Save On Your Pre-Cruise Hotel Stay With One of These Two Cards

Every seasoned cruiser knows it’s best to be at the port of embarkation the day before the cruise. But have you seen hotel prices recently? They are cutting back on services and charging more. Don’t pay high hotel prices. Get one of these two credit cards and save on your pre-cruise hotel stay.

After your cruise is booked, one of the next things you’ll need to do is plan your travel to the ship’s port of embarkation. If you don’t live within a few hours' drive, you’ll need to arrive the day before and spend the night somewhere near the port. Paying for a room is going to add a couple of hundred dollars to your vacation expenses. The best way to save without forking over a bunch of money? Hotel points!

If you don’t stay in hotels frequently, accruing enough points for a free stay can be a real challenge. It might take years of occasional travel just to earn enough to redeem at a hotel near a cruise port. But there’s an easier way! Hotel co-branded credit cards are a fantastic way to earn tons of points and some will even give you a certificate toward a FREE night every year you keep the card open. 

While there are a variety of hotel credit cards available, you shouldn’t just get any credit card. The best options have several things in common and two come out on top of my list as the very best hotel cards for cruise fans.

At the top of the list is the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card. For a limited time, this card offers five free nights (valued at 50,000 points each) after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. 

Plus, cardholders will receive another free night certificate (valued at 35,000 points) on each account anniversary. That’s a free night every single year! This card does have an annual fee of $95, but the annual free night certificate more than makes up for the fee. When was the last time you saw any hotel with a rate under $100/night?

The second card recommendation is the Hilton Honors Card from American Express. This card offers 80,000 Hilton Honors points after spending just $1,000 in the first three months from account opening. Even better? This card has no annual fee. 

It couldn’t be easier to earn a free pre-cruise hotel night with the Hilton Honors Card. Spend $1,000 in the first three months and boom! 80,000 points are all yours. The $1,000 could even be made in a single transaction, like for payment toward your cruise. 

What Makes a Good Hotel Card for Cruisers

The first feature that makes a hotel credit card great for cruisers is pretty obvious. The hotel chain has to have hotel properties near popular embarkation ports. The busiest cruise ports in the US are:

Most hotel chains have properties in all of these cities. But cruisers tend to be picky about location. 

If you are kicking off your vacation with a few extra days at the start, you might want to be where all the local nightlife is. Or maybe you have a late-night flight and just care about a clean place to sleep. Whatever your situation is, your best option is a co-branded hotel credit card from a chain that has a large footprint. 

With more than 7500 properties worldwide, the largest hotel brand in the world is Marriott. The family of hotels falling under the Marriott umbrella includes familiar brands like Courtyard, Sheraton, Residence Inn, and Fairfield.

The number two hotel chain is a Chinese company, so not very useful for our purposes. But rolling in at number three comes Hilton with more than 600 properties. Some of Hilton’s brands include DoubleTree, Embassy Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, and Hampton.

Options Are Key

Knowing that there’s a hotel brand you have points for in your port city isn’t enough. You need options. Popular hotels sell out. You may want a hotel with an airport shuttle, or a shuttle that will take you to the port. If you drove in, a park-and-cruise plan might be what you need. Perhaps having breakfast included is important to you. Or you take advantage of a last-minute cruise deal and your regular hotel is sold out.  

Banking points with either, or hey, why not both, of these brands, is going to give you great options for your pre-cruise hotel stay. 

For instance, when you need to stay in Ft. Lauderdale, why not wake up, throw open the drapes, and see your cruise ship gleaming in the morning sun? You can do that from the Hilton Ft. Lauderdale Marina Hotel. It’s right there at the port.


If you pay cash, it might cost $313 plus tax, while a standard night redemption costs just 60,000 Hilton Honors points. 

Perhaps your cruise is leaving out of Galveston. That’s a drive from the Houston airport. Why not make it easy and stay at the Houston Airport Marriott at George Bush Intercontinental? Get some sleep and then you are already at the airport ready to take a cruise line shuttle to the port. Reward nights there start at just 27,000 points. 

That’s a perfect use for a free night certificate when paying for a night would set you back $228 plus tax. 

Advantages of Using Points

Hotel booking windows open up around 12 months out from your desired stay date. There’s a lot that can happen in that time. When the best cash rates often require a non-refundable payment, it can be risky to book a year in advance. 

Low Risk

When using points, you can lock in your pre-cruise hotel stay risk fee. Unlike some cash bookings, points bookings are refundable. Life happens. If you need to cancel your cruise, you’ll get your points back when you cancel your pre-cruise hotel.

Extra Fees 

Some hotel stays on points aren’t completely free. There are hotel chains that will still charge resort fees when staying on points. Marriott is one of them. You can mitigate this by staying at non-resort hotels and it’s easy to see when booking online. Before you confirm a reservation, Marriott will clearly show you what fees you will be charged.

On the other hand, Hilton is one of the hotel chains that does not charge resort fees when staying on points. That means you can book a resort property right on the beach without the fear of exorbitant additional fees being tacked on to your stay.   

Status

Each of these cards will give you a bump in your hotel status before you stay any nights at all. Marriott cardholders will automatically earn Silver Elite status. That gets you 10% more points for your Marriott hotel purchases, priority late checkout, member rates, and complimentary WiFi. 

Even the no-annual-fee Hilton card earns cardholders complimentary Silver status. That means a 20% points bonus on Hilton stays, a 5th night free on reward stays, all-inclusive spa discounts, and free bottled waters. 

Earning Rates

There are better reward credit cards to use for your everyday spending, such the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card. But if you want to earn some additional hotel points from your spending, here’s what you can expect from these cards.

The Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card earns an increased 6x points on Marriott purchases. When used for dining, grocery stores, and gas stations, it earns 3x points per dollar on the first $6,000 spent each year. For everything else, it’s 2x points for each dollar spent.

The Hilton Honors Card has a slightly higher earnings rate. Hilton hotel and resort purchases earn 7x points. It will earn 5x points per dollar at U.S. gas stations, U.S. supermarkets, and U.S. restaurants, including take-out and delivery. Everywhere else, it is 3x per dollar of eligible purchases. 

Bottom Line

Saving money on your cruise vacation doesn’t stop when you book your cruise. A majority of cruise passengers will pay for a hotel night or two before embarkation. Getting a hotel credit card for one of the world’s top hotel chains and earning a bonus for it means you are almost sure to find a room for free! 

Disclaimer: This article contains credit card referral links from which I may receive compensation from the issuer, however, the opinions of the credit card products are my own and strategies for use are entirely my own.