Originally Posted by
richinaz
My itinerary is still up in the air as I'm trying to work out a nice loop/path to/from Frankfurt. I'm pretty sure I will be in Munich for 3 nights and Salzburg 2 nights. In my scanning of some of the threads here I see that both cities have properties you can use your points for.
If you are interested, Bayern Munich should play its final home game in the Champions League on Dec. 7/8…, always worth it.
Originally Posted by
richinaz
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My questions are:
1. I'm guessing at that time of the year the 50% of rack rate is probably not very useful, is it?
Not at all useful in Germany, maybe during a big fair in Frankfurt/Cologne/Duesseldorf/Hannover/Munich/Leipzig, but in this case we are talking about 50% off a rate between Euro 400-500
Originally Posted by
richinaz
2. Some of the cash+points availability seem more interesting. Is there some kind of value most people here assign to points? How do you generally figure if it is a good deal?
C+P is a solid deal, especially in Hamburg and Berlin, however in Berlin you find tons of good (4*) hotels at very reasonable prices, so no need to stay at the solid, but nothing more, Westin Grand. Location is tough to beat, however. The Westin Dresden can be a solid C+P location as well
Originally Posted by
richinaz
3. When would you consider using all points for a free night?
I'm generally looking for hotels reasonably close to public transportation since we will not have a car and being wintertime we'd rather not walk too far. I have browsed through some of the threads on specific properties in those areas.
Honestly, no SPG property in Germany is outstanding and worth 10k SPG points. IHG still offers its 2 for 1 promo that gets a you a decent Holiday Inn in Munich for Euro 40-60 a night, same with Salzburg, even less in Frankfurt.
www.hrs.com should give you a solid overview as well what you have to pay for a decent hotel, public transport in both Munich and Salzburg is outstanding, the non-stop train between the cities is your best bet as well.
Under the bottom line, SPG nothing to write home about in Germany.
Austria is definitely in another league. ^