In some areas, like central Orange County CA (Garden Grove/Anaheim) Candlewoods can on some nights be WAY cheaper than anything else in the PC chain, and if you're paying on your own dime, that could be signficant. For example, one recent night when I needed a one night stay there the Candlewood I stayed at was $54 a night but the Express next door was $90 (and that Express has a very minimal breakfast compared to most others in that brand). Is $36 extra a night worth the point/mile difference? You have to decide for yourself.

For me, that's not the decision, because I belong to multiple airline programs, and AFAIK two of them aren't affected: I'll still earn 0.5 Southwest credits (1/32 of a free flight) for every $54 Candlewood stay, or I'll still earn 500 BA miles for every such stay. So now the main problem is, I have to have my Candlewood stays not so adjacent to stays at other PC chains as to rule out changing my Earning Preference on the website on a stay-by-stay basis. (It's also annoying that every time you change Earning Preference to points, it wipes out its memory of what airline you had before, so I'll have to be endlessly retyping that.)

Also, factor in the bonus going on. When it's a fixed amount of points or miles like currently (3000 bonus points or 1000 bonus miles), and again you're staying on your own dime, if Candlewood presents by far the cheapest way to earn the bonus, and the bonus far outweighs the base earnings no matter wheter at Candlewood or at Express, Candelwood might make more sense then. But when a "double" kind of bonus comes around, that's when Candlewood will really make very little sense (if you can't use Southwest credits or miles with an airline that gives fixed miles per stay rather than miles per dollar spent).