Southwest Rapid Rewards - 1.5 credits/stay @ Choice

Earn triple miles/credits when making reservations at choicehotels.com for qualifying stays at any Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion, MainStay Suites, Econo Lodge or Rodeway Inn hotel in the U.S. or Caribbean with arrival between February 1 and April 30, 2005. A stay is defined as any number of consecutive nights at one hotel regardless of check-ins or check-outs. Guests must notify the front desk at time of check-in that they choose to earn miles/credits. Cannot be combined with any other offer, promotion or reward program. Allow 6-8 weeks after hotel stay for mileage/credit postings to occur.

Econolodge/Rodeway appear to have a similar promo for double credits. I'm assuming their inclusion in the paste above is an error.

Great Post!!!! ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

That's a terriffic promo and I'll definitely try to get some stays in at Choice Hotels in the next few months!!! Heck, it's almost as good as the Hertz Quadruple credit promo that expires at the end of next month.

Earn triple miles/credits when making reservations at choicehotels.com for qualifying stays at any Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion, MainStay Suites, Econo Lodge or Rodeway Inn hotel in the U.S. or Caribbean with arrival between February 1 and April 30, 2005. A stay is defined as any number of consecutive nights at one hotel regardless of check-ins or check-outs. Guests must notify the front desk at time of check-in that they choose to earn miles/credits. Cannot be combined with any other offer, promotion or reward program. Allow 6-8 weeks after hotel stay for mileage/credit postings to occur.

Econolodge/Rodeway appear to have a similar promo for double credits. I'm assuming their inclusion in the paste above is an error.


Is there a specific link to get this 1.5 credits, or is it automatic with any reservation? Thanks.

Do y'all really like staying at these hotels? Oftentimes, the towns I visit are so small, I'm lucky if I even have a Best Western. Are these hotels comparable to a Best Western or La Quinta?

Yes, they are comparable to BW and LQ. Some of the brands are bearable, others are terrible and I wouldn't wish a night stay at one upon my worst enemy. My rankings:

1. Clarion
2. Comfort Suites
3. Quality Inn
T4. Comfort Inn/Best Western
6. La Quinta
7. Econolodge

I've never stayed at Sleep Inn, Mainstay Suites, or Rodeway Inn but I would assume they would all go down there in the Econolodge/Motel 6 category, maybe the Mainstay Suites are a bit nicer, I dunno. Econolodge has some terrible properties though. Again, all of the above have some pretty bad properties and some pretty good properties, so obviously the quality varies greatly in each individual brand, but in general I would rank the brands as I have above.

It's tough to "rank" these places as they are not standardized within each brand as Hilton/Starwood are (supposedly).
My two Quality stays were not very nice - I would be leery of them.
My one Sleep Inn stay was at a decent property - this brand is aimed at biz travellers (I believe); I was put off by the feature of a glaring flourescent overhead light above the bed instead of any lamps in the room. Picky I know ...
Comfort Suites are nice - comparable to Hamptons. My stay at a regular Comfort Inn in Tulsa last year was more like a so-so Best Western; my one Clarion stay (Sea-Tac Airport) was similar.
Econolodge and Rodeway are roadside motels, pure n simple. Like Hampton and Scandic within HHonors, they give fewer credits per stay than other Choice properties.
I've never stayed at a LaQuinta, and find Best Western to be too varied to use as a comparison to other chains, except as a vague "average" property experience.
Having said all that -- my two triple stays at Comfort Suites were rather nice, and the bonus credits posted (correctly) within a couple of weeks. I'd recommend Comfort Suites or Sleep Inn as comparable to Hampton for WN credit, particularly during promo periods.

I've never stayed at Sleep Inn, Mainstay Suites, or Rodeway Inn but I would assume they would all go down there in the Econolodge/Motel 6 category, maybe the Mainstay Suites are a bit nicer, I dunno.

Yes, I would equate Sleep Inn with a Motel 6. Very basic and a crapshoot in terms of cleanliness. I've stayed at one Mainstay Suites that happened to be a newer property which was fairly nice. However, they did not participate in the Choice Privileges program so I stopped staying there.

For those wondering whether the 1.5 RR credits would actually come through on this Choice Hotels deal, they did for me.

My son and I stayed at the Clarion Inn Waterfront Parkway on April 21 outside Indianapolis, at the Internet User's rate of $60. This was the weekend of the giant Star Wars Celebration III, which I recommend for next time if you are a fan.

This week, the regular .5 credit and the bonus 1 credit appeared on my RR statement. So it took 4 weeks' time.

OK clean hotel, nice indoor pool/jacuzzi, poor continental breakfast with nowhere to sit, restaurant unexpectedly closed, nice enough staff. Would stay again with the bonus RR credits, otherwise probably not.

OTOH, I can confirm that EVERY time I stay at Econolodge, I have to seek human intervention, fax receipts......as reported on FT many times. As many have said before, if you're after the credits and can stay at another choice brand, do it!!

I stayed at three Comfort Inns and one Rodeway Inn during 5/29-6/3 and none of them posted to my RR account.

Before I made the reservations, I set my preferences at Choicehotels.com to give me RR credits not points.

When I contacted Choice Hotels, I was told that they posted points to my Choice Privileges account, not to RR. I explained that every time I checked in, I used my Southwest Visa and presented my RR card. Every time, without fail, I was told that Choice Hotels doesn't give miles.

Rather than wear myself out trying to explain the RR concept, I figured once the charges went thru, the preferences I set at their website would prevail.

WRONG. :mad:

They are still running this promotion. If you are contemplating using it, I would say, forget it... the people at the front desk won't know about it, the website preferences don't seem to mean anything, and their customer service reps and supervisors seem powerless to change it once it has posted.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I had quite the opposite experience.... I raked it in with the Spring triple RR credits. The current promo is quite good also. With two stays, they make the sum of the two come up to 8,000 points. This was a selective promo this summer, but is coming back for September through November.

ps. - No, I don't work for Choice.

The promo worked for me as well - The upcoming fall promo makes it a tough choice between getting all these RR credits or staying at Priority Club hotels for the stay X get 10K pts promos

I too have had really good luck with the Choice promos. I qualified for 10 free nights last year and have accumulated two free flights on WN. When there has been a problem, I have had good luck with the assistance of the Choice Service Center. The only thing to watch out for is when a Choice property drops out of their network (which happens overnight and without advance notice), they will refuse to give you stay credit and you will even be unable to cancel your reservation online-have to call the property directly-and it takes about 5 phone calls to straighten things out.

The promo worked for me as well - The upcoming fall promo makes it a tough choice between getting all these RR credits or staying at Priority Club hotels for the stay X get 10K pts promos
There are slightly different windows for the two. The PC stay X get 10K pts promos end Oct 31 (or sooner if you get to 16 stays earlier!), and then there might be a gap before the next one. The Choice stay 2 get 6.5K bonus points promo ends Nov 30.

In my case, I'm planning to do PC until I get through the 16th stay, which for me will be by mid-Oct I think, and then doing at least a couple Choice stays so as to "round up" my points to past the next transfer boundary, so that I can transfer EVERY SINGLE of my two-year-old points before they expire at the end of December.

That's one thing I like about the points promo as opposed to the miles promo at Choice. With the points promo, I can "bank" the points for up to about 2 years and choose the time I need them as credits the most. With miles promos I have to take the RR credits at the time of the promo. (I don't want to earn RR awards "too early", because that means there's more chance I'll have to extend them at $50 a pop before I can actually use them well, given my uneven SWA travel patterns.)

I too have had really good luck with the Choice promos. I qualified for 10 free nights last year and have accumulated two free flights on WN. When there has been a problem, I have had good luck with the assistance of the Choice Service Center. The only thing to watch out for is when a Choice property drops out of their network (which happens overnight and without advance notice), they will refuse to give you stay credit and you will even be unable to cancel your reservation online-have to call the property directly-and it takes about 5 phone calls to straighten things out.

Well, I wonder what I did wrong! bc I'm still struggling to get the RR credits.
op suggested email, which I tried and was informed points would be changed to RR. Still not happening.

I booked online, set my preferences on the website that I wanted WN credits, informed desk clerk that I wanted WN credits (was always told they don't give miles, they give points), and paid with WN Visa.

:td:

That's one thing I like about the points promo as opposed to the miles promo at Choice. With the points promo, I can "bank" the points for up to about 2 years and choose the time I need them as credits the most. With miles promos I have to take the RR credits at the time of the promo. (I don't want to earn RR awards "too early", because that means there's more chance I'll have to extend them at $50 a pop before I can actually use them well, given my uneven SWA travel patterns.)

In the past you've always added great info/posts to this Forum as well as several others Forums I've read, so I noticed when you posted this and today I finally got around to checking Choice Privileges out and you are 100% right. This program is actually quite good!! I've always chosen the SWA credits for Choice stays rather than Choice Privilege points so I've never really been in "the know" in regards to the Choice points, but with the current Choice promos they really have something good going there. And not only that, but I did some math and the Choice Visa is actually as good as (if not better than) the Chase RR Visa and is FREE!!!

To everybody who currently holds a Chase/BankOne/FirstUSA SWA RR Visa: Listen Up

I highly recommened you look into the Choice program. I just signed up for a Choice Privileges Visa card, got it in the mail and made my first purchase to get a bonus 16,000 Choice Privilege points. To give you a little background, you can bank Choice Privilege points until you want to transfer them for RR credits (just like Diners Club). This is a valuable tool to have available so that you can top off accounts, transfer when you want, save/bank for Companion Pass, etc. 2500 Choice Privilege points can be transferred for 1 RR credit.

So for signing up for the Choice Visa (granted I signed up during a promo that ended Aug. 31, 2005 that gave me double the standard 8000 pt signup bonus), I got 6.4 RR credits as a signup bonus which I value at $128 (1 RR credit = $20). And there is no annual fee for this card and you get 2 Choice points per $1 charged to the card, which equals 1 RR credit per $1250 spent and that is pretty much the same as the Chase RR Visa that costs $39/$59 per year without the "point banking" that Choice allows for. So for anybody who currently has the Chase RR Visa, you might want to consider switching and/or adding this card. Too bad you couldn't get in on the promo that ended Aug. 31 (sorry I didn't make my calculations and post this earlier), but still you get a 3.2 RR credit signup bonus and 1 RR per $1250 spent, which I'd take for free anyday over paying $59 a year for roughly the same thing.

As far as Choice hotel promos, they just started a new promo that lasts from 9/1/05 - 11/30/05. Two stays at Choice hotels during this period will get you 8000 Choice points, which equals (or I should say can be transferred to) 3.2 RR credits. So basically during this promo it's even better to take Choice points and transfer to RR credits than during the Econolodge/Rodeway Inn promo where you got 1.5 RR credits per stay.

Just thought I'd give everybody a heads up in case you were planning any CC changes and/or hotel stays in the next few months. There are so many great deals on FT that I sometimes forget to check into the different Forums to see what promos are available and there are some great ones going on now (e.g., FFN at Hyatt where you get a free night at any Hyatt in the world........yes even at the $600 per night Park Hyatt Vendome Paris........ with just 2 stays at any Hyatt some which can be found as cheap as $59 per night). So I thought maybe somebody might appreciate the above Choice promos as alternate/better ways to get RR credits. I think my Choice Visa will now become my 2nd most used CC after my SPG AMEX.

I just signed up for a Choice Privileges Visa card, got it in the mail and made my first purchase to get a bonus 16,000 Choice Privilege points.

Very good analysis and advice. Agree that the point banking plus no annual fee makes up for the slight earning edge with the Chase card, plus if you actually stay at their hotels, the earning rate is good. I, too, took advantage of the promo and signed up for the card - been using it for a couple of months now. Hadn't tried to dump points into RR credits yet, so wasn't planning on posting until I was sure there weren't any problems with that part (didn't realize the bonus was expiring so soon - sorry not to have said something sooner).

But, since you brought it up - so far, so good (although it's a little tough on the ego presenting a credit card with some really scary brand names on it - a prestige card this isn't). Two questions -

1. any experience on time lag between requesting RR credits and posting? I see I can do this online at the Choice site, which should speed up the process; and

2. reading the Choice terms, I see no limits on transfers to RR. True?

Thanks for the benefit of anyone's experiences here.

you can bank Choice Privilege points until you want to transfer them for RR credits (just like Diners Club). This is a valuable tool to have available so that you can top off accounts, transfer when you want, save/bank for Companion Pass, etc. 2500 Choice Privilege points can be transferred for 1 RR credit.
Until you want to transfer them, or until 2 to 3 years from when you earn them, whichever comes first. (Any points you earn in year x expire on Dec 31 of year x + 2.)

In this way, it's not quite like Diners Club. Diners Club, if you stay with it for 10 years, you can keep banking for 10 years.

I mention this because it's actually affecting me. My travel patterns changed suddenly a couple years ago when family that I visit a few times a year got stationed overseas for 3 years. All of a sudden I was spending most of my vacation time in places Southwest doesn't fly, and this just after I'd earned an unusual number of "simultaneous" awards due to some promos (including Choice 3x). For the past two years, I've not flown a paid Southwest trip (but several award trips) and I still have THREE expired awards that I'll have to reinstate at $50 each (presumably before the RR change early next year?)! So I'd like to keep banking my 25k+ Choice points another year or two (for when I'll finally need more Southwest awards again), but they expire at the end of this year.