Originally Posted by
heubergen
Thanks again for all the information. I made a bunch of lists and made some thoughts and I'm going to do it this way; I stay in some Hilton Hotels in the Towns where they are cheaper and than in the more rural areas I check on hotels.com which is the cheapest hotel with a decent review. I may don't get as much points but for the cities (8) I was looking Choice ADR was 73.63$ and booking with hotels.com 69.29$. At this end I would save about 200$ and that's not worth it to be locked to one chain.
One idea: if you were to use Choice between now and May 25, you'd earn 80,000 points, which would be good for 10 free nights at 8,000 points per night. I'd value those free nights at $40, so that's $400 in free nights you can use after May 25. That basically covers your first 30 days (or you can hold onto the points and use them throughout the rest of your stay as the opportunity arises). After that, you can be brand-agnostic and go for Hilton/Wyndham/whatever is the cheapest. Up to you, though.
If you do book through Hotels.com, be sure to first go through a cashback portal. Actually right now I think Upromise is the best for Hotels.com because they don't cut the cashback percentage when you earn Hotels.com Welcome Rewards credits. Then access Hotels.com through Upromise and you'll earn 5%, and then be sure to sign up for and collect Welcome Rewards credits on Hotels.com, which is effectively a 10% rebate. That gets you in effect a 15% rebate on anything you book through Hotels.com.