Hi, I'm Bob

I'm a slow-traveling nomad who uses financial arbitrage to turn life into one long adventure. In practice that means using hotel reward points to stay at good hotels while moving from country to country.

Points programs are a genuinely powerful tool — if you know how to play the game. The catch is that the game is different in every program. Balances differ, status tiers differ, and the rules about free nights, fees and discounts differ even more. So the one question that matters on every booking — is this stay better paid for in points or in cash? — turns out to be surprisingly hard to answer. Get it wrong and you either burn points you didn't need to spend, or overpay for a room you could have had for free.

I got tired of guessing, so I built the thing I wanted.

Enter the details of your stay and the calculator does the math for you — including the part most tools skip, which is the value of the points you'd earn back by paying cash. You can also copy a link to any scenario, which is handy when you're planning a trip with a partner and want them looking at the same numbers you are.

Every calculator is built from its program's own published terms, and each one comes with a guide explaining what each field means and where to find the number. Programs change their charts and earning rates without much warning, so each calculator also carries the date its facts were last checked, and every guide links the official source so you can verify them yourself.

I've started with five of the largest hotel programs in the world, and I'll add more based on what people ask for. Other travel tools are going up as I build them, so it's worth checking back.

Get in touch

If you're a slow traveler with a problem you keep running into, email me and describe it — the more detail the better. If it's something I can help with, I'd love to find a solution we can automate. My goal is for this site to grow into a comprehensive collection of practical tools that help fellow travelers get down the road a little easier.

support@rewardpointscalculator.com

Happy trails,
Bob