Originally Posted by
dulciusexasperis
Many here will probably not be old enough to remember back to the beginning of Holiday Inns. They arose from a niche in the market that someone saw as an alternative to the then ubiquitous Mom and Pop Motels where the quality varied a great deal. The basic premise of Holiday Inn was that from the East to West coast of N. America, if you stayed in a Holiday Inn anywhere, the room would be nearly identical to a room in every other Holiday Inn. In other words, you were assured of a certain level of quality and ammenities. That spelled the death of independent motels and today if you do a road trip across the USA, you would be hard pressed to find many independent hotels along the Interstates. A handful of chains dominate the market almost completely.
I use them in N. America but try to avoid them in other places like Europe where a great many equal but independent hotels still exist. No Holiday Inn, Marriott or Hilton, etc. has the same ambiance as some of the independent hotels in the same price ranges. For example, here is a 3 star boutique hotel in Switzerland where you can get a double room for $90 US per night with breakfast in June.
https://bellevuewiesen.com/hotelbellevuewiesen/ The hotel dates back to 1873 but is fully modernized and has an award winning restaurant. Europe is full of such hotels which are unique rather than 'cookie cutter' copies. You will not find that price by the way on any third party booking sites, but that's another topic.
I understand people who want to collect 'Loyalty Points' but wonder if they ever consider that it limits them and keeps them from experiencing more interesting hotels. At the higher end of the market, you will not get a room with your Hilton, Marriott, etc. points at this hotel. Sitting high above the lake with a waterfall to one side and reached by funicular from their own ferry dock, compare this to the hotels in Interlaken where the majority of tourists stay.
https://www.giessbach.ch/en/grandhotel-giessbach.html
So what about you, do you avoid chains and look for unique independent hotels when you can find them? Or do you let 'points' dominate your thinking?
I collect points and have a traveling strategy built on earning points when convenient, but I try to avoid letting points dictate my destinations. I see posts around here frequently where people are asking for suggestions about where they can stay in London or Paris or Dublin, and it becomes obvious that the question is phrased the way it is because the poster wants to use accumulated points at a US chain hotel. I won't criticize that out of hand because six or seven years ago, extremely cheap Choice Hotels point redemptions in effect at the time made me jump on a short trip to London when airfares suddenly dropped. Although that trip made me want to return to London, since then, I've used airbnb, a similar service called holidaybookings.co.uk, or stayed in independent hotels in London. In addition, in Europe and other parts of the world, chains don't exist outside of the major cities, yet many of the interesting parts of the country are located in small towns or completely rural areas. I count Ireland as one of those places--yes, Dublin is in Ireland and has tons of point redemption options, but life outside Dublin is fantastic, and I couldn't imagine never wanting to travel to those Irish small towns because they don't have a Carlson, IHG, Hilton, SPG, etc. And from my experiences in Northern Ireland, I would generally avoid Belfast with its multiple chain options to journey through the Glens of Antrim or the Causeway Coast where chains are few and far between. I'm very happy that I don't limit my travels to locales where I could use my hotel points.
And I definitely have little to no interest in the "aspirational" properties so often pushed by the bloggers. The Maldives? Not my cup of tea.
I view point collection for hotels as part of a bigger travel strategy. With airbnb and similar services, the hotel industry is facing challenges. I'm figuring one of the ways hotel chains can those challenges is to keep hotel loyalty programs reasonably rewarding so if I'm traveling to NYC or Florida or California, it may be worth my while to earn or redeem in one of those places. But it's now also worth my while to see what other options may be available.