemption itself (cool, huh?). Then, the points will be deducted from your balance and the pending charge will be resolved. In that case, the true points valuation can be derived by dividing the dollar figure on the statement by the number of points used.

Subjective Consideration

From another perspective, you could consider any points redemption a win. In this view, you may not be getting the objective “best” value for each point, but you’re saving money because you’re using points earned from prior spending, rather than shelling out new cash.

Because I tend to be very logic-based and objective with my “real” (ie: cash) spending, I often buck the points calculator altogether and choose to be more emotion-based and subjective with my points redemptions. Below, I’m sharing two properties we chose for our Japan babymoon and how the points valuations stack up.

Our Redemptions

Four Seasons Tokyo at Otemachi: Feb. 23-27

Superior King, Imperial Garden View

What We Paid

195,190 Chase points plus approx. $6.28 in total taxes for nights 1 and 2 (includes daily breakfast)

• • TPG valuation @ 2 cents pp = $3,903.80
  • Chase Ultimate Rewards portal valuation = $2,927.86

155,758 Amex points for night 3 (includes daily breakfast, early check-in, late check-out, $100 credit) 

• • TPG valuation @ 2 cents pp = $3,115.16
  • Amex Travel valuation = $1,557.78

Best Rate Available on the Four Seasons Website

$4,576.79 (10% off best available room rate, includes daily breakfast)

This redemption is the perfect example of TPG valuations not being exact. In this case, our total TPG points calculator valuation ($7,018.96 ) was actually higher than the best available rate on the Four Seasons website, meaning that according to the TPG valuation, we spent an extra $2,442.17 by using points. However, when considering the Chase and Amex platforms’ evaluations ($4,545.64), the dollar value of the redemption is much closer to the Four Seasons’ best available rate, and in fact $31.15 less expensive. Because even the best available rate was way out of a realistic cash budget for us, using points valued at almost the same as the cash value was a decision that made sense for us. It enabled us to reserve money to spend on other parts of the trip, like train fare, tours, meals, and shopping! 

Ritz-Carlton Kyoto: Mar. 2-5

King Bed, Courtyard View (we were upgraded to a Grand Deluxe Kamogawa Larger Guest room, River view)

What We Paid

284,000 Marriott Points plus approx. $46.65 in taxes (includes daily breakfast, upgrade upon availability, early check-in, late check-out) – TPG valuation @ .084 pp = $2,385.60

Best Rate Available on the Marriott Website

$4,672.32 for Member Rate Prepay – Non-refundable Non-changeable, prepay in full, non-refundable if canceled more than 1 day after booking, no changes

Because we booked directly through the Marriott website, we didn’t have the option of an alternative points valuation through a bank or credit card portal. Therefore, the TPG valuation is how I assessed this booking. Using Marriott points (mostly accrued by Saúl during work travel) led to a huge savings of $2,286.72 on our booking compared to the best available Marriott rate. Thanks to Saúl’s Marriott Bonvoy status, we also got upgraded to a Grand Deluxe Kamogowa River View room.

This is an obvious situation of points redemptions offering incredible objective value. Plus, there was so much flexibility with our reservation in terms of check-in and check-out times and even the cancellation policy! If we were able to spend more time in Kyoto, we could have really stretched the value of this redemption by adding two more nights for the price of one by taking advantage of a member-exclusive offer of a fifth night free for every four booked.

A Final Note

So, how much is a credit card point worth? Ultimately, that depends on several variables, including how you think about money and whether you have the time to flex the benefits to their fullest.

Full transparency: we did encounter a hiccup midway through the trip when we checked in and immediately checked out of what was supposed to be our second luxury hotel in Tokyo. Unfortunately, the room was not up to our expectations, and we knew that we wouldn’t be comfortable there, especially with me being six months pregnant. We lost more than 200,000 Chase points on that redemption, which stung… a lot. Still, we were able to use the remaining points in our credit card accounts to book a discounted room with breakfast at another hotel in Tokyo. I was really hoping to avoid paying anything but taxes out of pocket, but that just wasn’t in the cards this trip. Lesson learned about non-refundable bookings.

Despite the unfortunate snafu, using points from our American Express, Chase, and Marriott accounts allowed us to indulge in an extremely luxe vacation without the spend generally associated with such niceties. 

Want to Travel like this?

To learn more about earning and spending points to live out your wildest travel dreams, click here to get my free beginner’s guide to traveling in style with credit card points. 

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