There are a large range of hotel partners where you can earn Airpoints Dollars when you stay.

This guide is intended as an overview of the various options for those wanting to boost their Airpoints Dollar balances by staying at select hotels when travelling for leisure or business.

Airpoints Hotel Partners

Air New Zealand has partnered with a number of hotels and resorts inside and outside New Zealand. If you book directly with one of these partners, you’ll earn Airpoints Dollars for your stay, if on a qualifying rate.

To earn Airpoints Dollars, show your Air New Zealand membership card during check-in or add your frequent flyer number to the hotel booking over the phone or online before you stay.

This table has the participating Hotel Partners and the number of Airpoints Dollars you can earn. Note that spend rates are usually exclusive of taxes. Many of these hotels also provide some opportunity to earn points on other spend, such as room service and dining.

¹ Excludes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

You’ll see that some hotels offer a fixed number of Airpoints Dollars regardless of stay length, others tie it to your spend. So you’ll need to calculate what hotel will offer the best return on your spend, based on room rate and length of stay.

If you’re staying in a hotel for a week, you’re almost always likely to end up earning more Airpoints Dollars with a hotel that ties the earn rate to the spend rate – for example, 7 nights at the Intercontinental Adelaide at AU$200 per night before taxes would earn you only 20 Airpoints Dollars. The same stay at the Hilton Adelaide at AU$127 per night before taxes (assuming no change in rate) however would earn you 37 Airpoints Dollars (after the NZD conversion), plus a cache of HHonors Points.

In the reverse, a 1 night stay at the Intercontinental Adelaide would still see you earning 20 Airpoints Dollars, but only 5 Airpoints Dollars at the Hilton Adelaide.

Make sure you refer to each hotel partner’s website for more information on how to earn Airpoints Dollars and specific terms and conditions.

The key terms are:

• Hotel reservations booked through a travel agent, online booking site, Air New Zealand Holidays or the Air New Zealand website for stays at Airpoints hotel partners may not be eligible to earn Airpoints Dollars.
• Some stays or rates are not eligible to earn Airpoints Dollars and some properties within each brand do not participate in the Airpoints programme.

If you’re unsure and earning Airpoint Dollars is important to you, make sure to always check with the hotel for further information. It’s often as simple as a quick email.

Stay a night at the Langham Auckland for $239, and earn 20 Airpoints Dollars

Double Dip?

Unique to the Hilton HHonors programme, you can earn both HHonors Points and Airpoints Dollars, by following these simple steps:

1. Be a Hilton HHonors and Airpoints member if you’re not already.

2. Select Air New Zealand as your preferred airline partner through the HHonors dashboard, and add your Airpoints member number.

3. Select Points & Miles as your Double Dip earning style.

Earn Airpoints Dollars from hotel stays by transferring hotel loyalty program points to Airpoints

You can also earn Airpoints Dollars when you transfer your existing hotel loyalty program points from participating hotel partners to your Airpoints account.

The table below shows the transfer rate for the relevant hotel partner, and how much you need to spend to earn the minimum number of points required to redeem for Airpoints Dollars (APD). You usually won’t earn points on the tax component of hotel stays however Choice Hotels is the exception in the case of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

Note that these numbers are based on you not having elite status with any of these programs.

While these hotels offer the ability to convert their own membership points into Airpoints Dollars, you could also choose to earn Airpoints Dollars direct. So which is the best option? We’ve run through the different programs below to show how you can collect the most Airpoints Dollars:

Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG)

Starwood offer a generous fixed number of Airpoints Dollars per stay if you earn directly into your Airpoints account, particularly in Australia (and New Zealand allegedly, but they don’t have any hotels here – yet).

However for extended stays, short stays with a high nightly rate, or holidays overseas, you may be better off earning Starpoints and then converting into Airpoints Dollars.

• If you’re staying at a Starwood hotel in Australia, and the cost of your stay will be US$1300 or less before tax, get your Airpoints Dollars credited directly into your Airpoints account. Anything more, choose to earn Starpoints instead.

• If you’re staying at a Starwood hotel overseas, and the cost of your stay will be US$650 or less before tax, get your Airpoints Dollars credited directly into your Airpoints account. Anything more, choose to earn Starpoints instead.

Starpoints have a super low minimum transfer rate, so the maths doesn’t get much more complicated than that!

The Sydney Westin, a Starwood Hotel

Choice Privileges Rewards Program

In Australia and New Zealand, you will earn 1 Airpoints Dollar per AUD/NZD$20 spend.

If you chose to earn Choice Privileges Points instead, and then convert, you would only earn 1 Airpoints Dollar per US$40 (AUD$53/NZD$56) spend.

Therefore for Choice Hotels in Australia and New Zealand, it is significantly better value to earn Airpoints Dollars directly into your Airpoints account.

Elsewhere in the world, you will earn 10 Airpoints Dollar per stay.

Generally, if the cost of all your stays with Choice Hotels overseas would be less than US$2000 before tax, get your Airpoints Dollars credited directly into your Airpoints account. Otherwise you wouldn’t earn enough Choice Privileges Points to do a conversion.

However if you travel overseas often and prefer to stay at Choice Hotels, you may be better off earning Choice Privileges Points and then converting. As an example, for stays that cost at least US$100 per night before taxes:

• An individual stay of 20 nights or more would earn you at least 50 Airpoints Dollars, instead of only 10.
• Two stays at 10 nights each would earn you 50 Airpoints Dollars, instead of only 20.
• Four stays at 5 nights each would earn you 50 Airpoints Dollars, instead of only 40.

You can change your earning preference at any time, so make sure you do the maths before your stay so you can work out what will earn you the highest number of Airpoints Dollars.

Quality Hotel Parnell, Auckland

Hilton HHonors

As discussed earlier, Hilton HHonors makes your decision much easier, by allowing you to ‘Double Dip’ and earn HHonors points and Airpoints Dollars at the same time. This should be your earning option if you want to maximise your Airpoints Dollars earn rate.

If you choose to Double Dip, you’ll earn 1 Airpoints Dollar per US$25 spend, directly into your Airpoints account.

On top of that, you’ll earn up to 10 HHonors points per US$1 spend. Once you have 10,000 HHonors points, you can redeem these for another 20 Airpoints Dollars, if you so wish. This equates to 1 Airpoints Dollar per US$50 spend.

All up, you’ll be earning up to an effective 1.5 Airpoints Dollars per US$25 spend.

If you didn’t double dip, you’d only earn up to 1 Airpoints Dollar per US$33 spend. Makes for an easy choice!

Hilton Auckland

IHG Rewards

The premise for earning Airpoints Dollars with IHG Rewards is similar to that for international Choice Hotels.

For Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts, you will earn 20 Airpoints Dollars per stay. All other IHG brands will see you earning 10 Airpoints Dollars per stay.

Generally, if the cost of all your stays with the Intercontinental and other IHG branded hotels would be less than US$1000 before tax, get your Airpoints Dollars credited directly into your Airpoints account. Otherwise you wouldn’t earn enough IHG Rewards Points to do a conversion.

However if you travel often and prefer to stay at IHG Hotels, you may be better off earning IHG Rewards Points and then converting. As an example, for stays that cost at least US$100 per night before taxes:

• An individual stay of 10 nights or more would earn you at least 25 Airpoints Dollars, instead of only 10 – 20.
• Two stays at the Crowne Plaza at 5 nights each would earn you 25 Airpoints Dollars, instead of only 20.
• Four stays at the Holiday Inn at 5 nights each, which would earn you 50 Airpoints Dollars, instead of only 40.

The above scenarios exclude Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites (predominantly located in the U.S.), which have a lesser IHG Rewards Points earn rate of 5 points per US$1.

You can change your earning preference at any time, so make sure you do the maths before your stay so you can work out what will earn you the highest number of Airpoints Dollars.

Intercontinental Wellington

Conclusion

Out of the four programs where you can convert hotel reward points into Airpoints Dollars, Hilton HHonors wins hands down for simplicity. While they don’t have the highest earn rate out of all the Airpoints partner hotels, their ‘Double Dip’ offer is easy to understand and take advantage of, the program and earn rates are consistent internationally, and you won’t require any maths to figure out whether you’re getting the best deal.

Choice Hotels makes the decision easy in Australia and New Zealand, with a decent direct earn rate that is far more competitive than earning and converting Choice Privileges Points.

SPG have the lowest points conversion rate, which makes it relatively simple to make a decision on whether to earn Airpoints Dollars direct, or to earn Starpoints and later convert.

For Choice Hotels internationally, and IHG branded hotels, I recommend that you do some maths before your stay, because the scenarios can always work out different – it can depend on room rate, the frequency of stays with that chain, and the average number of nights. There is a lot to think about in terms of getting the best Airpoints Dollars value for your spend with these programs.

Keep in mind that there are often hotel bonus promotions that allow you to earn extra points, which may affect whether direct earn or conversion is the better deal.

You may also be an elite member of one of these programs, in which case your minimum spend to earn points and redeem for Airpoints Dollars will be even less – take this into account when doing the maths.

Missing Points?

Air New Zealand advises that you should allow up to 60 days for your Airpoints Dollars to appear in your account, and to retain your original receipts or invoices in order to claim any missing Airpoints Dollars. This is often not a problem with most of the hotel chains as your receipts and stay information tend to be tied to your account and available to access online.

Should you find yourself needing to make a claim, you can do so through logging into your Air New Zealand online account, and selecting the My Bookings tab, then the Claim missing Airpoints button. You must claim missing Airpoints Dollars within 6 months of your stay.

Summary

The number of Airpoints Dollars you could earn depends on how much you travel, whether it’s predominately domestic or international, and the nightly rates of individual hotels. Make sure you do the maths.

If you don’t stay frequently at one hotel chain, it can be more lucrative to earn Airpoints Dollars instead. As 1 Airpoint Dollar equals NZD $1 on flights booked with Air New Zealand, you can instantly see real value, particularly on domestic legs.

For example, three 1 night stays at three different hotels – the Intercontinental Wellington, Sofitel Auckland, and Westin Sydney – will see you earning 80 Airpoints Dollars, which is enough for a one-way Auckland to Wellington flight through grabaseat.

Keep an eye on your hotel bookings to make sure you’re not missing out on Airpoints Dollars for your next stay.

Featured Photo courtesy of Langham Sydney