Hotel Loyalty Rewards

[swak]

If you travel a lot or frequently enough to be able to reap the benefits of being a hotel rewards member, where have you found to be the best to be a loyal partner of.

I stay in a lot of small towns, so unfortunately am either with a Best Western or a Holiday Inn, which albeit are good chains, I have a feeling there's better rewards points elsewhere.

I'm a platinum member of both chains, and all you get is a room upgrade (which for those chains really isnt a big deal), and a welcome basket lol.
So cheezy.

... working on my SPG Rewards now, but they seem very similar.

And part of the fun was getting to platinum. Now that i'm there, it's meh haha.

Where do you stay with work etc.

[Zhariak]

Originally posted by swak
If you travel a lot or frequently enough to be able to reap the benefits of being a hotel rewards member, where have you found to be the best to be a loyal partner of.

I stay in a lot of small towns, so unfortunately am either with a Best Western or a Holiday Inn, which albeit are good chains, I have a feeling there's better rewards points elsewhere.

I'm a platinum member of both chains, and all you get is a room upgrade (which for those chains really isnt a big deal), and a welcome basket lol.
So cheezy.

... working on my SPG Rewards now, but they seem very similar.

And part of the fun was getting to platinum. Now that i'm there, it's meh haha.

Where do you stay with work etc.

SPG comes in handy, includes the Westin which has some dope rooms sometimes... Tons of times I get bumped to a suite for free downtown Calgary.


Also makes it handy when visiting places like Kelowna on a sold out weekend (my SPG gold status got me a room they were keeping reserved for loyalty customers at the Four Points by the airport, saved the weekend, wouldn't have had a place to stay). All hotels were fully booked.

Sign up for Fairmont too. Loyalty program rocks... Tack on the 30% discount they have for Alberta residence, along with status, you'll get some awesome perks once you hit a decent level. I get a free complimentary night every year, 2-4 (I can't remember) suite upgrade certificates, and 2-4 room upgrade certificates, and I think $100 bucks in spa/food certificates.

They also always have a nice cheese platter waiting for me in my room when I check in. It's a nice touch...

And actually, just so you know, there's a lot of credit cards, and charge cards that give you automatic status, or make it easy to achieve status at a lot of the chains. Check these out, makes traveling delightful when you find out you have status somewhere, where you didn't know.

[Maxx Mazda]

Holiday Inn allows you to collect IHG rewards points. You can then convert them into Aeroplan. I spent about 150 nights in hotels last year, and found my favorite chain to be the Sandman group of hotels, however their rewards aren't quite on par with the other major chains, they do have a rewards program that allows you to collect free nights.

[theken]

Choice rewards netted me $2200 in Amazon gift cards 2 years ago, I converted the points, I think it's ihg

[freshprince1]

I travel a ton for work, and have come to prefer Starwood (SPG). I aim mostly to stay at Four Points and Aloft. I like SPG because...

- It's easy to rack up a ton of points...make sure to deny housekeeping when you can and get the bonus points.

- The points transfer one for one over to Aeroplan, and you rack up SPG points way easier than Aeroplan. It makes it easy to accelerate the accumulation of a tons of Aeroplan.

- When you do get to the higher points levels, they actually have nicer rooms that are worth upgrading to. I find the Holiday Inn and Best Western's rarely even have nice rooms to reward your patronage with. You just get it for free if you want to cash in the points.

- Four Points are usually nicer, better kept hotels than the others. Though you don't usually get breakfast included...but I'm always travelling for work, so that doesn't bother me. I just expense breakfast.

- More options to use points. For example, you can rack up the points by staying at Four Points, but when you cash them in you can use them at Sheraton, Westin, W, etc. There are no High end options with Holiday Inn.

- Lots of good gift card options if you want to use your points for that too.

[pheoxs]

I stick to IHG since it's our 'preferred' partner so they give us less hassle booking there (even though its usually more money).

I think I got passed platinum and am at the Spire level now and have about 400k points. Using half for a week at the Intercontinental Miami overlooking ultra music festival in march which saved me 3k+$ USD so definitely happy with that rewards pay off.

I found most places are too many points for the cost per night and not worth it, but for the festival its 400-500 a night vs 30k points a night.

[googe]

I was SPG platinum for a few years and it's kind of a sham IMO. They're notoriously stingy with suite upgrades and you have to fight them for it almost every time.

[98type_r]

Back when I used to travel for work I was SPG platinum for close to 5 years, in that time I had maybe 3-4 suite upgrades. It didn't matter much because my stays were generally one night and I didn't need the space. Once you get to gold or platinum the points start to accumulate fairly quickly with the bonus points per stay.

[flipstah]

I find SPG and IHG to be the best loyalty rewards.

Holiday Inn Express is common and cheap, so you can rack in points quick for free nights at baller hotels.

Plus, SPG has an awesome portfolio IMO.

[pheoxs]

Incase anyone wasn't aware, IHG changed their point structure this year so points now expire if your point balance doesn't change for a year (spend some, earn some, or even book a reward night and cancel it and it resets the 1 year counter)

[swak]

Originally posted by pheoxs
Incase anyone wasn't aware, IHG changed their point structure this year so points now expire if your point balance doesn't change for a year (spend some, earn some, or even book a reward night and cancel it and it resets the 1 year counter)

Good to know. (easy to do too even if someone doesn't travel much).

And honestly, with more restrictions like this, albeit very menial, i can foresee possibly even better rewards coming of it, as its that much more exclusive.