Best Western Rewards - LH Miles or BW Points?

Hi all,

I am new to this so I was hoping you could help me. I am based in UK and will be staying at a BW in a small town for about 3 nights a week for the next three months and want to make the most out of the rewards.

For holidays etc. I mostly fly LH back home so I don't know whether to collect 500 miles per stay or whether I should collect BW points and then perhaps use it for free nights (although I am not sure how many I'd get considering free nights in UK are about 25 000 points and I only get 10 per 55p spent).

Any tips?

Many thanks!

Is there no Hilton property near your small town? As it;s the best program to be in for the UK. In your case it all depends on your rate and the expected spend, do you math and see if you'll net enought points to get free nights, if not go for the miles.

UTA

Hi all,

I am new to this so I was hoping you could help me. I am based in UK and will be staying at a BW in a small town for about 3 nights a week for the next three months and want to make the most out of the rewards.

For holidays etc. I mostly fly LH back home so I don't know whether to collect 500 miles per stay or whether I should collect BW points and then perhaps use it for free nights (although I am not sure how many I'd get considering free nights in UK are about 25 000 points and I only get 10 per 55p spent).

Any tips?

Many thanks!
First of all, welcome to FlyerTalk, frenkie!

Next, assuming your room rate is 55 GPB for simple math, you'd earn 1000 points per night, 3000 points per 3 nights a week, times 12 for 3 months is 36000 points. I don't know your average room rate, so I don't know what the more precise math is.

Now, if you have no way of switching hotels every night, you'll earn 500 LH miles only 12 times (once per stay, not once per night), and thus 6000 LH miles. (That's independent of your room rate.)

In the US, I've used 16000 to 20000 BW points to get hotels that were $150+ (about 100 GPB) per night. (I've also seen BW hotels that wanted more points but cost half of that or even less per night. At those hotels, I would never use points, so I don't care how many points they use. Ie, I only use hotel points at hotels which have better value in points compared to money, not at "average" hotels.)

So to me, 36000 points would be way more useful than 6000 airline miles.

Now, if you could change hotels every night, and so stay at this BW for 2 nights a week but at a non-earning hotel the "middle" night each week, then you'd earn fewer points (so there's reason to do this if earning points) but double the miles. The thing is, at least for me, I'm still not sure whether even 12000 miles would be worth more than 36000 BW points, but at least then the two numbers are starting to become competitive.

(Miles are earned per stay, and stay is any number of consecutive nights at the same hotel, no matter how many times you check in/check out. Thus you cannot earn more miles just by breaking up your week into 3 1-night stays at the same hotel. You can only earn more miles by "hotel hopping", ie, alterning between at least two hotels on different consecutive nights.)

So that's another thing to consider. Assuming "hotel hopping" would not be convenient for you, then I would think BW points have more value, because they can only be compared against the 6000 miles (not the 12000 miles).

And you did say "about" 3 nights a week, and BW points work just as well if you have to stay 4 or even 5 nights some weeks, but longer weeks don't help a single bit with airline miles. (Even if you were "hotel hopping", if you had to "hop" to a non-earning independent hotel on the other nights, 4 nights wouldn't be able to get you any more BW stays per week than 3 nights. Only if you went 5 nights in a given week could you do 3 BW stays that week with "hotel hopping".)

One factor to consider: BW hotel points never expire. So if you earn BW hotel points, don't worry about whether you can get good value out of them on the very next trip. Wait until you're going somewhere where there's a BW hotel where the points-to-real-money ratio is nicer.

The thing to understand about hotel points is that there is no set ratio between the points a hotel charges and the real money it charges. The ratio varies very widely, both between hotels, and at the same hotel between high season and low season. In fact, the hotel where I said I used 16000 to 20000 points for $150+/night stays, that was in high season, and the same hotel was half of that in low season, yet still the same number of points. In low season I would pay real money at that hotel (and thus earn points), but in high season I would stay on points (and thus redeem points).