Which hotel chain to build points with?
 

Hello all -

I book a lot of travel for my employees. I recently attained platinum with Priority Club, and am wondering which hotel chain to start building points with next. In my market area and budget, the rooms I pick are going to be either Best Western or Choice Privileges - which one should I choose?
I've never stayed with BW, been fairly satisfied with Choice brand hotels. MY endgame is to build points with a hotel that has a worldwide presence, as my wife and I would like to travel outside the US. Also, which chain has better benefits/perks, who tends to give better upgrades? In my experience, Holiday Inns are hit-and-miss when it comes to having upgrades or rewards nights available, would like to avoid that with the next chain. Any suggestions?
Thanks!

You can get status with both Choice and Best Western by asking for a status match to your PC Platinum. Just send both chains an email asking for status match.
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler/ is the best place to find info comparing hotel chains. Second choice would be look through BW & Choice's forums here on FT.

Choice points expire on December 31, two years after earned. There is nothing you can do to extend the expiration. For that reason alone, I've stopped considering Choice. (Many FT members earn Choice points to convert into airline miles. Sounds like that's not of interest to you.)

Neither one is going to give you very consistent upgrades, especially in the US.

I've actually had some good luck redeeming BW points in Europe and they typically have some decent promos (stay "x" times, get a free night, for example)

If you are qualified, join BW via the AAA Preferred membership link: https://goldcrownclub.bestwestern.co.../customize.asp - it adds a bonus 10% for each stay to your account.

Note: You mentioned that you book a lot of travel for other people. Only the guest earns points, not the travel booker.

How about Marriott? Every $3K in spend gets you an elite night. The upgrades very between property but in general they are good for Golds and Plats. The lounges are decent and can be excellent if you're in Asia. My favorite part of the Marriott program is redeeming points for Ritz properties.

It seems like hotel points are more important to you but the SPG card does give the option to transfer to airline miles.

Honestly, I'd stick with Priority club and maximize your points so your euro trip can be free. The only other one I would consider would be Hilton but you didn't mention that one as being in your budget. Some of the room upgrades you can get being platinum with PC are so good I couldn't imagine changing.

I'm curious - you mention at the outset that you "book travel for your employees" - is there some way to earn points/status based on booking travel for others? I always thought that (as with airlines) only the person doing the flying/staying could earn the points.

Some companies track the points their employees earn and require them to spend their points for company travel. Downright heartless if you ask me, especially where employees are expected to travel on their own time.

Edit: this does not appear to apply to OP

Well, here's the issue you've got think about: The programs that let you earn many free nights the fastest (such as Priority Club and Choice) are also the ones that tend to have the least dependable upgrades and other in-hotel perks.

Hilton HHonors is one of the best for in-hotel perks with mid-level status (free breakfast worldwide, free internet worldwide) but you earn points slowly and need tons more points in most cities than with Priority Club or Choice.

So if you focus on upgrades, you essentially have to give up a bunch of points. If you focus on points, you essentially have to give up a bunch of upgrades.

Next, I think you picked a bad time for this (August). IMHO, you should focus on whichever program has a good points-earning bonus. Best Western and Choice both have promos that end in about a week, and then they're likely to have a "blackout period" on bonuses, and haven't announced the next bonus yet. Had you asked about this a month or two ago, you could have earned enough nights at Choice through 8 cheapo suburban stays in the US for 4 $$$ nights in Italy after Sep 16 (all Italy properties drop on Sep 16 to 8k points/night).

Best Western's problem is that it's promos tend to be capped at just a few stays, earning just one free night, which then expires in half a year, before you can earn another one. If you're also booking online and using a BW credit card, you earn 13k bonus points in addition to that, but BW is another chain where points are typically earned slowly and redemption rates are high.

Meanwhile, "the world" is a big place. There are no Choice hotels in Spain, luckily there are quite a few Prioirty Club hotels. There are no Priority Club hotels in Norway, luckily there are lots of Choice redemption (not earning!) hotels there, and most only 16k ponts/night (thus 4 cheap suburban Choice stays here earns one of those, during their frequent stay 2 earn 8000 total points promos). I've found places in the world where there's only Choice or BW (several small towns along the fjords in western Norway), only Starwood (inside Iguazu Falls NP in Argentina, also Salta in Argentina), only Wyndham Rewards properties (in other cities in Argentina), etc.

So you need to figure out more about where in the world you want to go. If you stick to only giant capital cities (London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, etc), it's less of a problem, but if you want to see sights away from those big cities, then each country or even each area of each country may need a different hotel program (to be able to do as many of your stays as possible on points).

I thus collect Hilton HHonors, Priority Club, Choice, Best Western, Wyndham Rewards, and now (because of plans to visit Argentina) Starwood. (I also belong to Marriott but so far only for airline promos.)

I would take a look at Marriott. It has a nice rewards program (or used to - I haven't been a part of it for a while). And Marriott has some lower priced spread properties - like Fairfield Inns (don't know how the prices compare with those at Best Western in the markets you'll looking at). Robyn

I have a couple of times booked and paid for a hotel stay for someone as a gift under my rewards number. Got the points and the stay credit. OTOH - if I were booking hundreds of stays - I would certainly clarify how things work with a particular hotel program. Robyn

Getting lower prices at Marriott brands takes a bit of work, but can pay off, especially if you don't like advance purchase. At a Fairfield Inn I can use, the regular AA rate isn't as good as I'd like, and only good AA rate seems to be advance purchase (and not available anywhere near day of stay). But if you go to the Marriott forum on FlyerTalk, there's a sticky thread which has (in post 1) a giant collection of promo codes you can try. Oodles of them won't work for any one particular property, but with enough patience, I found a couple which gave an AAA rate which was the same lower cost as that advance purchase rate but allows cancel up to 6 pm on the day of stay!

At Best Western, there's less flexibility with promo codes. There generally appears to be only the Manager's Special rate (via WEBONLY or TWEET1 or other codes) which is a prepaid rate (but at many hotels works up through the day of stay) but typically only saves a couple bucks and at some hotels doesn't save anything at all off the rates you can see without any promo code.

+1, and

Welcome to FT, 50ae and Fightgar.



Bobette

Not to hijack the thread, but one of the replies made me want to ask ... I have Diamond Status with Hilton ... is there a list anywhere of chains that will match other status? If I could match to others that would be great...

Thanks!

My sister is a travel planner and does earn points for rooms that she books for large groups.

Thanks, that's awesome! I'm going to do that before lunch!

I pay for the rooms with my company card, so the points go to me. Maybe that won't work for air travel, but it works at 5 different brands of hotel.

I'd love to build with Hilton and Marriot, but for the most I can find cheaper Holiday Inns and Choice Hotels in the markets we travel to, and I've gotta do what's right for the company. (Not inlcuding giving them my points, of course) :)