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Do you have plans to travel to a big game, a major concert, a large festival or a convention? How about celebrating the New Year or attending a college graduation out of town?

Sometimes, scoring tickets to a popular event can actually be the easy part. The hard part comes when you’re trying to find an affordable place to stay. Hotel owners and lodging hosts look forward to big events, and can raise their prices as high as the market will bear.

I recently stayed at the La Quinta Inn in Oshkosh, WI during the EAA AirVenture. This massive airshow, industry convention and aviation festival drew approximately 677,000 visitors over seven days to a small town in rural Wisconsin.

The budget hotel by the highway is nice enough, but it’s certainly not anything fancy. Yet it was selling rooms for approximately $600 a night, including taxes. Thankfully, I was able to stay three nights there for free by using travel rewards. 

The Best Hotel Loyalty Programs for Award Stays During Big Events

La Quinta Inn by Wyndham Oshkosh

La Quinta Inn by Wyndham Oshkosh

There are many hotel loyalty programs, and some seem to be designed to make it impossible to book free nights during peak occupancy periods. Thankfully, there are other loyalty programs that don’t seem to take into account local events when offering award nights, and may (unintentionally) make it easier to use your points to stay for free. 

The Wyndham Rewards® program is the best example of a big event-friendly loyalty program. Wyndham covers numerous budget brands including Days Inn, Super 8, Microtel, Howard Johnson, Travelodge, Ramada and La Quinta. The Wyndham Rewards program offers any unsold room available for one of their Go Free® awards, which are offered at three free night tiers at 7,500, 15,000 or 30,000 points per bedroom. 

And since the La Quinta Inn in Oshkosh, WI was charging such a high nightly rate, their rooms didn’t sell out that quickly, leaving me the opportunity to scoop one up. I earn plenty of Wyndham points from my Wyndham Rewards Earner® Business card, as well as the consumer version. You can also transfer points from Citi ThankYou® Rewards or Capital One® miles to the Wyndham program. 

Citi Premier® Card

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Secure application on issuer’s website

Rates & Fees
  • Our Rating 4.5/5 How our ratings work Read the review
  • APR21.24% - 29.24% (Variable)
  • Annual Fee$95
  • 60,000 60,000Citi ThankYou Points More Info

    Earn 60,000 bonus ThankYou Points after making $4,000 worth of purchases during the first three months of account opening. Dollar Equivalent: $1,080 (60,000 Citi ThankYou Points * 0.018 base)

The Citi Premier® Card, from our partner Citi, is worth considering if you’re looking for accelerated travel rewards but don’t want to pay a huge annual fee. It’s easy to quickly rack up lots of points on this card. While you can redeem ThankYou points for gift cards, you’ll get more value when you redeem points for flights and hotels, and potentially even better value when you transfer points to travel partners.

Overview

This credit card offers its members a range of incentives, such as bonus points, gift cards and 1:1 point transfers with airline partners. One of the more unique features of the Citi Premier® Card from our partner Citi is that it offers 3x ThankPoints for every dollar spent at supermarkets, gas stations, restaurants and travel purchases. Plus, new cardholders can earn 60,000 ThankYou Points after spending $4,000 during the first three months of account opening.

Perks

  • Earn 3x ThankYou Points per dollar spent on travel, grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations
  • Annual $100 hotel savings benefit. Just book a hotel stay of $500 or more through thankyou.com or 1-800-THANKYOU to earn the discount.
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Easily transfer your points to Citi's airline partners

Pros

  • High reward rate on common categories of consumer spending
  • Points are easily transferable to airlines and hotel partners
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Points never expire

Cons

  • $95 annual fee
  • No standout rewards category

Citi Custom Cash® Card

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Secure application on issuer’s website

Rates & Fees
  • Our Rating 4.5/5 How our ratings work Read the review
  • APR 19.24% - 29.24% (Variable)
  • Annual Fee$0
  • $200 $200Cash Bonus More Info

    Earn $200 in cash back after you spend $1500 on purchases in the first 6 months of account opening. This bonus offer will be fulfilled as 20,000 ThankYou® points, which can be redeemed for $200 cash back.

The Citi Custom Cash® Card, from our partner Citi, has a novel approach to rewarding spending. It offers impressive cash back on purchases made in your top eligible spending category each month, up to a monthly spend cap—no activation required.

Overview

If you want a card that doesn’t require constant category activation and monitoring to make sure you’re getting the highest cash back percentage, this is a great option. Whatever spending category that has the highest spend (up to $500) in one billing cycle gets 5% cash back. That’s up to $300 per year, and if you get the sign-up bonus you can get up to $500 in cash back your first year.

Pros

  • Relatively easy to maximize the 5% cash back reward and earn $300 per year
  • No annual fee
  • The cash back comes in the form of Citi ThankYou points, which can be redeemed for things like travel

Cons

  • 5% cash back tier is capped at $25 in earnings per month

Hilton Honors is another worthwhile program. I’m staying at a Hilton Garden Inn for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta this October. The annual Balloon Fiesta is a ton of fun, and it’s not just the biggest thing to happen each year in Albuquerque, it appears to be the only thing. In fact, you’ll find room rates soaring to even higher levels than the colorful hot-air ships that bring in hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. I attribute my success in booking a Hilton property with points to the sheer size of the Hilton program, as well as their policy of making unsold rooms available on points. 

World of Hyatt® is normally one of my favorite programs, but sadly, they tend to let me down during peak seasons and big events. That’s because they let hotels flagrantly manipulate the inventory that they offer as awards. While their policy is to offer any unsold standard room, their hotels find all sorts of creative ways to classify rooms as non-standard in some trivial way, exempting them from offering most of their rooms as awards. As a result, you’ll rarely find awards available during peak periods, even as the hotel continues to sell rooms that are standard in every way, save for a slight difference in its description. 

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A Complete Guide to the World of Hyatt Program

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IHG® One Rewards, the program for Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza and others, can also offer some award availability during peak events. I checked Albuquerque for rooms during the Balloon Fiesta two months beforehand and was surprised to find plenty of hotels available on points. That could be because IHG has so many properties, but it’s otherwise not a tremendously popular loyalty program. 

IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card

This product is currently not available via Slickdeals. All information about this product was collected by Slickdeals and has not been reviewed by the issuer.

  • Our Rating 4/5 How our ratings work Read the review
  • APR21.49% - 28.49% (Variable)
  • Annual Fee$0
  • 80,000 80,000IHG One Rewards Points More Info

    Earn 80,000 bonus points after spending $2,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening. Plus up to $50 in IHG® statement credits on purchases at IHG® Hotels and Resorts during the first 12 months from account opening. Dollar Equivalent: $400 (80,000 IHG One Rewards Points * 0.005 base)

Whether your family is looking for some free hotel nights for a road trip or you’re a loyal customer of the IHG hotel brand, this card offers you a chance to earn decent rewards. Aside from its generous sign-up bonus, it offers tons of value, including the option to redeem points at all IHG properties.

Overview

Whether you’re a family looking for some free hotel nights while making your annual road trip or you’re a loyal customer of the IHG hotel brand, the IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card — which has no annual fee, by the way — offers you a chance to earn some decent rewards.

Perks

  • No annual fee
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Silver Elite Status included with the card

Pros

  • One of the top picks for a no-annual-fee hotel credit card
  • Book three nights with points, get your fourth free
  • Entry-level Silver Elite status, with the chance to upgrade to Gold with $20,000 or more in annual spend

Cons

  • No free night account anniversary reward

IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card

This product is currently not available via Slickdeals. All information about this product was collected by Slickdeals and has not been reviewed by the issuer.

  • Our Rating 4.5/5 How our ratings work Read the review
  • APR21.49% - 28.49% (Variable)
  • Annual Fee$99
  • 140,000 140,000IHG One Rewards Points More Info

    Earn 140,000 Bonus Points after spending $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Plus, earn up to $100 in IHG® statement credits on purchases at IHG® Hotels and Resorts during the first 12 months from account opening. Dollar Equivalent: $700 (140,000 IHG One Rewards Points * 0.005 base)

Aside from its astounding sign-up bonus, this card offers tons of value, especially for loyal IHG customers, like a free Reward Night on your account anniversary and Platinum Elite status as long as you remain a Premier card member. Plus, it offers a Global Entry, NEXUS or TSA Pre✓® fee credit every four years, and IHG One Rewards Bonus points are redeemable at a variety of hotels.

Overview

Frequent customers of IHG hotels and other people who enjoy earning rewards nights for hotel stays and premium hotel status should consider picking up this card.

Pros

  • Generous rewards rate on IHG Hotels and Resorts purchases
  • Automatic IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite status which gets you perks like upgrades
  • Free reward night every account anniversary, with the potential to be worth hundreds of dollars

Cons

  • Has an annual fee
  • Only makes sense if you plan to stay at IHG properties

However, don’t even bother looking at Marriott Bonvoy™. Although it's a very large and popular program, it seems to allow properties to black out award nights during peak times. The Choice Privileges® program isn’t likely to be a good option either as they only allow award bookings within 100 days of an event. But it can be worth setting a reminder 100 days out, just in case the properties have increased their rates so high that there are still some rooms left. And thankfully, Citi ThankYou Rewards points transfer at a fantastic 1:2 ratio for points in the Choice Privileges program. That means that 10,000 Citi points become 20,000 Choice points. 

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Other Tips and Tricks for Getting a Hotel Room During a Big Event

crowd at a concert

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The first and most important thing to know about attending large events is to book your rooms as early as possible. Most hotels allow you to book rooms about a year in advance. So, if you’re attending an annual event, it means that you’ll want to book next year’s rooms around the time you go to this year’s event. 

You should also book speculatively, as hotel awards can typically be canceled without any penalty (and hotels will be thrilled to sell them for top dollar). So, if you’re angling for tickets to a big concert, or hoping to see your team in the playoffs, book your hotel before the event even goes on sale or your team has advanced. 

And if you find available award nights, consider booking a second room just in case you have other family or friends that want to join you. You can always cancel it later, but offering that room to someone will make you a hero!

Another trick is to keep looking. Before big events, hotels will often block out rooms for large groups that are attending. But they will often release any unused rooms as the event approaches. To find out when these rooms are released, simply call the property and ask to speak with a manager. Tell them that you really want to stay there, and ask them if they know when or if they’ll be releasing rooms from an unsold block. 

Bottom Line

Concerts, sporting events, festivals and graduations can be great fun to attend, but not if you have to pay outrageous amounts for nearby lodging. By using the best hotel loyalty programs and understanding how to maximize them, you could find yourself staying for free, even as others are paying top dollar.

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JS

Jason Steele

Jason Steele is a journalist who specializes in covering credit cards, award travel and other areas of personal finance. As one of the nation’s leading experts in the credit card industry, Jason’s work has been featured at mainstream outlets such as Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money and Business Insider.