MilesBuzz! - How to maximize hotel & car points for upcoming work trip to Denver/Englewood?

5 days / 4 nights in DEN 9/10-9/14

I would appreciate any rental car and hotel recommendations. I'm willing to check-in/check-out to get more points or free nights.

I usually stay at Marriotts for work (but I'm starting to rethink that decision, used to be Silver, lost it this year, and don't really do many hotel stays in a year for work, mainly use Priceline for personal). I'm entertaining Hilton/Hyatt/Starwood for this trip since it seems like they have pretty good programs that are highly regarded around here. Looks like there are Starwood, Hyatt and Hilton properties around Englewood, CO where I'll need to stay.

Does it make sense to get miles for the rental car? I don't usually rent cars very often.

I also usually fly United (I need almost 5,000 miles to get to Silver this year and will be getting about 3,000 on the R/T flight from BWI-DEN that I have on hold). I also like American.

I'm relatively new to the miles/points world, and this will be my first foray into maximizing a business trip, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I can't give you info on airfares, but we've stayed several times at the Marriott Courtyard in Greenwood Village which is close to Englewood. Nothing real fancy but quite satisfactory. Rates are reasonable, but we used Marriott points and requested (and got) upgraded to a suite.

We got car our through Costco travel which had the best price by far--$32 TOTAL for a 4 day rental!

Is there a reason you are staying in Denver (family, work, etc.)? If not, I would highly recommend heading up into the mountains...Summit county/Vail area is a little over an hour west of there and you can enjoy what CO is know for...the amazing mountains...Denver is just like any other big city IMO and it not worth more than a day of your vacation. I head straight to the mountains from DEN and return to Denver for flight home.

... this will be my first foray into maximizing a business trip...

...not worth more than a day of your vacation...

This does not appear to be a leisure trip.

Correct. This is a business trip, and although I can't go crazy with the corporate card, I'm not necessarily looking for the lowest price.

I need to rent a car from Monday (11AM) until Friday around 3-5PM and stay Mon-Thur night near Englewood, CO where our office is.

I'm basically looking to get the most miles/points for my stay and car rental with whatever promotions are going on right now. I know a lot of people here travel a lot for business, so I was hoping I could get some tips from their experience.

Also, I am planning on spending Fri through the next Monday with a friend and checking out Boulder and the mountains, so hopefully I'll get to see some of what you recommended.

Try frequentflyerbonuses (http://frequentflyerbonuses.com/) for rental car promos earning mileage. You may find some useful hotel information there as well. I would definitely check out the hotel forums here on FT for the current hotel bonuses, etc.

oops..missed that. Club Carlson did have some good deals for extra points, SOGO, but not sure they are still open. IHG can always be mined for numerous bonuses on stays as well.

How about Hilton's Triple Your Trip promo? You'll get triple miles for your stay. Lots of Hilton properties in the area: for example, there are 2 DT's in Denver: one near the zoo and the other in Aurora, both driving distance to Englewood.

With all due respect...

If you are an infrequent traveler, you will probably not get a tremendous amount of value from one four-day trip. I'm not discouraging you from trying to do the best you can.

But if you want something meaningful, you might want to look more toward credit card signups. It will be nice, I'm sure, to get 3000 United miles for your trip. It might be nicer to get 55,000 miles PLUS two club passes PLUS no fee the first year PLUS a $50 statement credit just for signing up for the United credit card. (Note, there are a few tricks needed to get that offer, see the "Master Credit Cards Offer" thread.)

I'm a big fan of Priceline for hotels. No, you won't get points, or status nights, and yes, your employer is going to benefit. But I feel a lot less awkward turning in a dinner receipt from Morton's of Chicago or Del Frisco's when my hotel only cost $60 a night.

Don't get me wrong. Back in the 1990's I traveled about 6-10 times a year, mostly 1-2 night trips, I stayed at Hyatts, and next month I'm redeeming 22,000 points I still had left over from back then for a night at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris. But then, I'm also getting four other nights as a credit card promotion. So you can see, for the infrequent traveler, which is more lucrative.

it looks like you can route via iah for ~ 4k bis for just under $300....gets you 1k more....

delete

agree w others CC offers willl net real accumulation of miles/points.

I've already accumulated lots of points with credit cards, and will probably continue to do so until I have to get a mortgage. The point of this post was more to maximize an upcoming business trip (one of only 3 I will take this year). I'm not expecting to get free trip to Europe or anything. I was just hoping to leverage some of the knowledge and creativity of the many people here who travel for business a lot more than me.

I was really just trying to see if there were any big scores or low hanging fruit I could get from a 4 day trip (which I realize isn't much). For example, I took a two day trip for work back in February and scored a free night at Marriott (1-4 cat) by switching hotels between the two nights. I will also end up taking advantage of all 3 Club Carlson promos to net me roughly 3 free nights at any CC property.

With all due respect...

If you are an infrequent traveler, you will probably not get a tremendous amount of value from one four-day trip. I'm not discouraging you from trying to do the best you can.

But if you want something meaningful, you might want to look more toward credit card signups. It will be nice, I'm sure, to get 3000 United miles for your trip. It might be nicer to get 55,000 miles PLUS two club passes PLUS no fee the first year PLUS a $50 statement credit just for signing up for the United credit card. (Note, there are a few tricks needed to get that offer, see the "Master Credit Cards Offer" thread.)

I'm a big fan of Priceline for hotels. No, you won't get points, or status nights, and yes, your employer is going to benefit. But I feel a lot less awkward turning in a dinner receipt from Morton's of Chicago or Del Frisco's when my hotel only cost $60 a night.

Don't get me wrong. Back in the 1990's I traveled about 6-10 times a year, mostly 1-2 night trips, I stayed at Hyatts, and next month I'm redeeming 22,000 points I still had left over from back then for a night at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris. But then, I'm also getting four other nights as a credit card promotion. So you can see, for the infrequent traveler, which is more lucrative.

+1, this is very important OP. From your post it appears you are an infrequent traveler. There is no sense in getting into any program if you do not participate in it on a regular basis to enjoy it. This is why people use priceline a lot. Club Carlson (Radisson, Country Inn, Park Inn) was running a promo where you could get at least 44k points, enough for a few free nights. Hilton is now running a triple points promo, for a 4 night stay that could be enough points for a free night latter on.

Regarding car rental, I prefer to accumulate the points for free rentals. Typically you only get 50-100 airmiles per day, depending on program, not really worth it. There are some promos out there that give you triple miles, but that wont help your UA elite status.

In summary, as an infrequent traveler it is not worth it to accumulate minimum points that wont add up to much. The last thing you want is to have some orphan points/credit that have minimum redeemable use/value. You could priceline and stay on a 4-5 star hotel at a lower cost, the same for the car rental. Good luck on your stay.

Thanks for the info. Especially on the Hilton promo.

I should have clarified earlier that I can't make any reservations through Priceline (which is what I used when I travel on my own dime usually) for work. We have to use our company's (Concur) OTA. So I'm basically paying for a hotel and car rental regardless, so I was just looking to taking advantage of any promos that I can.

Hilton is probably the best promo at the moment. As for car rental, check the Q3 2012 car rental program and see what might work for you.
This is the link:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/1232494-q3-2011-car-rental-bonus-promos.html