Ben, over at the One Mile at a Time blog, alerted me to a change with Priority Club reward redemptions just minutes ago. Priority Club with very little fanfare has added a new feature to their awards booking page, which allows you to pay a combination of cash and points for your reward bookings. This is something that Starwood Hotels has done every since I have been a member and really provides you with great value when cash prices are really high, or when staying at a high category hotel which might otherwise cost you upwards of 20,000 points a night.

Although Priority Club advertises on the points booking page that you can reduce the amount of points required for a free night by 5,000 for a cash co-pay of $30, or 10,000 points for $60, in actuality what they are doing is selling you those points at a rate of $0.006 each. Priority Club has always allowed you to buy up to 40,000 points in a twelve month period starting at $0.0135 each, so really what you are now able to do is buy points as you make each reservation at just less than half the normal rate.

For those of us booking hotels outside the US, these point purchases are always valued in US dollars.

All in all, this is a good move for the consumer, and may just cause me to stay at a few more Holiday Inn hotels on both paid and free nights!

• Darren Mak's blog