Hotel Loyalty schemes

[[TW]Fox]

Most of the stays will be in North America, but even in a big city there is surprising little choice, especially if I want to keep in the budget my organisation will pay. As much as I look forward to the free bottle of water (and probably upgraded rooms with 40+ nights) it's just not worth it, although things are complicated slightly with the special rates we would get by booking direct with the hotel. Hotels.com it is.

About half of my stays are in North America as well where the effect is even worse - it is often the case that in town one there is an awesome Holiday Inn and a dire Hilton yet in town 2 there is a great Hampton Inn and shocking reviews on the Holiday Inn Express etc etc.

 

[randomshenans]

Just signed up and booked through hotels.com Should have booked the rest of my stays with this as well but little too late. Ah well.

Fox, I managed to get the credit card signups I have Accor (ooooooh Ibis, novitel etc. :/ ) platinum member, Club Carlson Gold and SPG Gold. Never use them though!

 

[D.P.]

Agree on the above, if you're staying away a lot at works expense the hotel schemes can be a nice benefit!

I've not found Marriott rewards to be much worse over here than the U.S, the main thing really is the club/exec lounges tend to be better in the US.

Gold will give you higher points rewards, used to get free water and wine in the room, free internet and depending on where you go and how the receptionist is feeling free upgrades and lounge access.

I don't stay in them enough anymore to really go for free nights, hotels.com would be better for that, but I'm not paying the majority of the time I'm away anyway

The thing is stuff like free water and free internet is worthless when you can bill them as expenses, ad for personal stays it is easy
to find hotels that give free internet/free breakfast.


Free Room upgrades are always a possibility if you ask.

The only things that really matter is how many free nights to do get. Nothing compares to hotel.com IMO because you aren't stuck to a specific brand of hotel that most likely wont even exist in your holiday destination if you don't visit big cites.

I use hotels.com all the time and get loads of free long weekend breaks out of it.

 

[D.P.]

One thing with hotels.com is often you can find a 5% discount code, but dong that prevents you getting awards. So you have to work out what is best.

Your 11th night free is based on the average of your 10 nights.


It isn't usually worth getting the 5% discount unless you just want savings up front since you should be getting a 10% return on each night.

 

[[TW]Fox]

One thing with hotels.com is often you can find a 5% discount code, but dong that prevents you getting awards. So you have to work out what is best.

Your 11th night free is based on the average of your 10 nights.


It isn't usually worth getting the 5% discount unless you just want savings up front since you should be getting a 10% return on each night.

Yea, it's NEVER worth using any codes with Hotels.com - they either invalidate your welcome rewards, or your Quidco/Topcashback or both.

Ignore all coeds, go through a cashback site, collect welcome rewards.

This essentially ends up giving you a straight 20% off everything you book.

 

[Rotty]

only bad bit with hotels.com is if something doesn't go as planned as their customer service is dire

 

[D.P.]

only bad bit with hotels.com is if something doesn't go as planned as their customer service is dire

Did have 1 issue with hotels.com
We booked a hotel that had free cancellations within 24 hours.
Originall we had booked 4 nights but wanted to reduce this to 3 nights, we asked hotels.com to do this about a month before hand and they absolutely refused and said it was impossible but we could cancel the whole thing. The problem was cancelling and rebooking would be much more expensive as the nightly rate had gone up a lot, and there was reportedly only 1 room left so there wouldn't even be a guarantee we could rebook if other people were faster.

Called the hotel and they made the change without any fuss. Was almost disappointing, I was already to speak to the manager and give a proposition that 3 nights at our nightly rate is better than us cancelling 24hours before hand, but no reception made the change within 2 minutes on the the phone.

 

[LeeUK]

Never stay in St Enoch hotel in Glasgow city centre. It is the pits, it used to be a homeless hostel and quite frankly they haven't changed anything when they changed to a hotel.