Hello,

I'm thinking of staying at the La Quinta Inn and Suites in Brandon, Florida. If I do stay there, I'll be reserving the one king non smoking suite for $109 a night. Here's the description:

Two room suite, bedroom with separate living area. Features two 25-inch TVs, twin sofa sleeper, coffee table, microwave, and refrigerator. Plus coffee maker, iron and ironing board, hairdryer, voice mail, dataport, and high speed internet.

Anyone ever stayed in one of these suites? Maybe not at this particular location, but in the US? How are they? Do they compare to Hampton Inn's suites?

Thanks,
Lance

A LaQuinta suite is not a particularly nice room. It's just a larger, but typical, LaQuinta room. Add a living room with television to your typical LaQuinta room, and you've got the picture.

You're not paying for luxury, you're paying for additional square footage.

I find La Quinta properties to be mostly new and well-cleaned and maintained. The property in Manhattan is an especially good value and is in a good location near Macy's Herald Square and the Empire State Building.

If you stay at La Quinta this summer, be sure to join their "Returns" program. I got a postcard the other day with a promo: Stay 3 times at any La Quinta location this summer, 6/15 through 8/15/2004, and earn one free night. Free night posts as 8,000 bonus points added to your account. Earn a maximum of 24,000 points through this offer.

Sorry, I haven't stayed at the particular location you're enquiring about, but I've stayed in quite a few of their properties (CA, AZ, TX, NY) and never had a bad stay.

What is the conversion rate between points and miles (or in the case of Southwest, credits)? I'm just curious as to how many of either you can get by staying 3 times through this offer. (By comparison, Choice Hotels has in the past year had an offer where through bonus points added ostensibly for the purpose of equaling a free night after 2 stays, it equated to MORE THAN double miles/credits.)

Had to go to the www.lq.com website to research your question. La Quinta has three redemption levels: A, B, and C. Each hotel in the chain is assigned a letter for free nights.

The 8,000 points for 3 nights will "buy" one night at any of the Tier B properties (and be 2,000 points above what is required for a level A location). Redemption values are 6,000 points for Tier A, 8,000 for Tier B, and 11,000 for Tier C locations.

La Quinta points can also be redeemed for credits on Southwest, miles on American, and quite a few other travel-related "prizes" and such. I joined the La Quinta Returns last year when I was going to see family in Texas, so don't have that many stays or points. But the chain is very good value, particularly in NYC where their low rates provide a bargain stay in a perfectly acceptable room. The Manhattan property is a Tier C redemption.

Obviously, the current promo benefits a the traveler who stays a short time at multiple properties. It would be excellent for a summer road trip, say across the southwest where La Quinta has many locations. I certainly think this chain is equivalent to or slightly nicer than Hampton Inn, Fairfield, HI Express, and similar.

I joined the la quinta returns program and have stayed 5 nights at one la quinta in 2004 and 1 night at another in 2004. As I understand your post card promotion that you received, I stayed at least 3 nights at one stay between june 15 and june 30, so I should be able to get the free night. Yes? All they sent me was a post card for only $10 off any stay by june 30, 2004.

They told me before I stayed there that if I stayed 10 nights in one year's time I would get one night free but now that I have completed my stays, they say it is simply the amount of points I get, not the number of nights I stay. Anyone have more info on these confusing turn of events?

Is there an offer number on your post card?

Even with the confusing info on their various offers, I will still stay at a La quinta again because of their last minute deals (code LMD) that let me get a King exec (also known as the king deluxe) room for only $49.99 to 55.30 plus tax. I have also gotten this rate or lower as a AAA promotion. Is the suite a real necessity? They have supplied a free roll-away at times with that price and the larger room. Get to breakfast earily because on my last two stays in Florida (2004) once they set out of breakfast supplies, they told me to just take what was left, that they set out a certain amount for breakfast and refused to get out more supplies... when they ran out of almost everything when I arrived only one hour or less before the close of breakfast. Note that this did not happen in Illinois. That Laquinta did it right in 2003 and got out more breakfast supplies.