Best Hotel Program for Low-End Redemptions
 

Most of the talk I have seen for hotel reward programs has been mostly for very high-end hotel redemptions.

I would actually to have more nights, rather than nicer hotels for my redemptions.

I am interested ideally, in a program which has a credit card bonus sign up offer, and the standard points for CC spend a normal card would have (1pt/$1 etc). The categories do not matter much to me, as most of my spending is not categorized in a way that I would get double points.

Currently I use SPG, but they seem to be lacking a bit on the lower end of their scale. Does anyone know which hotel reward program would be better?

For example, with SPG there are some incredible hotels for 20k pts a night or so, but I would much prefer 10 crappy hotel night stays for 2k pts a night.


Any advice? SPG? Hilton? Hyatt? Marriott? Any others?

Any way to use miles efficiently to get standard 2* or 3* hotels?

Thanks a bunch!

Ryan

Intercontinental has Holiday Inn in their network; those tend to be everywhere, and relatively inexpensive.

Best Hotel Program for Low-End Redemptions
 

My vote also goes for Priority Club, plus, their PointBreaks offers go for 5k, roughly a $30 value for limited hotels normally valued at $60 - $200+

This year all of my spending has been with Priority Club; I've maxed out their program, there's nothing left to work for, and I'm tempted to go to Starwood or Marriott next year as I move upmarket...

IMHO, I have to think HHonors should rank fairly high, if not strictly for the availability of mid-low tier awards (HGI, Hampton Inns, etc...) then for the availability of credit-card sign-up bonuses. Currently, there are the Citi 50K sign-ups, Amex 50K, and BoA Hawaiian (can net up to 140K) offers that net points, making it very hard to really pass this chain up for others. I know low-end rewards with others may not be as great with HHonors, but I think it's worth some evaluation due to the extreme number of points that can be easily earned.

Best Western and Wyndham have them and have no annual fee. I'm a single, frugal traveler with champagne taste on a beer budget and alternate any trips between lower end hotels (on trips where maybe location isn't a big deal or where I don't require a beach view) like Motel 6, Holiday Inn, and Best Western with higher end ones (mainly booked through Priceline though!). I know Hyatt is probably more higher end (or mid end if you are used to staying at more expensive places!), but it is a fantastic value hotel card IMO if you tend to stay at Hyatt. $75 annual fee (but found a link where there was a $75 credit anyway so first year is free), with 2 free nights at ANY Hyatt (not sure if they expire within a year as I am still waiting to receive the voucher), and 1 night a year in a category 1-4 hotel (I figure I will be spending at least 1 night a year in San Diego as I frequently drive there from LA). With the 1 night a year being "free", it basically already pays for the annual fee.

Also Priceline has a card with no annual fee where you earn 5 points for every $1 spent on Priceline. I don't know if you are someone who needs to know for sure will you will be staying, but this is a pretty good deal if you tend to use Priceline (I use it frequently for hotels).

Choice Privileges is another good program for less expensive hotels/motels. They have over 6000 properties, and you can get up to 4,0,000 points with their current credit card offer.
Of course, it's hard to beat Priority Club:
80,000 points and one free night a year with their credit card; and 5000 point Pointbreaks.

Have to agree on Priority Club, as there are quite a few of the Point Saver rooms in the 5K range. In rural areas you can get some pretty good rooms for 10,000 points even without a sale. My experience with Priority Club is they usually have quite a bit of availability, even at the last minute.

Also this summer there were quite a few promotions with Marriott, Best Western and Wyndham where a couple of stays would get a bonus free night, in addition to your normal points. If you keep your eyes for promotions, bonus miles or reduced redemption to lower the cost of your free rooms.

I would also always look at all the hotels in the area where you are going, sometimes the full service version of the hotel chain is cheaper than the budget version of the same chain. This is often true with paid stays as well as award stays.

As far as the credit cards, Marriott and Hilton both have hotel rooms for as low as 10,000 points, so you can look at any bonus and get an idea as to its value for free nights.

5000 PC points is now $35. But I agree that Priority Club or Choice work well for the lower end. Slight edge to PC for the Pointbreaks program, but 8000 Choice points for a Comfort Hotel inside Tokyo with wifi and breakfast is pretty snazzy.

Priority club is a great value when they have Point Breaks available; not so much when they don't (recent huge inflation to their points structure). Spending on their credit card is not a particularly lucrative way of earning points, however, since their points do not have a very high value.

Choice is probably a better overall value - i.e. my perception is that you will find more hotels available for lower point values (6K, 8K). They are also known to run promotions quite frequently like 4x points, or 2 stays = 8K bonus points.

I haven't yet had any luck getting my Marriott points to go very far, but it may just be that my travel patterns have been wrong for good Marriott redemptions.

Agree with the post re: Priceline Visa. 2% back everywhere, 5% back on name your own price hotels. Reportedly one gets somewhat of a bonus if points are redeemed as a statement credit towards a name your own price hotel. Might be a better way to earn hotel stays than any hotel credit card.

[QUOTE=w0r1dtrave1er;19327087]5000 PC points is now $35. But I agree that Priority Club or Choice work well for the lower end. Slight edge to PC for the Pointbreaks program, but 8000 Choice points for a Comfort Hotel inside Tokyo with wifi and breakfast is pretty snazzy.[/

How are you getting $35 per 5000 points? I just did a few cash + points bookings and 5000 points are $40 (unless you're talking about the 10,000 pts for $70?)

Wow thanks everybody for the incredible info! Very Appreciative!

I think personally the Priority Club sounds great, but the only way I know to get a lot of points with them is the sign up bonuses, or to use my Ultimate Rewards, which only transfer at a 1:1 ratio, which seems pretty bad.

I would love to know a little bit more about someone that is paired with some good transfer bonuses/ratios.

Maybe if there was a particularly good partner through AMEX, UR, SPG, or some sort of tricky multiple-transfer way to redeem for cheaper ones.

With the idea in mind of either good transfer ratios or with possibly a good credit card for spend themselves in mind, anyone have any ideas?

Specifically, it would be great to have a card which I could allocate most of my spending, and be able to find budget conscious hotels in most areas of the world with.

Priority Club sounds great, but mostly to do the tricky buy-miles trick, not so much on legitimate earned miles. Is SPG just the best with that regard? I am looking for an everyday spend card/program which would be great for hotel redemptions.

SPG seems like it is the best for airlines, because of the 25% transfer bonus (20k = 25k AA etc), and their hotel redemptions are fairly nice in most places, but the hotels are just so high end. It ends up usually costing 10k points for a hotel in a good location, (not using points+$$$$), and those points cost me $10k to spend to receive.

I would much prefer being able to get 5 hotel nights for 10k spend, or something similar.


Any more ideas??

Again, thank you to everyone so far!!

The Priceline Visa card is tempting, as the Flyertalk thread has good reports of it being basically 2% everywhere with no annual fee. There are also Name your Own Price bonuses.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...verywhere.html

You might consider another Barclay's card, the Choice Privileges Visa Signature for daily use. The signup bonus isn't great, but I just looked and it gives 2 Choice points per dollar with no annual fee. Choice has plenty of hotels at 6000 and 8000 points. I actually transferred Amex to Choice this spring to book in Rome, Italy, at 8000 points per night. That would be $3000 to $4000 spending per night.

I think 1 SPG Starpoint is worth more than 2%, but I like midscale hotels and airline miles.

Choice Hotels. Many at ~ $35 or less per night to earn. Several affinity group discounts. Often cheaper than Motel 6 in same town/area. As low as 6-8,000 points per night to redeem. Frequent earning and redemption promos. Promos often yield earn rate of 8,000 points for two stays. Low season redemption rates can be lower than other times of year. Low season varies by hotel/location.

Problems: Quality consistency can be a problem with the Quality Inn brand of the family. ChoiceHotels are rather loosely affiliated and the ChoicePrivileges program is relatively new. Front desk familiarity with the program can be limited. Mostly, they've never heard of elite status. Elite status doesn't amount to much: Extended future booking window and pretty small earning leverage. You will get a room that corresponds to what you pay, not your status, in the vast majority of ChoiceHotels. But the low margins that most of these hotels operate on explains this.

All things considered, ChoicePrivileges works for me.

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


[I have no connection with ChoiceHotels in any way.]

I think that PC is the best deal out there. That being said, it's the worst to dedicate all your spending to, because you don't need to spend on a card to accrue.

You can get all the properties for $350 or less. That can translate into a good deal. The 5k PB can be a good deal, and can basically lead to a free vacation. That being said, the list (like the last one) tends to be rather lame.

SPG points are maybe the most 'valuable' but their redemptions can't come as cheaply in terms of hotels.

No doubt Priority Club is the way to go. I have over 100,000 points, but with all of their deals, I am actually paying for nights and receiving rebates, discounts, and mega points back. My recent stay was two nights in a $169 per night room. After the $75 rebate, the mrrebates.com 15% discount, and all of the points that I accrued which I value at .6 cents per point, my wife and I ended up making a nickle on the two night stay. A $374.27 bill turned into nothing due to all of their discounts. I am now waiting for the new Pointsbreak list to come out and make some reservations.

If you're into the SPAM scene, e-Rewards point redemptions for both Choice and Priority Club are both the same. I'd be inclined to go with Priority Club since, like others, I feel like their quality control in their more affordable options is better than Choice's.

We've stayed quite a few times for 2-4k points for a free night with Starwood...we spent Thanksgiving last year in Tuscon at the Sheraton for 3k per night, and there are quite a few in Asia.

Don't forget points & cash, too. That's how we stretch our points.

Excellent point, wherever it's offered. ^

I'm confused why *wood ain't cuttin' it on the low end. Their Category 1 & 2 redemptions are quite a steal in many places, particularly if C&P is available.

Additionally, in the USA, Hyatt has a whole host of Hyatt House and Hyatt place awards available at their low end, which runs 5000 points.

It actually looks like it is pretty good compared to everywhere else now that I see the alternatives (at least on a point per dollar basis), even with the low end hotels. But I really kinda want an extra place to look in case there are no starwood hotels available.

Additionally, sometimes I prefer to stay away from the fancy hotels, and a lot of times even prefer to have motels, with a parking lot right in front so I have easy access to my car and other things of that nature. I have found too many times that there are a lot of extra required fees with the nice hotels, like valet, internet fees, etc, that are usually free with the lower end hotels like free internet and free parking.

Really just that and occasionally i like to sneak in a small pet or two into my rooms and wouldnt feel so comfortable doing that at a 4 star place.

But yes, Starwood does appear to really rock socks with everything they have available. But a little more options never hurt someone. Still not really sure which chain would be best for me based on the CC spend, it is looking maybe like Choice since PC has a pretty bad credit card spend redemption ratio.

What would be the best hotel program for low-end redemption outside US (mainly in Europe, but consider Asia, South America, and Africa)?

I can't comment on anything but Starwood but we used cash & points, and full points in Asia quite a bit. I thought their redemptions were a great value.