sdsearch

Well, it's not exactly the same for me. In January I stayed at one Choice hotel earning Southwest Airlines points to reset my Rapid Rewards expiration, and then at another Choice hotel on points.

If there's no stay-based promo by April 16, when some hotels where I need to stay drop to 12k per night per their hotel website charts, I may do a few more reward stays. (I've built up way more points than I ever had at one time in the past, so I can afford to use up some.) These hotels tend to have award rooms available until day-of-stay, so I can wait till the last minute to see if a stay-based promo pops up or not.

And thus, I would say: Seems like forever since I did a paid stay at a Choice hotel

jackal

AFAICT, there's exactly one other widespread brand that competes with Choice on rate: Wyndham. No other chain even comes close. (Fortunately, Wyndham seems to be interested in doing some lucrative promos lately.) Sure, other chains do promos, but IME, except for IHG's big Accelerate promos, none of them end up "subsidizing" the higher rates nearly enough to bring the price down to be competitive with Choice. That is, on a long-term basis, you'll still end up spending less out of pocket if you stick with Choice than if you stay at Marriott or whatever and hit their promos.

Let's say I do 30 paid stays this year (and that I already have Gold from the same last year). Last year, my average Choice property stay was $50. So that's a spend of $1,500 for my 30 stays. Without a promo, that $1,500 would earn me 15,000 base points plus another 1,500 in Gold bonus points for a total of 16,500 points (plus probably a smattering of welcome amenity and Choices points and whatnot). Then let's say I go on a week-long barbecue trip to Kansas City (mmm, Joe's, LC's, Q39, Jack Stack...gotta hit 'em all! Except Gates...). I can redeem for two nights at 8,000 points each, leaving me with five more nights at $50/night average ($250). So my net spend for 35 nights is $1,750.

Now let's take Hilton as an example. They're doing their 2,000 points per stay bonus plus 10,000 every five stays. I think it would be fair to say that I couldn't find Hilton-brand properties (largely Hamptons) less than an average of $86/night. (Most of the time when I'm shopping for a stay, every Hilton-branded property is well north of that, even with the MVP discount, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and incorporate comparing the difference between the ADR for the Quality brand here and the Hampton brand here.) So I stay the same 30 nights, and in so doing, I spend $2,580, earn 25,800 base points, 6,450 Gold bonus points (let's assume I'm Gold from either past stays or a credit card), 40,000 per-stay bonus points, and 40,000 per-five-stay bonus points, for a total of 112,250 points. Then I go on the same five-day barbecue trip. I redeem 80,000 points for five nights (fifth night free as a Gold) at one of several Hamptons and HGIs in the area plus another 20,000 for the sixth night (can't quite afford the seventh night, so I have 12,250 points left over). I only have to pay one more night to finish off that last barbecue meal ($86). Nice that all of those nights are free...but those 37 nights have cost me $2,666.

In other words, despite the barbecue trip being almost completely free (except for one night), I've still spent $916 more out of pocket to use Hilton than Choice.

(I do have those 12,250 points left over, but they're not worth a free night, and if I value them as The Points Guy does at 0.6 cents per point, they're worth $73.50, and even if I subtract $73.50 from what I've spent, I'm still spending $842.50 more to use Hilton than Choice.)

For people who can expense their business travel and don't care about the base rate when they stay for work, sure, Hilton is more lucrative now, because it's less out of your personal pocket when you go on vacation and redeem for those 6 nights, but for those of us who pay for all of our own hotels, Choice still comes out ahead.

Even if you can't match my Choice ADR (the places I go and the areas of town I stay lend themselves to being below the chain's ADR, which I admit isn't the case for everyone), it's probably fair to use the published ADRs in the above two links ($75 for Quality and $111 for Hampton), so the relative difference is still the same.

That said, yes, the lack of a promo has affected my personal booking patterns. My next two reservations are with Wyndham. The following six will most likely be with IHG to hit my Accelerate promo targets (an estimated spend of about $500 will yield me about $400 worth of points, so that's a worthwhile return). After that, if Choice still doesn't have a stay-twice-get-one promo going on, I'll likely fall back to redeeming my too-big stash of Choice points, but that will likely carry me well past the end of 2018.

lougord99

The other part of the equation is, did you get $916 more enjoyment from staying at nicer hotels.

lwildernorva

If you're price sensitive, then yes, Choice remains a viable option. And given the conditions at many mid-level Choice properties compared with similar Wyndham properties, I'd generally rather stay at a Choice property. Of course, the whole comparison between Choice and Wyndham gets a bit sticky since I feel the lower-level Wyndham properties can be truly poor while Wyndham clearly has upper-level properties with which Choice can't compete. The addition of La Quinta will make this even tougher as I have had generally positive experiences, for the price, at LQ locations and think of them as a very good mid-level chain.

But the promos provided a reason for folks who might go to higher level competing chains a reason to stick with Choice since the payoff was better. That's changing. IHG's Accelerate promos plus the free night with the credit card have led me to stay more at HIXs where the breakfasts are better (and on a purely personal note, the cinnamon rolls are extremely addictive). I'm willing to stick with HIXs for redemptions, mostly because of the free breakfasts, so long as the individual hotels are in locations that suit my purposes. And currently, I'm in an Embassy Suites in Altamonte Springs, north of Orlando, where I'm reminded of the outstanding breakfast, the afternoon snacks and drinks reception, and their well-executed suite concept. Although you're sticking somebody with a sofa bed, you really can have two people stay in one of their suites without too much of a problem and both have a separate bed and TV. More expensive? Yes, I'm paying about $50 more per night than I would have at my normal Quality Inn and Suites one exit farther down I-4, but the hotel itself is better, the surrounding neighborhood is much better, and the amenities are no contest.

Price sensitivity and good promotions have helped Choice. I'm not certain that price sensitivity alone will help them keep the business they've built since the loss of promotions may tempt others to look for alternatives, including moving on to Airbnb and the like.

jackal

Fair point, and some people might. I don't; I'd rather parlay that $916 into an extra trip somewhere else.

No doubt that other chains do better breakfasts. But I can get a lot of breakfasts at IHOP or Denny's or Cracker Barrell (as bad as those places are, they're better than most hotel breakfasts, except perhaps at Embassy Suites or full-service properties with a real restaurant) for $916.

The other amenities and nicer condition are worth it to some people. Like I said, I personally prefer to spend that difference on more travel, since a room is just a place to sleep to me.

I think you're probably over-guessing the effect of the promo on the majority of people who stay at Choice. The vast majority of guests are not even Choice Privileges members, and so I would hazard that the vast majority of people staying at Choice picked a Choice property because it was the cheapest thing on Kayak (for whatever their criteria are--location or whatever). We here on FT are deeply entwined in the world of miles and points, but I think we tend to forget that most people don't have a clue about that stuff and so it's at most a few people on the margins who are swayed to book at Choice because of the promo. That said, I'm sure it does drive some small bit of business-traveler traffic to Choice from people who would normally expense a more expensive property but are willing to self-downgrade to a lower-end Choice property instead because it personally benefits them.

lwildernorva

No doubt that loyalty programs don't drive everything, and as I've said in other posts in this thread, I think loyalty programs are moving towards a sales mentality (discounted awards for certain limited times of the year) to give everybody, whether deeply into a loyalty program or not, the impression that the program is competitive. The beauty and genius of the long running Choice promo, however, was its simplicity--"two stays earn a free stay." Assuming we're moving into a different paradigm--and that paradigm shift could include an annual two stays kind of promo instead of the three yearly ones we're used to--it's just not as lucrative.

In reference to the Airbnb thing, keep in mind that younger travelers are already gravitating towards such services. If price sensitivity becomes the sole driver, then I think older travelers will also move in that direction. In a conversation with a contemporary several months ago (we're lower 60s in age), he told me he now never stays in a hotel in NYC because he can get an Airbnb for less than $50 per night. Hostels are the only kind of accommodation that can compete with that price.

sdsearch

Are you not aware of a program called Best Western Rewards?

Most people would group Best Western with Choice and Wyndham Rewards (all as "budget" programs), not with Marriott and Hilton and IHG. And I'd say Best Western is roughly just as "widespread" as Choice is. (While I wouldn't call either World of Hyatt or Radisson Rewards as all that "widespread", unless you also mean "thinly spread" when you say "widespread" .)

And funny you should talk about "subsidizing", because the current BW promo is a $10 travel card for each stay (which is essentially $10 off each stay if all your stays are 1-night stays, as they'd also have to be at Choice to max out any "stay 2 get 8000" promo at Choice). Though if you haven't signup up yet, there's a 2000 bonus points per stay alternate to the $10 off per stay at BW (you can sign up for either one if you haven't signed up yet, but once you've signed up for one you can't change it.)

It is, in fact, mostly BW that I'm currently substituting for Choice (on those nights where I can't find cheap Marriott or Hilton properties -- I already maxed out my IHG Accelerate with 2 stays in January). Wyndham Rewards's current promotion maxes out after just 2 stays, which for those whose stays are mostly 1 night long is not very much. Yes, it gives a very nice bonus of 15000 points for those 2 stays, but then what? That capped-at-2-stays WR promo lasts till the end of June!

Though today I realized that I need to reset my Amtrak Guest Rewards expiration before October, and I also realized that Choice hotels gives 250 Amtrak points per stay when crediting to AGR. So I may do a paid Choice stay soon, after all, just to get that Amtrak reset out of the way (the same way I did paid Choice stay in January to reset my Southwest Airlines RR expiration).

jackal

IME, BW's ADR is significantly higher than Choice and Wyndham, but that's my experience. Maybe there are some cheaper BWs, but I don't commonly encounter them (most of the ones I find are $100+/night, so $10 off doesn't really do much). BW doesn't appear to publish ADR numbers so I can't back that up with objective data, but it's been my personal experience.

BW does have a fantastic BRG program, though!

jebr

The addition of AmericInn, while a regional chain, is also a strong mid-level addition in their portfolio. Here in Minnesota they're one of the most frequent chains seen, if not the most frequent hotel chain. I've typically seen them as positioned about a half-step below a Hampton (they're consistently good, but they're not as consistently new/remodeled as I've seen Hampton's be.) They're priced to match for the most part, but Wyndham has pretty easy-to-get 15-20% discount codes through Allied Business Network that now apply to AmericInn. It's definitely helped solidify my choice to make Wyndham a primary program for me. (I almost exclusively travel for leisure, so the lower rates of a Super 8 or Microtel are worth having to weed through the bad ones.)

That being said, there are definitely some duds in the Wyndham group, especially from what I've seen in the Knights Inn and Howard Johnson brands and, to a lesser extent, Travelodge and Super 8 brands. I think if Wyndham just cut out the Knights Inn and Howard Johnson brands (or started really cracking down on those brands) Super 8 and Travelodge would probably be equivalent to Rodeway and Econo Lodge for decency and variability.


I think most people who aren't already actively comparing with Airbnb won't switch just because the promos are going away, and I think most people who pursue the promos (or find the promos to be a strong selling point) won't switch to Airbnb. Airbnb currently has no rewards program to speak of, and there's a decent amount of social aspect and variability in Airbnb that even a lower-end budget traveler may not want to deal with (non-24 hour check-in times, having to share a house with someone with limited expectations of privacy, etc.) I've stayed at a couple of Airbnb properties, and while my stays were fine I prefer having my sleeping arrangements be a bit more formal and business-like than what Airbnb is trying to do.

taina2

Did anyone ever think with the improving economy they don't need promo's to fill rooms?

MiaSkye89

https://www.choicehotels.com/deals/free-night

well then...

better late than never

lwildernorva

Finally! But, of course, when I try to register for the promo, I get an error message. . .

sdsearch

Many BW properties that are low-priced may not always be low-priced. And I don't just mean based on stay date, but also based on how far out you book. There's a property I often get at $80/85ish, but around "spring break" they jacked up advance prices, and then on days when advance sales didn't happen, they suddenly decreased the price to $80ish a few days out. So IME it requires checking much more often with BW to get good rates (during potentially busy times) than with Choice. Most Choice hotels don't raise rates "just in case" and then have to lower them to the degree that some BW hotels seem to.

sdsearch

Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I reposted that link to the Upcoming Promotions thread, where discussion about it seems more on topic.