Best Hotel Program for One Night Stays in Same Area
 

Hi Guys,

I've read quite a few other threads but most people around here are travelers. So I've moved back in with my parents in central Jersey recently and started dating a girl I knew from high school. Problem is we both live at home and can't go over each others houses due to conservative parents. I work but am pretty tight on cash. Still we've been booking hotel rooms every other week for the past few months. My only condition is to not have a smelly bathroom or disgusting room. Priceline gave me on of those with their pay-before-you-know program.

I'm trying to get as many free nights and cheap rooms as possible. Usually we stay on Friday or Saturday nights and always stay for only one night. First I used Hyatt's bonus point program where you get 1000 to 2000 extra points per stay at select hotels. Even then it took 3 stays just to be able to book a category 1 hotel (not many options). I always stayed at their cheapest hotels, though even these were much better than IHG's hotels. Then I saw IHG's Pointbreaks program. To rack up points PC has those 3000 or 5000 bonus point stays if you pay a premium on the best rate available. So if a room is $75 w/o tax, I usually end up paying $100-$110 w/o tax to get the 3k or 5k bonus points. On top of that they are giving 1k points away per stay as part of some promotion. So for my last two stays I've racked up 15k+ points, good for 3 Pointbreak stays. or 1.5 Holiday Inn stays.

Does any other hotel have something that can compete with the Pointbreaks program? That's the main thing that makes IHG good for me. Otherwise the bonus points you earn by paying so much more per stay aren't worth it.
Finally, IHG hotels never have mini-fridges or anything above the bare minimum which becomes annoying when they state you are staying at a 3 star hotel (like Crown Plaza). I shouldn't expect much for the price, but at least they should admit their hotels are not 3 stars.

Thanks for any help :cool:

Have u ventured into the PC forum 2 find more codes 2 better ur point gains? And stay on top of the promos. At this moment IHG is having a promo that attacks HH. U can gain a 1k pts easy thru that. IMHO, Hyatt is the better program & @ this moment they have a promo for instant Plat/Diamond w/ a limited amount of stays. U can't beat Hyatt's Diamond tier-IMHO. Make these stays work 2 ur advantage. I use PC as my backup program. The majority of the people on FT r great & won't steer u wrong. Listen 2 them & believe n them & u will see how fun & cheap this is. Welcome 2 FT!

Right now? There are lots of options. You know about Priority Club and Hyatt.

Starwood refer a friend comes with a 1000 point bonus per night through the end of March. You'll need to get a referral today or tomorrow, though.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...atus-gift.html

There are very respectable properties at 2000 and 3000 points per weekend night.

If possible, you should also consider a hotel credit card. Starwood's AmEx gets you 10,000 points, which could be 3 or 4 nights for you. There might be just as good a deal with a Marriott card; I remember them offering free night certificates plus points in the past.

Tell us the city so we can better help you.

Are you a member of Costco? (or know someone who is?) Since they sell Hyatt GC that would yield you a 20% discount. If you're presently a Hyatt Platinum member they're offering a "fast track" to Diamond, which (I believe) gives you Diamond privileges for 6 months while you need to stay 15 nights to continue to enjoy Diamond membership through next year. They higher status also brings in a point bonus for each stay. Also don't forget that at some point (historically speaking) this year Hyatt will offer their FFN (or another name) program where they "give" you one free night anywhere for every two stays (so you're two one night stays would yield you one free night -- a could be a nice getaway to a higher priced hotel you would probably not consider staying at).

Hey guys,

Sorry for the late reply.

gomike - Should've been more specific. I live in Kendall Park NJ. By car it takes an hour toward the southwest to get to Philly and an hour northeast to get to Manhattan.

mommafrica - yeah I have. That's how I got the 15k points over two stays at IHG hotels.

ramolnar - I'll try applying to a CC hotel card. Though my credit is darn awful at the moment so I don't expect anything. And AMEX denied me a year ago when mine was just was better while other CCs accepted me. I'll look in MC/Discover/Visa hotel cards.

cmjaffe - I'm simply a gold member with about 5k points with Hyatt. I do like Hyatt since theres a decent hotel nearby that would cost 5k points. However their Gx program just had a ton of expirations on Feb 28 (yesterday) so I'm waiting for an update as currently they removed a lot of the hotels I would stay at to get the bonus.

But yeah their FFN program rules. However according to wiki they always have it around the same time every year which is at the end of the year.

So does anyone know about other hotels that have bigish point bonuses like Hyatt's Gx bonus offers? I always use my points to redeem the cheapest possible hotel a program offers for one night as well (for example IHG - I always choose HI express or pointbreaks while for Hyatt I always choose their 5k points for category one hotels).

Actually, the reason you're not seeing mini-fridges are not because you're paying too little, but because you're paying too much!

Mini-fridges, free internet access, and many other "easy" perks are much more likely to be free at cheaper properties, in hotel families like Choice Privileges, Best Western, Wyndham Rewards, etc. You can find fridges in IHG reliably only at Candlewood Suites (full-size fridges in that case!).

Not every property in those cheaper hotel families has them, but a way greater percentage, and they tend to mention if they do on the hotel site or in the room description on the hotel's site.

Meanwhile, Choice's current promo, 8000 points for 2 separate stays (where redemptions start a 8000 points), is hard to beat, given that Choice seems to have trouble holding prices high in most cities (comapred to, say, Hilton HHonors which seems ridiculously high prices in some cities given how they're surrounded by cheaper chains with prices at a fraction of that, in this economy).

But you have to use TripAdvisor.com (the #1 hotel review site) with any of these lower-end hotels (but also many of the kind you'd find in Priceline!), since there's inconsistency.

This is awesome. I love that we are advising you on the best hotel loyalty program for affordable love nest hook ups. Today, Flyer Talk has entertained me more than I had a right to expect.

To get to the question: There are 9 majorish hotel loyalty chains. Of the five biggies, I think you have selected what is, at least this year, arguably the top 1 or 2. I would put it between Hyatt and Starwood, personnally. Of the not quite as big programs (in ters of not as many properties or few high end ones), Perhaps the Choice program, as mentioned by sdsearch, would be worthy of consideration given your stated goals.