Hilton Sweet Spot

Everyone has their own wants and needs when they travel. But for me and my family, I look for hotels that are discounted, offer free breakfast, are centrally located and I can use points and miles.
Hampton Inns in the Hilton brand are a sweet spot for me. They offer breakfast included and are priced well.
They are considered a budget hotel, but I have always found them to be clean and more than adequate.
Hilton points on the other hand are crazy. They are worth about .4 cents each compared with Starwood points which are valued at 2.2 cents each.
So when you apply for a Hilton credit card, your bonus doesn't usually get you very much. Right now, Hilton has a no annual fee card with a bonus of 40,000 points and a minimum spend of $1,000. However, there is a sweet spot. Next summer, my family and I are heading to Eastern Europe specifically to Poland.
When I checked out hotel accomodations in Krakow and Warsaw, I found Hampton Inns in both cities for less than 10,000 points per night. Yes, 10,000 points per night. The actual price of the room was $54 per night. Pretty cheap.

But I have lots of Hilton points laying around and I need 2 rooms for our family of 5. So now you are talking $150 per night if I book the rooms directly with Hilton.
What is interesting is that a room for 2 people is offered at 5,000-10,000 per night, but a room for 3 with a pull out sofa is offered at 22,000 per night. You could also pay $27 and use only 2,000 points per night for the 2 person room.
Remember this includes breakfast so for a family of 5, it's a no brainer. Using just the minimum of Hilton points, 2 nights in Krakow and 2 nights in Warsaw, we used just 30,000 points for one room for 2 people valued at $300. You could probably add a bit more value since the stay includes breakfast.
So I opted to use points for the 2 person room and buy the 3 person room with my Barclay's card. The Barclay's card offers a 5% points back on travel plus a $500 bonus when you sign up. I'll show you how to redeem points on Barclay's in another post.