What is the best hotel to stay at now?
 

Hello all:

I am new here and started flying a lot this year on SWA. Over the summer, Hyatt had a special that gave me/us 4x points. I do not see any special now. What is the best hotel to stay at for SWA points?

I also selected SWA and not hotel points is that the best way to do it?

I most always fly SWA, but have spread the hotels stays around depending on the special deal, price and location. Should I pick one chain and which should it be.

Thank you for all your help and advice.

Couple schools of thought.

1. Maximize airline miles with hotel stays.

2. Maximize hotel points/status with hotel stays.

I go with two. I love my SPG points and love to use then in exotic locations. Hilton is my seconday program because of the ubiquitous nature of properties.

Part of the answer depends on what quality level you stay at.

Lately, I have been staying at Choice a lot. Their point promotions are so good that it makes no sense to get miles.

I used to stay at Choice almost exclusively. I got very tired of the inconsistent quality within brands and started using Hampton (Hilton). Have they improved? They do have great points promotions.

It changes all the time as you have seen. You will have to decide if the benefits for sticking with one brand outweigh the lowered cost of switching around. The answer depends in part on how many nights/stays a year you accumulate.

Hilton Gold is worth getting for sure for free breakfast and internet and reduced price award stays.

Wyndham has a good targeted promo now for some locations.

As mentioned, Choice hotels can be quite crummy. "Quality" Inn has the most misleading company name in the US. But 8K Choice for 2 stays is pretty good. Equals WN 2400 CPQPs.

Most standard hotel offers are 600 WN points per stay, worth $10.

Follow Ric Garrido's blog.

Same here. Building hotel points diversifies your FF balances so you won't suffer a catastrophe if something bad happens to your favorite program. Hotel points are MUCH easier to use than airline miles, although nothing beats RR points for ease of use. You can apply for the hotel's credit card (or use Chase Ultimate Rewards) to get bonus points to top off a nice hotel award.

My favorite is the 2 free nights with the Hyatt card. My wife and daughter just had a very nice stay at the Park Hyatt Syndey, with a partial view of the Opera House across the water. The cheapest room in that hotel is $795 per night. So, yeah, I'm a big fan of Hyatt points.

Now if only SPG would revive their option to transfer SPG points to Southwest...

No. But these days its what I can afford. Also consider, they have had almost continuous 8,000 points for every 2 stays for the last year. I would value 8,000 points at $50-$70. So that another $25 to $35 off a $50 - $100 room.

There is a MegaMiles promo right now at Marriott for getting triple "mles" (meaning 1800 SWA points) per stay starting with your second stay (first stay earns only regular 600), but (a) it ends October 15, and (b) I'm not sure whether you can still register for it.

Marriott often runs Southwest promos. But you (a) have to be registered with Marriott Rewards and (b) have to have you earnings set to miles (Southwest points in this case), and only then do you see "miles" (airline) promos in your Promotion Central.

And, speaking of Marriott, there's also this which lets you earn Southwest points now for gift cards that can be used on Marriott stays later (once they have another "rich" Southwest promo!):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/south...rr-points.html

I nearly abondoned Southwest because of this. How long is it going to take for them to bring this back? I thought Southwest kept touting how they wanted more partners - where are they?

More partners is not the same which partners or how they partner.

SPG is still a Southwest partner for stays, just not for transfers!

Southwest seems to be leaning toward all the budget hotels programs (Choice, Best Western, WyndhamRewards, La Quinta, etc) but only a subset of the mid-scale to full-service hotel programs (Marriot yes, IHG no, Hyatt yes, Hilton no, SPG yes on stays but no on transfers).

Btw, note that while you don't earn CPQP on hotel stay bonuses, you do earn CPQP on hotel point transfers. So perhaps the key to Southwest reinstating SPG transfers would be once they stop giving CPQP for hotel point transfers! How many people would view that as good tradeoff?

(My theory: It was probably because too many people were earning CPQP with SPG transfers, rather the just getting Southwest redeemable points with SPG transfers, that the transfer optoin was eliminated while hotel stay earning option was kept at SPG.)

Much simpler theory: Southwest may have priced 1200 RR 2.0 points higher than one RR 1.0 credit. Furthermore, SPG's transfer redemption schedule was 1500 SPG points for one credit. The logical new schedule would have been 1500 SPG to 1500 RR points, a 25% increase in cost to SPG even without a price increase by Southwest.

SPG probably didn't want to single out Southwest as the one partner for whom SPG points only yielded 0.8 partner points. Southwest certainly didn't want to single out SPG for special points pricing to prevent a cost increase for SPG. It was better for both companies simply to eliminate the transfer option. Customers? Who cares?

If you buy $1,000 in Marriott Gift Cards through this promotion, you effectively get $200 in Southwest credit. With 3x Rapid Rewards points on a stay (1800 points) that's effectively $20 in Southwest credit. So a $100 night in a Courtyard gets you $40 in Southwest credit. A 40% earn is a pretty good deal.

Single out???

They could have just made the transfer ratio 0.5 (ie, 2:1), in which case they'd have the company of UA (and I tnink some others too?)!

(Ie, there's major precedent at SPG for some arilines transferring at less than 1:1. WN would have hardly been the first.)

Choice Hotels is currently offering double RR points, until Nov. 15: http://www.choicehotels.com/en/choic...p/airlinemiles . This appears to include all their brands; I have an Econo Lodge quote at $40, earning $20 towards a WGA fare. Compare that to banking your stay, where, during their promotion for the same time, two stays (2-night minimum for the downscale brands, 1 night for others) earn 8000 Choice points, equivalent to 2400 RR points or a free night at some hotels.