As someone who books travel for hundreds of families per year, one of the questions I get is whether resorts like Four Seasons can be booked on points.

The answer is technically yes, but it’s probably not the redemption you want to make.

Unlike Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton, and IHG, Four Seasons doesn’t have a loyalty program, and there is no such thing as status unless you’re a seriously high roller, and most loyal guests never get an invite to that particular echelon.

There are no free night certificates, no award charts, and no way to transfer points directly into a Four Seasons account. The only way to use points for a Four Seasons stay is typically through a credit card travel portal, where your points function more like cash.

While that sounds appealing on the surface, the value is usually extremely poor compared to what those same points could do elsewhere.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Four Seasons Hualalai Example

Let’s use one of my favorite resorts in Hawaii as an example.

A five-night stay at Four Seasons Hualalai can easily cost around $6,500, depending on the season and room category. If you wanted to cover that stay entirely with points through a credit card portal, you’d likely need somewhere around 650,000 transferable points.

At first glance, a free $6,500 hotel stay sounds pretty great.

But here’s what I always ask myself: What else could those points do?

What 650,000 Points Could Buy Instead

This March, our family of 3 flew round trip from San Francisco to Singapore in business class using credit card points I’d transferred directly to Singapore Airlines. We actually never fly over 6 hours in coach, and I do it almost entirely on points – points I wouldn’t have if I used them for meager hotel redemptions (more on how that works here).

This wasn’t a quick domestic flight. This was a 16+ hour international flight in lie-flat seats, with lounge access, excellent food, and enough room to actually sleep.

Had we paid cash, those tickets would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $15,000 per person.

For a family of three, that’s roughly $15,000 to $45,000 worth of flights.

The same 650,000 points that could have covered a $6,500 Four Seasons stay instead got us across the world in a way we never would have paid for out of pocket.

So why offset hotel room costs for a value of $6500 when you can get $45k of value instead??

That’s why I always recommend using transferable points for flights rather than luxury hotels.

Why Points Are Usually Better for Flights

Most people can justify spending money on a hotel.

Maybe not every year, and maybe not at Four Seasons prices, but hotels are often the part of a trip people are willing to splurge on.

Business class flights are different.

Spending $5,000 to $7,000 per person on airfare is something most travelers would never do, no matter how nice the experience is.

That’s where points become incredibly powerful.

Instead of saving a few thousand dollars on a hotel, you can unlock an experience that would otherwise feel completely out of reach.

Whenever I’m deciding how to use transferable points, I ask myself one simple question:

Would I rather have something I could eventually pay for, or something I’d probably never buy with cash?

The answer is almost always flights.

What We Do Instead

Personally, I’d rather pay cash for a Four Seasons hotel and save my points for premium cabin flights.

That approach also allows us to take advantage of Four Seasons Preferred Partner benefits, which can add a surprising amount of value to a stay.

When clients book through us as a Four Seasons Preferred Partner, they typically receive:

• Daily breakfast for two (often $120+ daily value)
• $100+ Resort credit
• ⬆️ Room upgrades when available (and we’ve gotten them plenty!)
• ⏰ Early check-in when available
• Late checkout when available
• ⭐ VIP recognition throughout the stay

At many Four Seasons properties, breakfast alone can easily save hundreds of dollars over the course of a trip, and room upgrades can make an even bigger difference.

Unlike points bookings through a travel portal, these benefits are designed specifically for Four Seasons guests and are only available through Four Seasons Preferred Partners, which I happen to be! Best of all, the booking is still made via the Four Seasons website, just with our agent login, and your booking and credit card charge will still come directly from the Four Seasons itself – no third party.

When It Might Make Sense to Use Points

If you have a massive stash of points, don’t travel internationally, rarely fly business class, or simply prefer hotel stays over flights, then using points through a credit card portal can absolutely make sense.

Points are only valuable if they help you travel in a way that makes you happy.

But if your goal is maximizing value, it’s hard to ignore the difference.

Would I rather spend 650,000 points on a $6,500 hotel stay?

Or use those same points to potentially unlock $15,000 to $20,000 worth of international business class flights?

For our family, the answer is easy.

My Take

I love Four Seasons hotels. They’re some of my favorite properties in the world, and I happily pay cash to stay at them and earn 3x points on my card of choice to buy more flights with.

What I don’t love is spending hundreds of thousands of transferable points on hotel rooms when those same points could unlock experiences that would otherwise be unattainable.

So while there technically is a way to book Four Seasons on points, I almost never recommend it.

Use your points for the flights, use cash for the hotel, then let a Preferred Partner advisor add the perks.

That’s the strategy we’ve used for years, and it’s one of the biggest reasons we’ve been able to stretch both our travel budget and our points so much further.

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