In March my wife and I have an overnight layover at IAH. The trip planning didn't allow for a very long layover. We arrive at 8:47 in the evening and depart again at 7:20 in the morning. We don't have checked baggage and both of us are TSA pre-check so that should help a bit.
I am wondering how much extra time we should allot to an Uber to downtown hotels vs. staying at the airport hotels which mostly have complimentary shuttles. I have a Marriott cat 1-5 free night cert and an IHG cert good for any room, so I'd like to get the best bang for my buck on these certs, but I wouldn't give up an extra 2 hours of precious sleep just to get to the downtown hotels if that's what it would take.
To preempt the question, "Why would you care what hotel you're getting if you're just going to basically sleep there for 6 hours and then leave?" The answer is: because it's free and the certificate I don't use will likely expire. I write reviews of hotels for my website and I would rather write a little about a nice hotel than a lot about an average one.
Any tips?
(from awardmapper.com)