I will be traveling to Norway in the summer of 2013. None of the UR hotel partners (Hyatt, Priority Club, Marriott) have hotels in Norway. These chains have hotels in Norway: Radisson (Club Carlson), Best Western, Choice Hotels, and DoubleTree (Hilton). Since we seldom stay at hotels in the states, I'd like to earn hotel stays with credit card sign up bonuses. Is this realistic for the chain hotels that are in Norway? If so, which credit card(s) would be the most helpful? Thanks for your help.

Where in Norway? DoubleTree (Hilton) is only in Oslo:

http://hilton.com/en/hi/promotions/h...rdic,scandiurl

If you're going to Oslo (either only to Oslo or at least as part of your trip), that's your best bet for credit cards, since you can get a bonus for both the HHonors Amex and the Citi HHonors card, and in fact you can probably apply for two Citi HHonors cards (with the 50k bonus if it's still around; see the MilesBuzz! forum for that) at the same time with the "two browser trick". So with 2 cards you'd have at least 100k-ish points, and with 3 cards you might get to 150k-ish points.

Club Carlson doesn't have a card yet. It's coming late in 2012, but we don't know what signup offers or earning rate there will be, I don't think we're even absolutely sure which bank it will be yet!

Too bad you seldom stay at hotels in the US. The very very very best way to get hotels cheap in Norway is to stay in cheap suburban Choice hotels (Comfort, Quality, Sleep) during a promo like the current stay 2 times (not 2 nights, but two separate stays) and earn 8000 points. Most Choice hotels in Norway are 16000 points a night, so 4 cheap stays here gets you an expensive Choice hotel in Norway, so sort of pays for itself (though maybe a bit hard to justify if you don't have a "natural" need for hotels in the US).

The problem with Choice and Best Western is that they both have fairly low signup bonuses, can't be easily churned, and earn very slowly from the credit cards (unless perhaps you have very high annual spend), except when used at their respective hotels (but agian, if you rarely stay in hotels in the US, that doesn't help you!).

I'm personally fortunate that I "naturally" need lots of stays in the US which can be done in cheap suburban Choice hotels, and in fact my #1 reason for using those is because it can then get me into $200-$300/night nice Choice hotels out on the fjords of Norway as a "side benefit" to my needed-anyway US hotel stays. I don't know how I would afford Norway (beyond Oslo) if I wasn't doing US hotel stays that I could steer to Choice during those promos. (And it's the fjords of western Norway that pull me back over and over and over again to Norway, not Oslo repeatedly.)

Some people use an annaul (very short, as in minutes or at most hours long!) sale on bying CHoice points from Discover America to fund their overseas Choice stays. I know nothing about that except for reading a bit about it on FlyerTalk (since I earn all the Choice points I need from actual hotel stays). You may want to search the Choice forum for "Discover America" to see if this is a worthwhile plan for you or not.

Even the Choice card signup bonus that looks half decent actually requires a hotel stay for a good part of the bonus. Having said that, at least it will get you a night or two at Choice, I think. The Best Western card sign-up bonus will get you only a night in Norway at best.

And then you'll be all used up. Since these cards aren't churnable, what will you do for your next trip to Scandinavia. (This chain hotel pattern isnt'unique to Norway, though perhaps exaggerated there. If in 2014 or 2015 you want to go to another Scandinavian country, you may need the hotel chains, but by then you'll have used up your non-repeatable signup bonsuse!

So the flaw in the plan to rely on signup bonuses is that (with many hotels, except perhaps HHonors through the Citi Visa), you can't repeat it for your following trip.

(I want to treval again and again and again, so I tend to focus on what's repeatable, vs what's one-time only. And in fact, every visit to Norway makes me want to do two more visits to Norway!!!)

Thank you, sdsearch. This is exactly the kind of information I am looking for. We will travel to Oslo, the county of Telemark, Bergen and maybe a trip up north to Mo i Rana. We are visiting the places where our ancestors lived (except Bergen which we will visit for its beauty and as a "gateway to the fjords and west coast").

I'm glad to hear Club Carlson is coming out with a credit card later this year. It will be interesting to see what their initial sign up bonus will be.

My husband travels some (but not a lot) for work. Could he stay at Choice hotels under my Choice Privileges account or under a joint account so he could earn free nights for me with his stays?

I will investigate the Discover America promo of purchasing Choice points.

I actually prefer to stay in locally owned inns, B&B's, etc. in Europe. But to save some money I thought that if I could pay for a handful of nights with points, that would help the trip budget.

Your post has been very helpful. Thank you!

I hate to answer a question with an approach outside your indicated interest, but have you looked at sites such as booking.com for rates? Booking.com is a Priceline company that operates similar to Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, and Priceline's own non-bidding website but has a more worldwide focus and also gathers results from alternative accommodations, such as hostels, apartments, B&Bs, and guesthouses. If you're looking for a luxury hotel, most of these options will be unappealing to you; if not, they're well worth considering.

I would especially direct your attention to B&Bs and guesthouses. In the US, B&Bs typically seem to be true boutique operations, with all that implies, including prices normally higher than local hotels. In much of Europe, that is not universally true. There are the boutique operations, but there are also truly family-oriented B&Bs that are well-located (although not necessarily centrally) and a relatively good bargain. Booking.com includes ratings of all of these facilities and although it's hard to be sure of the ratings, both because of the possible fluffy or unreasonably disgruntled ratings and because the rating given by someone who likes staying in hostels may not be comparable to those given by folks who only like to stay in hotels (in other words, an 8 rating for a hostel may not mean it's the equivalent of a hotel with an 8 rating), you can generally get a decent feel for what a place is like. I've used B&Bs and guesthouses extensively in Scotland and Ireland and more sparingly in Italy, have found many of them quite equivalent to two-star hotels, and do not know why the situation in Norway would be much different.

I know we're focused on free or nearly free travel here at FT, and if that's the path you're on, sdsearch's advice is spot on, especially given his experience with the accommodations in Norway. Sometimes, however, I find that it's just easier to fly for free by using miles and realizing that in certain areas, it's just really hard to use points for hotels.

Good luck. I hope to make it to Norway myself one day!

Thank you lwildernorva,

Yes, the bulk of our stays will be at locally owned B&B's, inns, guesthouses, etc. I have started looking at some on booking.com. I was just hoping to throw in a handful of free-nights-with-points to help out our budget.

I hope you one day make to Norway!

I don't think so. But how about the way around? You said "we" will travel to Norway, so couldn't your husand stay at Choice Hotels under his Choice Privileges account and then book the free nights for both of you from the points he earns with his stays? (It sounds like neither of you have a CHoice account yet, so why not start that account in his name, since the points will be coming from his stays? And then, if getting the Choice credit card, also get the card in his name, since it requires a stay for maximum bonus points.)

But you really should be asking quesitons about how the Choice program work in the Choice forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/choice-privileges-640/

I myself can't give you a definitive answer to the quesiton as you asked it because I'm single and never book hotels for anyone other than myself with my account. (When I've booked hotels for friedns it's always been under their account.) You need the larger audience of Choice members with different personal situations to be able to get a definitive answer to how/if you can earn points in your account on your husband's hotel stays.

Thanks for the suggestion, but the "we" traveling to Norway are myself and two sisters. I do have a Choice Privileges account, but rarely use it because most of my domestic travel is to see family.

I'll check the Choice Privileges forum to find out about the possibility of my husband earning free stays on my account that I could then use for Norway (or setting up an account for him for which he could earn free nights, but I could maybe use). Thanks for the link.

Here's what the Choice Privileges website says:

"A member may redeem a reward night for an immediate family member (spouse, partner, children, parents, in-laws, brothers and sisters). Immediate family members (spouse, partner, children, parents, in-laws, brothers and sisters) can use the free night even if the member is not occupying the room."

So I guess I'll get a Choice Privileges account for my husband and maybe his travel will result in a few free nights I can use in Norway.

Thanks for your help, everyone!

Keep in mind that the standard European hotel room has one double bed or two single beds, and the rooms are usually small. If you plan to fit 3 women in one room, you may want to email hotels to see which can accommodate 3 people (with a rollaway bed or sofabed), especially on an award stay. Or ask your sisters to help you earn hotel points. Good luck!

I just checked and, unfortunately, the Discover America purchases of Choice Privileges points can be used only for stays in the U.S. (Which would make sense, I guess, since it it called Discover America!).

Bummer.

I think last year's Discover America offer for Choice points had the same language. Once the points are in your account, you are free to use them however you want. I was able to use some of mine for a stay in Tokyo last year.

THANK YOU! This is very good to know!