Points-->Miles conversion options?
 

Any way to get more airline miles than using BW's 5000 points --> 1000 miles?

With existing points? Only by waiting and "hoping" for a bonus. I got 1200 or 1250 miles for that about a year ago (it was called 500 points back then, but same thing as today's 5000 points), which may have been a transfer bonus (I don't recall exactly). I know some other chains OCCAISIONALLY do transfer bonuses, but I don't remember it clearly enough at Best Western to know if it's a thing that's reasonable to expect to come up (again?) at BW.

Ongoing: If your stays are far apart enough that this makes sense (you can change your preference online at any time, but I'm not clear exactly when you have to do it), only earn points where you earn more than 1250 points per stay (as that converts to 250 miles), in cases (like one-night stays in most suburban locations) where you'd earn less than 1250 points choose to earn miles directly.

In my case, where I have a choice, I tend to stay at Best Western only when the promo works better or where it's the most affordable hotel in an expensive city, and in the latter case (and hopefuly the combination of the two!) is about the only case where I earn points. On my more typical one-night stays in cheaper proerties, I always choose miles. (Even if they mess up and give me points instead, I ask them to correct that and replace the points with the original 250 miles per stay and they're able to do that.)

At periods like this, I find the bonus at Choice properties (which tend to be simlarly priced) WAY better for one-night stays in inexpensive locations: Earn 8000 points for every two stays, and 5000 points turn into 1000 miles there too, so that's about 800 miles per one-night stay! Gosh, that's even better than a triple miles promotion at BW would be, but BW doesn't have ANY promotions useful for miles right now (6 nights = a free stay certificate that I can't trade for miles? no thanks!).