The Ultimate Guide to…

Booking Hawaii Hotels with Points

If you’ve been dreaming of a Hawaii vacation, you’ve probably noticed that the most expensive part of your trip is going to be the hotel room. Depending on the time of year, luxury resorts can run from $500 per night to $1,500 per night. And that’s just for a standard room.

Are the resorts in Hawaii amazing? Yes.
Do we want to spend that much for a trip to Hawaii? No.

Sure, you can find more affordable condos or boutique hotels. And we enjoy doing that! We’ve stayed at or toured over 75 hotels and vacation rentals in Hawaii, and we’ve found some gems.

But sometimes you want a luxury vacation on a backpacker’s budget.
And that’s what we’re here to show you.

Let us show you step-by-step

How to book three different places to stay in Hawaii for free

Points & Miles Overview

The cornerstone of using points & miles is taking advantage of sign-up bonuses that credit card companies offer. With these bonuses, they’ll give you a set number of points when you reach a minimum spending amount. 

For example, a credit card company might offer 60,000 points after you spend $4,000 in the first three months. 

These sign-up bonuses are gold. They are where you can see your vacation dreams come to life because some of our favorite hotels in Hawaii can be had for as little as 25,000 points per night. That’s right, 2 free nights just like that. 

But we’re not done yet. There is so much more you can do to get 5+ nights for free at a Hawaii hotel. 

Credit Card Points

One really important thing to understand about credit card points is that they are not all considered equal. 

Non-transferable points

These are points you earn from branded hotel or airline credit cards. They can only be used with the airline or hotel that is awarding the points. For example, opening a Marriott credit card that comes with Marriott Bonvoy Points means you can only use those points to stay at a Marriott hotel or a Marriott vacation rental. This restrict your travel options, but the sign-up bonus and perks will pay for a hotel room!

Transferable points (Wild Cards)

These are the points you earn from non-hotel or airline branded cards. These are bank cards. These points can often be transferred to travel partners (but not always, which we’ll cover in the next section). For example, our favorite travel card and luxury card offer points which you can transfer to a travel partner, like Hyatt or Marriott. This provides you a lot more freedom and flexibility when it comes to booking your free travel.

Use a credit card with transferable points to get flexibility booking different hotels or airlines. Like a Wild Card in your Uno hand.

While transferable points are amazing, there are also reasons to get credit cards that offer non-transferable points, which we’ll go over below.

Our Favorite Transferable Points Card Combinations

I’ll be honest: we have a lot of credit cards that we’ve opened to get points for free travel. It took us a while to come up with the credit card combinations that worked the best for us, and these combinations change based on our travel goals.

But there is one combination that stands out as the best beginner formula out there.

We love to start with this transferable card as they often offer great rewards. The card has a $95 annual fee, but we find the benefits offset the cost. Points on this card can be directly transferred to Hyatt, Marriott, United Airlines, and other travel partners. 

Transfering points is simple. A bit terrifying for your first time, but they do make it easy. Instructions are in the Important Things to Know below.

This is how it could look:

1

First open a personal transferable points card like this one

  • Our partner link for our top travel credit card
  • Earn 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
  • Enjoy point multipliers on travel and everyday purchases
  • $95 annual fee (due a year after opening the card)
  • Count on Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance, Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver, Lost Luggage Insurance and more
Learn More

2

You have two options for you next play: open a transferable points business card or a non-transferable points card.

The business card will provide more points and flexibility. See if you qualify for a business card (hobbies count!)

2A

This business card is perfect for free nights and has transferable points.

  • Our partner link to our top business travel card
  • Earn 90,000 bonus points after you spend $8,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
  • Points are worth more when you redeem on the bank’s travel portal
Learn More

2B

This hotel-branded card is our top hotel for points in Hawaii. With sign-up, you can get 2 to 3 free nights at the Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach.

  • Our non-partner link to free nights at Hyatt Place
  • This is a two-tiered signup bonus with the first bonus being 2 Free Award Nights at any Category 1-4 Hyatt property earned after spending $4,000 on the card within the first 3 months. Hyatt Place Waikiki is the only Category 4 in Hawaii.
  • The second bonus offer is an extra 25,000 points when you spend $12,000 in the first 6 months from account opening.
  • Choose the non-business card
Learn More

3

When you’re ready to book your hotel, transfer points from your transferable card to the hotel program, like World of Hyatt or Marriott Bonvoy. We recommend World of Hyatt as your points will go further.

Book a Stay at the Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach

This value hotel, located a block from Waikiki Beach, is the best travel rewards deal in Hawaii. As the only Category 4 Hyatt hotel in Hawaii, you can get the Hyatt card for 2 free nights with the initial sign-up bonus. You can get an additional night with the 2nd sign-up bonus.

Get even more nights! If you get our favorite travel card, that 75,000 point sign-up bonus is equivalent to an additional 5 nights. That’s 7 to 8 free nights with 2 cards!

If you avoid the peak months of summer and holidays (18,000 points), you can get a standard room for 15,000 points a night.

Paying cash for 7 nights cost $1,925!

For this example, I’ve chosen to book 2 nights in March (March 10 – 12, 2026).

If you were to book these 2 nights with cash, you would pay $634. Instead, you can book the same room for 30,000 points. 

One of the cards below will get you free nights. Choose a transferable card or go with the hotel branded card, or both. I recommend the points transfer cards (personal and/or business) because they are the best overall travel cards for your future vacations!

Best Travel Card
Business Cards
Hotel Card

Book a Stay at the Grand Hyatt Kauai

There are some great Hyatt properties in Hawaii and they all offer good points redemption, especially if you can travel during the low season. 

In this example, I’ll show you how we can book free nights at the Grand Hyatt Kauai. The Grand Hyatt Kauai is a Category 8 Hotel, so you can expect a standard room to cost:

  • 35,000 points per night in the off-peak (must book 1 yr out!)
  • 40,000 points per night during the standard booking period
  • 45,000 points per night during the peak season (think: holidays, school vacations, and summer)

The 75,000 point sign-up bonus with our favorite card will get you one room; hence, this luxury resort is best paired with a business card to earn more nights.

Grand Hyatt Kauai Points Example

For this example, I’ve chosen to book 4 nights in May (May 8 – May 12, 2026).

If you were to book these four nights using money, you would pay $3,909. Instead, you can book the same room for 160,000 points. 

Grand Hyatt Kauai cash example

To earn these points, there are a few card combinations that can help you earn enough points to get these nights for free. A simple one is a combination of the two cards listed at the top of the lists:

Favorite Travel Card
Business Card

Book a Stay at the Andaz Maui (Hyatt)

Here is another high end resort in the luxury destination of Wailea, in South Maui. This is a Category 8 hotel, the highest Hyatt rewards category. Here is our full review on the Andaz Maui with Points.

Four nights at this resort are going to cost a minimum of 140,000 points, if you travel during off-peak times. For this example, I’ve picked four nights in March 2026, which cost 160,000 points total with a standard booking period.

Paying cash would cost $3,807!

Andaz Maui points 4 nights
Andaz Maui cash rates
Andaz total cost

To get to this higher points balance for four nights will require a personal card and a businss card. Or, your spouse applies for a personal card too. See our two-player strategy below. The combination would look like:

Personal Card
Business Card

Important Things to Know

Transferring points is scary and simple, at the same time. Is this how you want to spend your points? Yes!

This example is using our favorite travel card and/or their business cards.

  1. Log in to your account and enter the rewards portal
  2. Within the portal, access the “Transfer to Travel Partners” section
  3. Choose your travel partner: World of Hyatt, Marriott Bonvoy, United Airlines, etc.
  4. Transfer your rewards points. Transfer only the points you need for the reservation you want to make.

If you qualify for a business card (read this!), this is the combination I personally signed up for. With this, you’ll get as many as five nights at a luxury hotel for free at the time of writing this: one personal card and one business card. If you have a partner, you can double these points!

Click the buttons to check current sign-up offers.

Learn More: Personal
Learn More: Business

This isn’t a rigid rule, but rather a best practice. Once you’ve opened your new card, earned the sign-up bonus, and have spent the points, you might be tempted to cancel the card right away. Hit the pause button for a minute. It’s best practice to keep your card open for at least 12 months before you decide what to do with it. 

After you’ve passed the year mark, you can decide whether you want to:

  • Keep the card
  • Downgrade the card to one without an annual fee
  • Cancel the card

One of the first things I’m asked about when using points and miles is how it affects my credit score. Hard inquiries, which happen when you apply for a credit card, do affect your score, but it’s less of a factor than other things like your overall credit utilization and your outstanding balance. 

I work hard to ensure that all of my credit cards are paid off monthly and that I never miss a payment. I’ve seen no adverse effects on my credit score from using points and miles. Erica and I both have credit scores over 800. See our 7 Credit Card Myths Debunked for more FAQs on reward travel.

If you have a partner who is on board with using points and miles, you can really accelerate your points accumulation. A two-player strategy means that you have two people actively working to earn points. 

Here’s how it works for my wife and me: we each open separate credit cards. When I open a credit card, I do not include him as an authorized user on my card, and he does not include me as an authorized user on his card. We keep things separate and work to accumulate our own bank of points.

When we travel, we usually take turns booking hotels and flights. For example, Erica booked the Hana Maui Resort while I used points to book the Westin Maui (Marriott). 

Both Marriott and Hyatt allow you to combine points, with some restrictions. So if you’re saving up points between two people for a week-long trip, you’re able to transfer points to make the reservation under one account.

You can apply for a few cards each year without negatively impacting your credit score. Here is an example.

You opened our favorite travel card and earned a 75,000-point welcome offer. Then you referred your spouse to the same card and earned a 15K referral bonus. Your spouse also earned the 75,000-point welcome offer. Together, you now have over 165,000 reward points, and it probably took you about six months to meet your minimum spending requirements on both cards.

Let’s say you want to use your points to transfer to Hyatt for some fantastic free hotel award nights, so maybe you will get an airline credit card next. The United card offers a welcome bonus of 60,000 miles, so apply for that. Then you refer your spouse to the same card and get a referral bonus of 10,000 miles. They also receive 60,000 miles, and you now have 130,000 United miles. (You will actually earn more than that because of your spending to meet the requirement. I’m just keeping it simple for this example, though.)

You’ve now earned over 295,000 points for the year. You can do a ton of traveling with that!

When booking your hotel room, be sure to review the cancellation policies closely. Some hotels require you to cancel well in advance; otherwise, you might forfeit your points. So as always, read the fine print.

I currently need to buy a new bed. It’s going to be a big purchase and one that I can use to meet minimum spend requirements. So, before I press ‘buy’ on that new bed, I’m first getting a new credit card. 

With our family, our grocery bill and other everyday expenses can help us meet some sign-up bonuses. Life is expensive; see how you can use that to your advantage.

I don’t sign up for a credit card unless I have a plan to meet the minimum spend requirements to receive the welcome bonus. How disappointing would it be to fall short and not receive the welcome bonus?

Before you apply for a new credit card, think of how you’re going to meet the minimum spending requirements (without spending just to spend…because that would be counterproductive).

Ready to Find Your Perfect Resort?

We have reviews of our favorite hotels in Hawaii that can be booked with points.

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