The Hotel Apps

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I've got 19,000 Wymdam reward points banked. So I looked at a Microtel for tonight. My options:

Pay for the room, $72 + $7 tax = $79

Use points for free night, 7500 points. The value of the points would be 79/7500 = 10.5 cents per point.

Or pay 1500 points plus $53 + $5 tax = $58 discounted rate. A difference of $21 from the market price. Value of points is 21/1500 =14 cents a point. This is clearly a better value than paying 7500 points for a free night.

My other options:

A MainStaySuites by Choice Privileges for $89 + $8 tax = $97. With the current promotion I'll get about 4700 points for this paid one-night stay. I put a value of $38 on the 4700 points (8 cents X 4700 points)

Or I could pay 12,000 points for the room. A value of 8 cents a point (97/12,000).

Or I could pay 6,000 points plus $51 + $5 = $56. A value of 6.8 cents per point (41/6000).

I've never seen a situation with Choice Privileges yet where spending 6000 points to get a discounted rate is worth it. The points are always worth less.

I booked the Microtel with the $52 + $7 discounted rate I get for 1500 points. I want to see if or how many points I get for the stay with the discounted rate. They advertise at least 1000 points per stay. But will they cough that up on the discounted rate? If they do it will make working the discounted rate the best way to go by far. We'll find out. The details of my stay will be posted in the app in a few days.

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On the Wyndam app I can go into "My Account" to see my recent activity. It tells me where I stayed, on what date, what I paid, and how many points I was awarded.

So on my recent stay at the Microtel I used 1500 points and got the discounted rate, $59 with tax, instead of paying $79 with tax. I was awarded 532 point for the stay. The pre tax price was $53.20. So I was awarded 10 points per dollar.

That means I really payed only 968 points to get the $21 discount. So instead of 14 cents per point they are worth 21 cents a point.

I'm looking at a room for tomorrow night.

On the Wyndam app one hotel has a price of $92.61 + 12.04 tax. My options are:

Pay the $104.65 and get 1000 points.
Pay 7500 points and get the room comped
Pay 1500 points and get a discounted rate of $73.50 + $9.56 tax

If I pay the 7500 points they would be worth 14 cents each (104.65/7500).

If I pay the 1500 points and get the discounted rate, total $83.01 I'll save $21.64. Plus I'll get 735 points on the back end. So the real cost is just 765 points. Doing it this way means the points are worth 28 cents each (21.64/765)

Everything I'm seeing so far is telling me that with Wyndam the discounted rate is always the way to go. That is, if you buy a lot of room nights like I do.

With Choice Privileges they have only one hotel available in that town. The price is $134 + $17.42 tax. I would get about 5600 hundred points but that would be contingent on me buying another Choice Privilege night by July 31.

The 2nd night would give me enough points to get a free room night sometime after that but I don't think I'm going to be in an area in the next week where I could get a good deal on another Choice Hotel. For price they are all sky high in my area right now. The price for 3 nights would average to about $90 per night.

So I'm going with Wyndam on this one.

Mick, do you check any reviews on TripAdvisor or anything before booking a room?

Even with the chains we find large discrepancies between hotels of the same brand at times. We stay in a good amount of Marriott select brands such as Courtyard, Fairfield and Four Points by Sheraton. Since they are independently owned, the age and quality can vary at times, along with the location.

As long as it’s clean, I’m good as I’m sure you are but if the location isn’t in the best area, I hear about it. We recently stayed at a Courtyard near the Philly airport and while the room was fine, it was party central in the rooms near us and we were definitely the minority to say the least in the hotel. I wasn’t about to complain at the time but it won’t be on our list in the future. That said it was a weekend night on a holiday weekend so maybe it’s normally business travelers and we just stayed at a bad time with a big music festival in town.

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Mick, do you check any reviews on TripAdvisor or anything before booking a room?

Even with the chains we find large discrepancies between hotels of the same brand at times. We stay in a good amount of Marriott select brands such as Courtyard, Fairfield and Four Points by Sheraton. Since they are independently owned, the age and quality can vary at times, along with the location.

As long as it’s clean, I’m good as I’m sure you are but if the location isn’t in the best area, I hear about it. We recently stayed at a Courtyard near the Philly airport and while the room was fine, it was party central in the rooms near us and we were definitely the minority to say the least in the hotel. I wasn’t about to complain at the time but it won’t be on our list in the future. That said it was a weekend night on a holiday weekend so maybe it’s normally business travelers and we just stayed at a bad time with a big music festival in town.

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Lol

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Originally Posted by Seedvalue

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Mick, do you check any reviews on TripAdvisor or anything before booking a room?

Even with the chains we find large discrepancies between hotels of the same brand at times. We stay in a good amount of Marriott select brands such as Courtyard, Fairfield and Four Points by Sheraton. Since they are independently owned, the age and quality can vary at times, along with the location.

As long as it’s clean, I’m good as I’m sure you are but if the location isn’t in the best area, I hear about it. We recently stayed at a Courtyard near the Philly airport and while the room was fine, it was party central in the rooms near us and we were definitely the minority to say the least in the hotel. I wasn’t about to complain at the time but it won’t be on our list in the future. That said it was a weekend night on a holiday weekend so maybe it’s normally business travelers and we just stayed at a bad time with a big music festival in town.

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Lol

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I bet that was a profitable stay

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Mick, do you check any reviews on TripAdvisor or anything before booking a room?

Even with the chains we find large discrepancies between hotels of the same brand at times. We stay in a good amount of Marriott select brands such as Courtyard, Fairfield and Four Points by Sheraton. Since they are independently owned, the age and quality can vary at times, along with the location.

As long as it’s clean, I’m good as I’m sure you are but if the location isn’t in the best area, I hear about it. We recently stayed at a Courtyard near the Philly airport and while the room was fine, it was party central in the rooms near us and we were definitely the minority to say the least in the hotel. I wasn’t about to complain at the time but it won’t be on our list in the future. That said it was a weekend night on a holiday weekend so maybe it’s normally business travelers and we just stayed at a bad time with a big music festival in town.

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I use google before yelp or tripadvisor. Just very simple. If you want to search in a geographic area it is often a useful place to start. Then you can tell what would be convenient by placement of roads.

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Mick, do you check any reviews on TripAdvisor or anything before booking a room?

Even with the chains we find large discrepancies between hotels of the same brand at times. We stay in a good amount of Marriott select brands such as Courtyard, Fairfield and Four Points by Sheraton. Since they are independently owned, the age and quality can vary at times, along with the location.

As long as it’s clean, I’m good as I’m sure you are but if the location isn’t in the best area, I hear about it. We recently stayed at a Courtyard near the Philly airport and while the room was fine, it was party central in the rooms near us and we were definitely the minority to say the least in the hotel. I wasn’t about to complain at the time but it won’t be on our list in the future. That said it was a weekend night on a holiday weekend so maybe it’s normally business travelers and we just stayed at a bad time with a big music festival in town.

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I use google before yelp or tripadvisor. Just very simple. If you want to search in a geographic area it is often a useful place to start. Then you can tell what would be convenient by placement of roads.

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Why are you traveling? Don’t you know there’s a climate crisis?

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Mick, do you check any reviews on TripAdvisor or anything before booking a room?

Even with the chains we find large discrepancies between hotels of the same brand at times. We stay in a good amount of Marriott select brands such as Courtyard, Fairfield and Four Points by Sheraton. Since they are independently owned, the age and quality can vary at times, along with the location.

As long as it’s clean, I’m good as I’m sure you are but if the location isn’t in the best area, I hear about it. We recently stayed at a Courtyard near the Philly airport and while the room was fine, it was party central in the rooms near us and we were definitely the minority to say the least in the hotel. I wasn’t about to complain at the time but it won’t be on our list in the future. That said it was a weekend night on a holiday weekend so maybe it’s normally business travelers and we just stayed at a bad time with a big music festival in town.

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There are a lot of towns and areas I've already covered so know what to expect. But I sometimes read reviews on hotels I haven't stayed before. The price can be a tipoff that it may not be a good place to stay.

I always look for a good price but why is that brand name $100 a night in other locations but only $60 a night at this location? It doesn't always mean the hotel is in a bad location. Some towns have cheaper hotel prices than the hotels just 50 miles down the road at the next town. On long road trips I stop at the town I get the best deal.

One thing I do is take a look at the location on Google Maps. Just off the Interstate is usually a good location.

I usually make same day reservations. I do this to keep my options open. I'm subject to change course at any time. I rarely have problems making same day reservations. Sometimes I won't book the room until I look at the hotel. If I decide to stay I make the reservation sitting in the parking lot of the hotel at 5:00 PM or so then walk right in the door and check in.

My knock against hotels usually comes down to whether they have ample and convenient power outlets for my devices. I've had to go out to my vehicle and grab an extension cord before. Days Inn is notorious for not enough outlets so I rarely book that hotel anymore.

Choice Privileges always has enough outlets even with their economy hotels. I like an easy set up when I get to a room.

Laptop on the desk with an easy plugin.

Easy plug in with the phone charger.

And I want an easy plugin on the nightstand for my bipap. I don't like having to pull a bed out to plug it in. I'm married to the bipap. I sleep like a baby with that damn thing.

i like hotwire cause you can get discounts, and the "opaque" booking is easy to work around (just match the review score and number of reviews). I've gotten as mush as $30-$40 per night off on rooms on there

I used the hotel apps for about half the days in August. I still found use for the Hotels.com app as there wasn't always a good deal with Wyndam or Choice.

I had 13 days in August comped by casino hotels. I'm moving more toward this and the casinos are making it easier by receiving the offers thru texts and apps. I have a few casinos sending me two days a week and one sending me 5 days a week. Some are just two days a month and one is three days a quarter but their abundant comp dollars are easy to use for more nights.

I'll have all but 4 nights in September comped into casino/hotels.

Here's one of the casino apps that treat me pretty good, MyChoice. I started with them in Jackpot, Nevada at Cactus Pete's. They have Triple Play $1 NSUD video poker there. So I ran 15K in action to see what happens. The card was worth .1% cashback or .2% comp.

They have a few vulturable slot games that are .2% cashback and .4% comp. That made up the deficit on the NSUD.

So Cactus Pete's wants me for 2 days a week but I have no reason to stop in more than a couple days every couple of months. More importantly, they are a chain casino/hotel. I have their app on my laptop and their mobile app on my phone.

I punched in a few days in October in a couple of their hotels back east and they both came up showing the rooms are comped for my stay.

I think I'm going to like this mychoice app. Even if I pay for a room its half price with comp dollars.

That .4% comp rate is pretty good when vulturing the right machines and running a big wager. It's $40 comp per 10K wager.

I'm looking forward to seeing just what the mychoice properties back east have in the way of vulturable slots.

Here's a link to mychoice. They also have a mobile app.

https://www.mychoice.com/

hotels.com changing their rewards system. They play up the new stuff you get. Don't have to wait 10 nights to get your reward (haha) but doesn't say how it will change. Just that it will. I'm likely to stop using them and go directly to the hotel chain rewards. The big upside here is that the points system is used across vrbo and expedia so now you can use points for rental cars and such but this was not a system that needed improving.

How much will they devalue their rewards during this transition? 50% or merely 33%?

Right now Choice Privileges has a promotion lasting until June 30 where you will average 4700 points per stay in the two stars. About 8,000 to 10,000 points gets a free night. I still use them when in Montana or on scenic drives.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

Right now Choice Privileges has a promotion lasting until June 30 where you will average 4700 points per stay in the two stars. About 8,000 to 10,000 points gets a free night. I still use them when in Montana or on scenic drives.

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THis is available to a base level member? It sounds like a decent deal. Given how shitty I have been running I'm wanting to grind pennies out of the asphalt.

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

Right now Choice Privileges has a promotion lasting until June 30 where you will average 4700 points per stay in the two stars. About 8,000 to 10,000 points gets a free night. I still use them when in Montana or on scenic drives.

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THis is available to a base level member? It sounds like a decent deal. Given how shitty I have been running I'm wanting to grind pennies out of the asphalt.

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Download the Choice Privileges app and see if they make you the offer? Let me know if they do. I've always wondered if they make the same offers to others that they make me. I used them them heavily in the past.

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Note for those that are Diamond or higher with Caesars you can match to Wyndham Diamond immediately and get their top benefits. Also vice versa. You do have to actually earn the status with one of the groups to get the match. For the past couple years people were matching one back and forth each year without earning either but the loophole was closed earlier this year.

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It should be noted that the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business CC is an easy way to get Wyndham points if you own or have authorization to open a business CC. I churn CC promos, mainly for air travel, but this Wyndham card is one card I've decided to keep. 8X points on fuel alone makes it well worth it plus 15K anniversary points every year more than pays for the annual fee. Speaking to the above, this CC also gives you Diamond status at Wyndham which can still be matched to Caesars every year because you maintain legit status with Wyndham. It's obvious that many of us would not want to give Caesars enough action to earn Diamond tier but I do still occasionally like to stay on the strip without resort fees. Wyndham Diamond also gets you an upgrade to a suite if it's available at any of their properties at check in... and I've done this. Just incredible value with that CC.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I also work room comp where I can. Oklahoma City has 3 big casinos, Riverwind...

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Mickey, I see Riverwind is a Chickasaw casino like WinStar. I've found WinStar to be the best opportunity I've found for freeplay APing and not too far from me. Do you ever go down there?

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Originally Posted by jdog

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Note for those that are Diamond or higher with Caesars you can match to Wyndham Diamond immediately and get their top benefits. Also vice versa. You do have to actually earn the status with one of the groups to get the match. For the past couple years people were matching one back and forth each year without earning either but the loophole was closed earlier this year.

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It should be noted that the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business CC is an easy way to get Wyndham points if you own or have authorization to open a business CC. I churn CC promos, mainly for air travel, but this Wyndham card is one card I've decided to keep. 8X points on fuel alone makes it well worth it plus 15K anniversary points every year more than pays for the annual fee. Speaking to the above, this CC also gives you Diamond status at Wyndham which can still be matched to Caesars every year because you maintain legit status with Wyndham. It's obvious that many of us would not want to give Caesars enough action to earn Diamond tier but I do still occasionally like to stay on the strip without resort fees. Wyndham Diamond also gets you an upgrade to a suite if it's available at any of their properties at check in... and I've done this. Just incredible value with that CC.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I also work room comp where I can. Oklahoma City has 3 big casinos, Riverwind...

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Mickey, I see Riverwind is a Chickasaw casino like WinStar. I've found WinStar to be the best opportunity I've found for freeplay APing and not too far from me. Do you ever go down there?

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Winstar used to have 9/6 Jacks and NSUD with .5% meters in the London and Rome Bartops. I got a lot of freeplay and room comp. They were sending me 6 days a month at one time. They pulled those games a couple of years ago and i haven't spent much time there since. Riverwind sends me the world fair every month. They usually send me a half dozen 2 day packages a month. But I don't spend much time there.

I booked a Best Western via hotels.com and the hotel clerk told me I could get best Western points. I have yet to research value of best Western points but the idea of double dipping could be a lot of value.

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

I booked a Best Western via hotels.com and the hotel clerk told me I could get best Western points. I have yet to research value of best Western points but the idea of double dipping could be a lot of value.

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The Best Western loyalty program is not that great but if you can combine it with Hotels.com then that combination would be pretty good. With Hotels.com I get 10%. If I spend 800 pre tax dollars on 10 nights I get an $80 credit for the 11th night. But their loyalty program is going to change sometime this year.

Best Western is not that good of a loyalty program. You get 10 points per pre tax dollar spent. So $100 spent is worth 1000 points which is good for a $5 discount. But they do run promotions. Right now buying 2 nights gets 16,000 points which is good for an $80 discount. It's good until May 7th.

The current Choice Privileges promotion is good until June 30th. If you stick to the mid range hotels you'll average about 5000 points per paid night with a free night costing 10,000 to 12,000 points depending on the property.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

Winstar used to have 9/6 Jacks and NSUD with .5% meters in the London and Rome Bartops. I got a lot of freeplay and room comp. They were sending me 6 days a month at one time. They pulled those games a couple of years ago and i haven't spent much time there since.

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Yeah I remember that. They still had fullpay BP at the Palladium bar until a few months ago. All the old Game Kings are gone now but mostly been replaced with progressive machines. The good thing with the new machines is each have their own meters, and with so many, you're more likely to find something playable. Personally it doesn't matter much to me if EV is positive since the freeplay is so lucrative. They really seemed to get aggressive with promotions after Covid hit.

Looks like hotels.com has released the upgraded system.

You get 2% of every dollar spent. If you are upgraded tiers it goes to "50%,100%, and 200% more". So presumably they mean you get up to 6% cashback.

What a joke. They say you will get full cash value of existing hotels.com rewards but since this is up by July I should be able to just add those 2 more stamps and use up my 2 free nights.

After that I will evaluate the other options. 2-6% back is very meh. 2% isn't even worth the overhead. Fuck off hotels.com

For those who don't know, the previous system gave 10% back. If you are at the highest tier they have cut the rewards 40%. If you are the bottom tier they've cut rewards 80%. Ballsy.