How NerdWallet Rates Hotel Rewards Programs
NerdWallet’s overall ratings for hotel reward programs are weighted averages of ratings in the following categories:
Effective rewards rate (30%).
Elite status value rate (30%).
Resort and parking fees (30%).
Pet fees and policies (10%).
How we picked the programs to evaluate
Data collection and review process
Information updates
The review team
In addition to appearing on NerdWallet, the work of our team members has been published by The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Nasdaq, MSN, MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance and other national and regional media outlets. The travel team’s writers and editors combined have more than 40 years of experience in travel, travel rewards and credit cards.
Methodology, broken down by category
Effective rewards rate
We collect the dollar value of each program’s rewards points and the earnings rate of those points (the number of points you earn per dollar spent) to arrive at an effective rewards rate.To determine this rate, we multiply the value of each point (based on hundreds of real-world bookings) by the earnings rate, then multiply that total by 100. As a formula, that’s: (Value x Earnings Rate) x 100 = Effective Rewards Rate.
For example, if a hotel’s rewards points are worth $0.01 apiece (Value) and 10 points are earned per dollar spent (Earnings Rate), its program would have a 10% rewards rate. Here’s that math: ($0.01 x 10) x 100 = 10%