MaxMyPoint Review [Hotel Award Availability, Alerts, Pricing]

We’ve seen quite a few hotel award search engines pop up in the last few years, but my favorite has been — and continues to be — MaxMyPoint. It’s older than the others and a little less beautiful, but it’s such a powerful tool for finding hotel award space. Let’s take a look at how MaxMyPoint works, what it can do, and how much it’ll cost you to use.

What Is MaxMyPoint?

MaxMyPoint is a search engine that shows you available award rooms at hotel chains Marriott, Hilton, IHG, and Hyatt.

With the ability to display up to a year of award space at a time, it’s incredibly simple to find rooms at sought-after properties in the Maldives and Bora Bora.

It also helps you figure out which hotel chains have award space wherever you’re traveling, no matter when you’re going.

It’s difficult to put into words how revolutionary MaxMyPoint is. Prior to its launch, we had defunct programs such as AwardMapper (which didn’t show live award availability) and Hotel Hustle (which I still desperately miss).

If you wanted to stay at a hotel using your points, you’d have to navigate individually to each chain’s website, put in your dates of stay (or hope they had a rate calendar), and see what was available.

For aspirational properties such as the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi or the Alila Ventana Big Sur, this was a lot like sifting for gold in a river full of mud.

MaxMyPoint Pricing

Probably the coolest thing about MaxMyPoint is that it’s free to use. Although the site’s results are more limited if you’re a free user, the fact that it doesn’t lock them behind a paywall is more than generous.

However, there are benefits to being a paid member:

Some of these features may be a little less intuitive, especially when it comes to different alert types, but it’s nice that even free members are allowed to set an alert.

Note that no matter how much you’re paying, there are still limits as to how many detailed hotel views you’ll get in a day. This is the ability to click on a property and search its whole calendar for reward rooms.

While it’s understandable (since that’s probably pretty intensive on the website), it’s also disappointing when compared to other sites, such as PointsYeah, which don’t have this limitation.

Finding Hotel Award Space With MaxMyPoint

Using MaxMyPoint to search for hotel award space is easy. The site lists the most popular hotels on its front page, so looking for ways to maximize your points is easy. Otherwise, you can type in the location or the property you’re looking for on the site’s search bar.

What’s nice about the search function is that there are quite a few filters, including:

• Location
• Hotel chain
• Hotel brand
• Hyatt award chart category
• Median nightly point range

This lets you customize your results so that you’re only finding what’s relevant.

Here’s an example of a search for a property in the Maldives, which is one of the best places to redeem your points:

As you can see, MaxMyPoint pops up with 17 results from Hyatt, IHG, Hilton, and Marriott. Right up front, the site shares a few details:

• The percentage of award rooms available throughout the year
• The dollar value of your points when redeemed at this hotel
• The exact location of the property

Clicking into a detailed view of a property brings up a calendar and more information:

As you can see, the calendar will show you how many rooms are available, when there is availability, the cash rate per night, how recently these results were updated, and your cents-per-point redemption value.

You can also choose to show room availability as a list, which is more efficient since you can scroll through the whole year at once. The list will show you what type of room is available, which you’re not able to see on the calendar view.

Once you’ve found dates that work for you, you can click on the date, and the site will redirect you to the hotel’s booking page.

Results for less popular properties aren’t refreshed as often as those in high demand, so some results you see on MaxMyPoint may be outdated.

If you have a specific hotel in mind and it’s not one that people usually search for, you can set an alert to have the site keep results fresh and notify you when rooms become available.

Bottom Line:

MaxMyPoint’s search function is fast and easy to use, plus it automatically redirects you to the booking site.

Setting MaxMyPoint Alerts

MaxMyPoint allows you to set alerts for when award rooms become available at your desired property. However, its alert system is more detailed than you’ll find on competing sites and also includes some unique features:

• Any Day Alert: Alerts you when an award room on any day of your specified time period becomes available (or when pricing changes)
• Daily Change Alert: Alerts you when any day in the calendar gains new award availability
• Holiday Alert: Alerts you when holiday dates become available for your specified hotel
• Standard Alert: Alerts you when the full stay for your property becomes available

Note that although MaxMyPoint has a limiter for hot hotel alerts, it doesn’t seem to have much function since it matches the maximum number of alerts you can have at any given time.

Hot Tip:

You can also set an alert for cash rates with both IHG and Hyatt!

MaxMyPoint Deals

MaxMyPoint isn’t just great for finding award space at hotels … it’s also good for making sure that you maximize your points. That’s where the deals page comes into play.

This page shows live award availability for the most costly hotels at their most expensive periods. It’s useful if you have flexibility when traveling and want to be sure you’re getting the best redemption value for your points.

MaxFHR

A new feature within MaxMyPoint, MaxFHR offers something you won’t find anywhere else: the ability to search and find hotels where you can redeem the up to $200 Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts credit offered by The Platinum Card^® from American Express.

This credit, upon enrollment, gives you up to $200 each year toward prepaid hotel stays booked with the Fine Hotels + Resorts program. The only downside to this credit is that participating hotels can be really expensive, making it difficult to find a place to use it.

MaxFHR aims to fix that by searching and sorting out all the participating hotels to ensure you’re properly redeeming the credit.

As you can see, you can filter by the type of credit you’ll receive, as well as any special offers that are available (such as a third night free).

Once you’ve clicked on a property, you’ll be taken to a calendar page showing you the cash rate for each night at your selected hotel:

You can then click on the calendar to be redirected to Amex’s booking page:

MaxFHR is still in development and rates aren’t updated super frequently. This means you’ll likely encounter phantom rates or availability, so keep that in mind when searching.

Final Thoughts

MaxMyPoint is an excellent search engine for those looking to redeem their hotel points. Not only is it free to use, but it also offers detailed information and a year’s worth of award availability for properties. It also features an award alert system that is superior to competitors, plus a nifty tool for redeeming your $200 Amex FHR credit.