sdsearch

For a few years, I was totally ignoring the TripRewards program because I couldn't earn anything worthwhile there. Then for an upcoming personal trip to a small resort town, I couldn't find any better hotel with high-speed internet access at a decent all-in price and with decent TripAdvisor reviews except a Super 8. At the time I booked it two months ago, United was an earning possiblity but AA wasn't. I just checked again the other day, and now I'm able to specify my AAdvantage account as my earning preference (2 miles/$, which is competitive with Priority Club's midscale properties, and several other chains).

It's documented at:

http://www.triprewards.com/earn/airlines/

Warning: When booking at a TripRewards-related website, do not accept any offers for Travelers Advantage, Shoppers Advantage, etc. These are programs that many consider rip-offs (do a web search), or at best are lousy deals compared to other resources FTers know about and may be hard to cancel. Just decline any chats you're invited to, because that's what those chats will be about!

steve32

The is very useful for me, as my 102.5 year old grandmother has just been moved to a more-assisted care facility, and so she will be selling her apartment in the some-assisted care community she has been in, which we have been able to rent out the model (display) apartment for our stays there. When that hasn't been available, we use the Knights Inn, which is on TripRewards. So now I can get something I find more valuable than TripRewards points.

Thanks for the info!

Steve

VickiSoCal

Very useful for us too as my parents live in a small town where the choices are a scary looking no name motel, a nice clean Day's Inn, the filthiest Holiday Inn Express I've ever experienced or all four of us in my parent's spare bedroom.

n5177c

Wow! Props to her. ^ ^

sdsearch

Wow! What town is this where the Days Inn is superior to the Holiday Inn Express?

Most HIX's I've seen are new builds and almost "too" clean (as in very sterile looking), although I have seen a couple that are conversions. I've never seen one close to flighty, while I've seen plenty of Days Inns that were that way.

anabolism

Thanks for posting this. I hadn't noticed it, and as it happens, will be staying at a Ramada next month.

rminky

Thanks for the post, we always stay at the "budget" motels rather than the "wood" properties. will make use of this!

CloudCoder

Note that triprewards hotels do not give points on stays booked through third party sites such as travelocity, expedia, priceline, etc. Further, they don't like to give rewards on "discounted rates" such as the rate you'd get with a coupon from Exit Information Guide, etc. They just recently started allowing points on the AAA-discounted rate.

That said, I mapped out the various scenarios and for my own travel purposes, it makes more sense to accumulate TripRewards points (free nights) than AA miles. All of my travel is on my own dime.

PS - I cannot imagine someone on expense account (who therefore doesn't care what it costs) staying at a Days Inn, Travelodge, Super 8, etc. I think it's safe to assume that -everyone- who stays at these properties is traveling on their own dime.

ByrdluvsAWACO

Yes, but the problem is that you have to stay at a Super 8 or a Days Inn.

After my last "adventure" at a Howard Johnson's, I just cough up the money for a Hilton, *wood, or HIX.

V1P3R

do you have to book through the trip rewrds site to get the points/miles or can you book direct with the hotels mentioned eg ramada/travelodge on their website?

CloudCoder

Either/or.

hm3

Thanks, OP!

As I begin evaluating miles vs. points, I caught the fine print:

Members who choose ®Aeroplan in their Membership Profile will earn a minimum of 250 Aeroplan Miles per stay or 2 Aeroplan Miles per $1 (USD) spent on room revenue, whichever is greater.

Note that if you are staying for just a night, you are guaranteed 250 miles. Might be a lot better than points. If you are going to stay for more than a night, you could always change your profile back to points.

sdsearch

Sounds like you never go to small towns???

I got into this when I needed a reasonably priced mini-vacation hotel with fridge and micro (so I wouldn't have to eat out every meal in a no-iDine/RN town !) and free internet access in JAC (Jackson WY), and BW wanted all my money months in advance, the only Hilton affiliated hotel was $400/night, there was no *wood or Priority Club of any sort (HIX or Candlewood or CP or whatever), and so it was down to an indie or Super 8 (for $100ish/night). I needed 4 nights, and I was not about to cough up an extra $1200!

Still, I only chose the Super 8 because of decent www.tripadvisor.com reviews.

I would never choose either a Best Western or TripRewards property without verifying at TripAdvisor or elsewhere that that specific property was ok.

I'm not suggesting that people reach out to TripRewards in towns where there's oodles of choices from every chain. Not only do you have to go through the extra hassle of verifying that the specific property is ok (because there's too much variation from property to property), but you don't get as many miles in many cases as at some other chains.

But it's a totally different story in small towns where there's not even an HIX or Hampton (or, as one poster above noted, one small town where there is an HIX but it happens to be way worse than the Super 8 for some reason!).

... Btw, my 803 AA miles (for a $401.something 4-night total, before taxes and a mild "resort fee" that they didn't disclose when I was booking on the web) posted within a week or so. (Interesting that they gave me an extra mile for 2 x half a $!)

sdsearch

Yes, but note that this applies only to Aeroplan. $100 will earn only 200 AA miles normally.

However, also note on the same Airline info page that they have a summer promo where you earn 3 miles/$ (instead of the normal 2) from 21 June through 7 Sept. Thus you'd have to have a rate of $83 or less before you'd earn less than 250 AA miles this summer.

Having said that, you can earn over 1000 AA miles per stay (not per night) if you have a multiple of 3 Choice stays this summer (by earning points and then converting them, since they're issuing 16000 bonus points on every third point-earning stay). But that's only till mid-Aug... So IMHO it's only after mid-Aug that this starts being competitive if you're in an area where Choice has hotels too (or if you won't get to 3 stays, or you have long stays).

VickiSoCal

Payson, AZ