Originally Posted by
Will Stonehocker
Choice Hotels is better in every regard, unless you listen to my aunt's opinions on Econo Lodge and Rodeway Inn.
Eh, I've had better luck with Wyndham overall with price to value ratio. While there's no true bottom of the barrel chain like Knights Inn, Rodeway and Econo Lodge aren't really any better than Travelodge and Super 8, in my experience. They also have more presence where I've been traveling (there's areas where I can't find a Choice hotel within 50 miles but there's 5-10 Wyndham hotels, more now with the AmericInn acquisition.) Plus, the rewards program with Wyndham has a lot more sweet spots, and the available discount codes tend to be more generous on the Wyndham side of things.
There's less higher-end brands, but if you're looking at like-for-like chains, Wyndham's budget brands and Choice's budget brands generally are in the same ballpark. Wyndham just seems to have more non-purpose-built and conversion-ready chains that get a lot of random mediocre hotels (Days Inn is huge with random conversions, along with Baymont Inn and Howard Johnson to some extent.)
Originally Posted by
storewanderer
Next they should dump off Travelodge, and do a major purge on Days Inn and Ramada garbage hole brands. Super 8 brand needs a pretty significant remodel/capital program but given how many of those were actually purpose built it may not be so difficult to make that happen. Knights Inn was clearly where they were dumping garbage that could not even meet the awful standards of brands like Travelodge, Days Inn, or Ramada.
La Quinta is a very good addition for Wyndham as well. Yes, La Quinta isn't perfect by any means but they are at least at the level of a Comfort Inn and just a little below a Holiday Inn Express or Hampton in my experience.
Is Travelodge really that bad? I haven't seen a ton of them, but it seems like they have some in really good locations for a somewhat budget-friendly price (I think there's one in Chicago, for example.) I haven't had any bad Ramada experiences, but I can agree with the Days Inn verdict; there's a lot of properties that seem to not be able to hold a Best Western flag and down-convert to Days Inn and there's not a whole lot of standards applied there.
Super 8 seems to be doing some renovation work and there's at least a refresh going on chain-wide. For the price of their hotels, I don't expect to see huge top-to-bottom renovations, but as long as they stay clean I really don't mind. The current refresh seems to be coming along nicely and it's often my chain of choice for budget stays in part due to the refresh. La Quinta is a nice addition, though, and with the AmericInn brand filling in a lot of places where La Quinta doesn't have a large presence I think Wyndham will start having decent coverage in the mid-range limited-service sector (probably a bit lower than a Hampton Inn, but with lower prices to pair with that.)
Originally Posted by
Billy Mumphrey
This is a pretty devastating loss for Wyndham mattress runners nationwide.
How nationwide is Knights Inn presence? I've seen them a fair amount of other places, but here in Minnesota there's barely any. I had to look and it appears that there's only 1 Knights Inn within 100 miles. With Travelodge, Super 8, and Days Inn still in the mix, I think there'll be plenty of mattress runs still available.