Book luxury African safari camps with I Prefer points

Yesterday I stumbled upon a couple of very interesting Preferred Hotels in South Africa. They are all-inclusive Last Word properties with daily game drives. And while each usually costs over $1,200 per night if you pay in cash (and sometimes far more than that), they can be booked instead with I Prefer points. Don’t worry if you don’t have or have never heard of I Prefer points: The trick is to get Citi ThankYou Rewards points and a Citi Strata Premier card so that you can transfer Citi points to I Prefer at an amazing 1 to 4 ratio.

Overview

There are two interesting Last Word safari camp properties that are bookable with I Prefer points. If you follow this blog closely, that should raise some red flags for you: booking Preferred Hotels with points can be fraught with problems (details here). In this case, though, the main booking page for these properties has a prominent option to “Use I Prefer Points.” So, at least we know that they intended to allow this option. I’m not going to lie to you: booking these properties with points will probably be fraught with problems. But these appear to be bucket-list worthy and so are likely to be worth the effort.

I’m still waiting for Citi to fix an issue where I can’t transfer Citi points to I Prefer, so until that happens I can’t test out these bookings. My cynical prediction is that the website will error out somewhere in the booking process and that it will be necessary to call Preferred Hotels to get these booked. Whether or not that happens, I strongly recommend contacting the hotel directly after getting your booking confirmation in order to confirm that the property knows about your reservation and to find out if there are any other details you need to know (are there any other fees, for example?).

The two properties, Last Word Kitara and Last Word Madikwe, charge 150,000 and 100,000 points per night, respectively. That sounds like a lot until you consider that Citi points transfer to I Prefer at a rate of 1 to 4. So, with Citi ThankYou Rewards points and a premium card like the Strata Premier, the cost in Citi points comes down to 37,500 and 25,000 points per night, respectively. That’s a great deal.

Last Word Kitara

Greg’s Quick Take

Based on photos and reviews (TripAdvisor currently shows a great 5.0 review score), this place looks terrific. Elephants and other animals frequent a path by the river. All meals and two game drives per day are included. The rooms don’t really look like luxury suites to me, but I’m sure they’re comfortable enough.

One of the things I find compelling about this safari camp is that its private reserve abuts Kruger National Park without any fencing between them. As a result, the same animals found in Kruger can be found here, but without crowds of people.

Quick Facts

Point Price Per Night: 150,000 I Prefer Points (37,500 Citi Points)
Location: Private nature reserve near Kruger National Park
All meals included
Two daily game drives included
Property features only six rooms. All are suites with river views.

A full fact sheet for Last Word Kitara can be found here.

Property Photos

All photos shown below were downloaded from the hotel’s gallery page, here.

Public Areas

Dining

Suites

Safari