Well, the hotel I've been discussing, the BLVD Hotel in Costa Mesa, i got for $72 Preferred Customer Rate, and that must mean it's still way less than $100 a night under a public rate. And I checked a bunch of other nights, and they seem to always have rates about like this now during the "winter" (I have to put "winter" in quotes because "winter" in coastal SoCal is not like true winter most other places, including in SoCal mountains).

And in fact, it is lower priced than all the nearby Quality and Comfort Inns.

Like I said, this hotel (like other hotels in the immediate area) has much higher rates in the summer when the Orange County Fair, which may be within walking distance, is running for about a month. But the rest of the year, their rates are cheap.

So are they counting those inflated "special event" rates to call this hotel "upscale"? :confused:

Anyway, Jackal has posted two conflicting statements (one about unique, boutique, etc, and another about upscale) about what Ascend is from Choice. So maybe even Choice doesn't agree with themselves about what Ascend is? :confused:

I was also going to ask, why does Choice not have a Homewood Suites/Residence Inn/Staybridge Suites/Hyatt House clone, let alone Towneplace Suites/Home2 Suites/Candlewood Suites clone, with Intown Suites and Extended Stay America (Hawthorn Suites is like all three tiers combined)?

They don't have a high-end extended-stay brand (Staybridge/Homewood/etc.), but I would say the MainStay Suites is somewhat comparable to Candlewood Suites and that Suburban Extended Stay is on par with Extended Stay America. I've stayed in Candlewoods that felt worse than the MainStay I stayed in south of Ocala, FL and in Extended Stay Americas that felt seedier than the Suburban Extended Stay I stayed out out somewhere near the MSY airport.

Have you stayed at both TownePlace Suites and Candelwood Suites? :confused: I don't consider them to be at all the same. Candlewood Suites has no breakfast (paid or free) at all. (In theory, there may be some breakfast stuff for sale in the pantry. In practice, there's usually hardly anything I find.) TownePlace Suites has a breakfast buffet probably comparable to at least Quality or Comfort , in some ways closer to Fairfield (though not as extensive as Fairfield). So I would never put Candlewood and TownePlace in the same category.

Candelwood seems patterned after Extended Stay America properties in that it's extended-stay only, and doesn't try to cater to the normal one-night hotel stay crowd (though if you're to live with the limitations, you can indeed stay only one night at a time).

I've not stayed at a Home2Suites but per discussions in the Hilton it too has some minimal complimentary breakfast.

IIRC, Candlewood Suites was an acquired brand, while TownePlace Suites and Home2Suites were built-up brands.

So I wouldn't lump these 3 brands all together.

I have stayed at a Towneplace when I was 15. Candlewood Suites is a competitor to Towneplace. And Fairfield's breakfast is better than Towneplace. Also, I never see Hyatt have a clone to Towneplace or Home2, or even Mainstay.

Hyatt is a way smaller program than either Marriott (even pre-merger) or Hilton or Choice, in terms of properties, cities, rooms, whatever metric you want. So it's not surprising that they don't cover every type of property that Marriott or Hilton or Choice programs do.

Meanwhile, Towneplace breakfast is a million times better than Candlewood Suites breakfast, since the latter has none (as a brand standard; there may be an isolated Candlewood here or that has some sort of limited breakfast, I dunno). So I wouldn't put them quite in the same category. It's just that Fairfield doesn't have a competitor to the ExtendedStay America family like IHG has. (ExtendedStay America brands don't have breakfast either. But they don't have a points program either AFAIK, which is why they're not talked about much on FlyerTalk.)

Keep in mind that Candlewood Suites was a brand acquired by IHG. IHG didn't develop it.

I know, Jack Deboer invented Candlewood. And Extended Stay America sucks.

While there's no points program for ESA, they do now offer a small grab-and-go breakfast bar (packaged muffins, granola bars, oatmeal packets, fruit, and coffee.) It's nothing to write home about, and there's nothing in the way of protein or meat, but they do offer something now.

A breakfast bar for grab-and-go...might be useful for small breakfast rooms.

i'm gonna be honest here. choice hotels is mainly for cheapskates, and i bet them putting out a residence inn/homewood suites/hyatt house/staybridge suites rival would fail as the price tag would seem unclear.