To follow up on our last post, once you’ve booked your hotel you can still get more out of rewards. One way is to sign up for rewards programs for the hotels you frequent.
Marriott has tended to be our choice hotel after a couple of longer stays. They have several different tiers of hotels so you can stay in a decent place all the way up to the nice resort we stayed in for our honeymoon. One of the places we stayed is pictured here on the banks of the Chao Phraya River.
Originally I had intended to do a full run down of all the best rewards programs, Starwood, Priority Club, Marriott, Hilton HHonors, and the Hyatt.
As it turns out I found a fabulous site that shows all of the rewards programs lined up side by side. Of course it all depends on where hotels are located and what their prices are, but it looks pretty clear that Starwood comes out ahead on the line-up. I know that a close friend of mine loves the Starwood rewards and now gets free breakfast and dinner every time she stays.
Another tip for hotels: Ask about the concierge’s breakfast. When we stayed in NYC on at a priceline rate my friend hit up the front desk for the free concierge’s breakfast. We went into the inter sanctum through a special set of elevators and came upon a fabulous breakfast.
Keep in mind that it points with hotel programs often go farther dollar-for-dollar than what you get from frequent flyer miles. It’s also not worth your while to transfer miles from hotels to mileage. So far I’ve kept with credit cards going for mileage because I use more flights per year than hotels. For us it is saving money towards flights we would already have to buy, whereas with hotels we’d just be getting extra freebies. Now that we are going on frequent R&R trips that will be different, but there aren’t any reward chains in Iceland. Guess we’ll have to do it Scandinavian style!
Remember: There are always perks! You’ve just got to ask for them!
Enjoy!
Miel
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