The Best Hotel Gift Card?

Market insights, trends, and pros and cons of hotel gift card providers

Background

At the University of Antwerp I did research on ‘money equivalents’ with a focus on hotel gift cards. I decided to make a comparison on the propositions of various suppliers of Hotel Gift Cards as they are relatively popular in Belgium. An executive summary of my report is provided below, highlighting the key findings.

Why People Buy Hotel Gift Cards

Hotel gift cards are given on birthdays, weddings, to employees, for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etcetera. Hotel gifts have gained popularity over the last decade riding the wave of global e-commerce growth. But why do people by hotel gift cards? Study respondents provided the following top 5 reasons why they bought a hotel gift card:

62%: It’s a nice gift for the person who has everything
48%: I like to give someone an experience instead of a product
46%: The recipient loves to travel
33%: I want to join the recipient for a romantic getaway
26%: It’s an international gift I can give by email

Market Trends

Physical gift card → e-gift card: more people give the gift card via email. Aside from the environmental advantages of an e-gift card, the gift recipient no longer runs the risk of losing the gift in some office drawer.

Expiry after 1 year → no expiry date: as the hotel gift card market matures, competitiveness increases. As a result, hotel gift card providers increasingly offer hotel gift cards that no longer expire.

Standardized hotel gift card → personalized hotel gift card: whereas the first hotel gift cards used to be standardized, hotel gift cards nowadays can often be personalized by custom images and text — generally all free of charge.

All Hotel Gift Cards Compared

1. HotelGift.com

Pros:
+ Over 110,000 hotels in 170 countries
+ No expiry date
+ Very competitive hotel prices
+ High customer reviews
+ Multicurrency

Cons:
- No physical gift cards B2C

Hotel Gift has with an astounding 110,000 hotels in over 170 countries the largest hotel offering in the hotel gift card market. They operate in multiple currencies (e.g. USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, SGD), making it possible to buy a gift card for someone oversees in their currency. In addition, the buyer of the hotel gift can personalize the gift with a custom image and personal note free of charge. An interesting element of Hotel Gift’s proposition is that they offer competitive hotel prices. From a sample of 100 hotels in 6 cities (sampled on December 24th 2014) they are on average 4.3% cheaper than Expedia and 3.8% cheaper than Booking.com. Finally, it’s convenient that the gift recipient can make the booking online — it saves the trouble of calling hotels with the chance of being dinged.
However, Hotel Gift only offers physical gift cards for corporate orders. Even though the trend is towards e-gift cards, some customers could still prefer the good old fashioned gift box.
Link: www.hotelgift.com

2. Marriott GiftCard

Pros:
+ Over 4,000 hotels in 80 countries
+ No expiry date
+ Multicurrency
+ Physical shipment & e-gift card

Cons:
- Only valid for (most) Marriott hotels
- No personalization by image

Marriott sells its own hotel gift cards redeemable for (nearly) all 4,000 Marriott hotels in over 80 countries. They have some nice templates to choose from, after which you can personalize your gift card with a text message. The Marriott GiftCard is charged with a monetary value: if the gift card is charged with a high amount it can be used for multiple bookings on different dates (idem to Hotel Gift).
The main disadvantage is that you’re bound to Marriott. If someone prefers e.g. Hilton or some budget hotel brand, they’re out of luck. In addition, Marriott could put some extra effort in the overall gift card engine. For example, it’s not possible to add a personal image to the gift. It seems as if their gift card has been a bit neglected.
Link: https://gifts.marriott.com/cws/marriott/consumer/main/home.py

3. Buyagift

Pros:
+ Videos of properties
+ Experience box
+ Physical shipment & e-gift card

Cons:
- UK only
- Hotel gift card recipient has to call the hotel to make a reservation
- Very limited choice of hotels

Buyagift offers 1 to 80 hotels in the UK. They’re different as they offer experience boxes: you pay a fixed price for a predefined experience (e.g. Overnight Hotel Break for Two). This contrasts to Hotel Gift and Marriott whereby you give e.g. USD 100, after which the recipient can book a more expensive hotel and pay extra or book a cheaper hotel and keep some credit. A nice element of Buyagift is that they have videos of their properties, it gives a good impression of what you can expect.
A disadvantage of Buyagift is that each hotel gift has only 1 to 80 hotels to choose from. As the gift recipient has to call the hotel to make the booking, chances are it takes a while to redeem your gift card.
Link: http://www.buyagift.co.uk

4. Small Luxury Hotels of the World

Pros:
+ Fancy presentation wallet
+ Multicurrency (USD, EUR, GBP)
+ Physical shipment & e-gift card

Cons:
- Hotel gift card valid for only 15 months
- Complex product offering
- Limited choice of hotels
- No personalization by image

SLH offers a gift card for 520 hotels in over 70 countries. Though they have only a few hotels in each country, their hotels are of high quality. The SHL gift comes in a fancy presentation wallet with a personalised card (though only personalized by text). They offer three options: a monetary value hotel voucher (idem to Hotel Gift and Marriot), luxury breaks (a predetermined selection of options), or gift experiences (idem to luxury breaks, but then in a theme).
Though choice often is good, the variety of options is a bit confusing. This confusion was continued when redeeming the gift: we had to lookup the first two characters of the gift card in a matrix to learn that TD meant a USD 100 gift card. In addition, the gift card is only valid for 15 months.
Link: http://www.slh.com/gift-certificates/

Conclusion

Hotel Gift provides the best overall proposition with the largest hotel supply of 110,000+ hotels worldwide, no expiry date, all major currencies supported, and high customer reviews. Is someone a big fan of Marriott? Then consider giving a Marriott gift card. The SLH gift has — though with a limited number of hotel — a high quality hotel supply. If you’re situated in the UK you could consider Buyagift, though we’re not a big fan of the fact that you need to call the hotel to make a booking.

Excluded from analysis, and reason why:
· Travelocity Gift Card: no longer selling gift cards
· HotelGiftCard.com: no longer selling gift cards
· HotelVoucherShop.com: bad company reputation (3.1 out of 10 on Trustpilot.co.uk)