The Hotel Apps

There is really only two hotel booking companies on Trivago, Expedia and Booking.com. The rest are all owned by these two companies, except Trip Adviser but they are partners with Expedia.

Trivago is set up to make it look like there is a lot of competition. But don't be fooled.

I occasionally use Hotels.com which is owned by Expedia. For every 10 hotel nights you buy you'll get a credit for a free night. It's based on the average price you paid for the 10 nights.

If you spent $1000 before tax on the 10 room nights you'll get a $100 credit towards a free night. But you are still on the hook for the taxes. Taxes on hotel rooms can run anywhere from 10% to 25%.

You want to book a room as close to the $100 as you can get. If you book a room for $60 they will take the entire $100 credit for it.

You have to download their app to work the free nights. Collect 10 stamps on the app to get the free room.

You want to be careful when booking two or more consecutive nights. If I book two nights sometimes the app will say I will collect two stamps and other times it will say I will get one stamp. When they try to slick me like that I book two separate reservations.

Mickey do you ever take the pricing you get from 3rd party sites and then go directly to the hotel brands website to compare?

As one who mostly uses Marriott brands or Hyatt, I feel I get better benefit from their own reward programs than from a 3rd party. I also believe the little extras from booking direct as a loyalty member are worth it. Things like upgrades and not getting walked on an overbooked night.

Marriott claims to match the prices from 3rd party sellers but I’ll be honest I’ve never put the legwork in to see how many opportunities there are to utilize it.

https://help.marriott.com/s/article/Article-22050

I recently have been checking out “bookaahotels.com” which is powered by booking.com to determine if the extra American Airlines miles and loyalty points are worth it. As the airlines are moving toward total spend instead of just flight miles, it’s a new game trying to gain/keep status with them.

In any case, great subject to discuss.

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Mickey do you ever take the pricing you get from 3rd party sites and then go directly to the hotel brands website to compare?

As one who mostly uses Marriott brands or Hyatt, I feel I get better benefit from their own reward programs than from a 3rd party. I also believe the little extras from booking direct as a loyalty member are worth it. Things like upgrades and not getting walked on an overbooked night.

Marriott claims to match the prices from 3rd party sellers but I’ll be honest I’ve never put the legwork in to see how many opportunities there are to utilize it.

https://help.marriott.com/s/article/Article-22050

I recently have been checking out “bookaahotels.com” which is powered by booking.com to determine if the extra American Airlines miles and loyalty points are worth it. As the airlines are moving toward total spend instead of just flight miles, it’s a new game trying to gain/keep status with them.

In any case, great subject to discuss.

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With Choice Hotels and Wyndam it's not just a little bit better to book directly from their apps, it's a hell of a lot better than 3rd party. It's all in working the points you get for the stays. You have to join their loyalty programs. Easy to do.

What makes Choice and Wyndam so good is the paid nights per free night ratio. I'll be going over all that.

Here is what redietz said and since I was saying he was the most trusted source of news - I wanted this to go here.

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Originally Posted by Redietz

If you've done enough on Priceline to become a VIP (doesn't take much), you can access the "buy-it-blind" options where you commit to a property based on location, price, and stars without a name reveal.

I've done the majority of my hotel pricing on hotels.com, matching account's experiences, and hotels.com is generally, I think, an easy to navigate default option. But I have been able to beat the hotels.com pricing, using the VIP Priceline stuff, sometimes significantly. The trick for Las Vegas is to check the amenities list and star option and resort fee amount. If you do that, you can cross-reference the no-name listing on Priceline with the name listing on Priceline, and usually you can pin down which hotel is actually the "no name" listing. So you are buying the "no name" listing while actually knowing the likely hotel and beating the name price. For LV, you might get fooled once in ten tries and wind up somewhere other than what you surmised.

But don't take my word for it. I'm a reliable source, as account posits in his tagline.

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I looked a bit at prices. Trivago is definitely a few dollars cheaper than hotels.com but it seems like it'd be hard to make up the 10% discount in the longrun. I think I have 4 days as it is. I need to go through them. Pointless to save up unless I think I'm going broke.

The Wyndam places are too nice for me. When I'm paying full price for a room on a roadtrip I'm a motel guy.

My main rule is to NEVER get the cheapest room in an area and if you can avoid all motels in that immediate price-range then DO SO. By doing this you avoid most of the crackhead types. The cheapest place is also probably not as well maintained and higher chance of bedbugs (never seen any) but the main thing is just to avoid the ghetto types.

Thats another interesting question. What is the deal with bedbugs? I've heard of them but never had them. How many stories you guys have of them?

Choice Hotels is the largest hotel chain in the US with about 5500 hotels. They range from economy to midscale to upscale.

Upscale:
Ascend
Cambria

Midscale:
MainStay Suites
Comfort Inn
Comfort Suites
Sleep Inn
Quality Inn

Economy:
Econo Lodge
Rodeway

Extended Stay:
Suburban
Woodspring Suites
MainStay is also an extended stay.

I belong to the Choice Privileges loyalty program. Easy enough to do online. You start out getting 10 points per pre tax dollar spent. You graduate up to Diamond Level after 20 paid nights where you get 20 points per pre tax dollar spent. As long as you use Choice Hotels for at least 20 nights per year you will remain at Diamond Level.

Choice runs promotions several times a year to get extra points. They run these promotions for about 2 months at a time, then back to basic for about a month then they will come with another promotion. For June and July this year I'm averaging about 4800 points per paid night where I'm spending about $100 per night, tax included.

Free room nights cost 8000, 10,000, 12,000, 15,000, 20,000 points depending on the cost and quality of the room.

A recent one-night stay at a Quality Inn in Wyoming and a one-night stay at a Quality Inn in Montana cost me $195 total, tax included. That's about $97 per night. With basic points I would get about 3500 points for these two hotel stays. But with the promotion I get 9700 points.

If I wanted a free night at either of these two hotels it would cost me 12,000 points. But there are many cities in the country where I can use the points to get a free night for 8,000 to 10,000 points.

One of the tricks I use is to pay for rooms during the promotional period then use the points in the one month period where there is no promotion. I rack up points into the hundreds of thousands.

I also use the Choice Privileges Credit Card. It's a Barclay Card. With this card you get 5 points per dollar spent at Choice Hotels and 2 points per dollar spent on everything else. The points go into my Choice Privileges account every month. When you first get the card you get 32,000 Choice Privilege points by charging $1000 in the first 90 days.

You can also use Choice Privilege points for gift cards and airline mileage but I've never done it.

One of the problems of using 3rd party sites is one pretty much can't get senior rates.

I recently started using Wyndam Hotels & Resorts They have about 6000 hotels in the US. The brands are:

Upscale:
Wyndam

Midscale:
LaQuinta
Wingate
Americinn
Ramada
Baymont

Economy:
Microtel
Days Inn
Super 8
Howard Johnson
Travelodge

I belong to their rewards program, Wyndam Rewards, and have the app on my phone. With Wyndam you start at 10 points per pre tax dollar spent and graduate up to 12 points per pre tax dollar spent....and you always get a minimum of 1000 points per night.

Free nights start at 7,500 points but thats for the cheaper hotels. For hotels up around $100 or more you'll get charged 15,000 points per night. But Wyndam Rewards also offers discounted rooms for 1500 or 3000 points.

For instance, if I want the La Quinta Inn on July 20th at Catoosa, OK just across the street from the Hard Rock Tulsa these are my options:

Paid night $111.72 + $16.30 tax = $128.03
Or free night for 15,000 points.
Or for 3000 points I get a discounted night for $79.80 + $11.65 tax = $91.45

That's a difference of $36.58, a pretty good trade off. If you do the math the 3K points is 20% of the 15K points but the discount, $36.58 is worth 29% off the listed price.

Hotels.com has the room listed for $135 + $20 tax = $155.00

On Trivago the lowest price is $105 + $15.33 tax = $120.33 from Zenhotels.com.

This "Zenhotels.com" is a bunch of sucker shit. I once booked a room with them because it was a very cheap price. When I go with one of these off brand booking sites I always have to spend time punching my credit card information, address, phone number, etc. That takes a lot of extra time whereas with Choice and Wyndom and Hotels.com they have all that information stored on the app and I can quickly book a room.

So after I book the room with Zen I got an email saying that price was unavailable and they switched me up to the price everyone else was giving. I got pissed and immediately cancelled the reservation. I don't like assholes playing games. So even tho Zen has the cheapest price listed....fuck those assholes.

So I don't like those off brand sites on Trivago because of the bullshit. And if you check their customer service ratings its not to good.

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.

https://www.caesars.com/myrewards/pa...yndham_resorts

https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/wyndha.../member-levels

I also work room comp where I can.

Oklahoma City has 3 big casinos, Riverwind, Remington and Newcastle. Riverwind sends me a two-day hotel package every month so I base out of there and cover the other two casinos.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I also work room comp where I can.

Oklahoma City has 3 big casinos, Riverwind, Remington and Newcastle. Riverwind sends me a two-day hotel package every month so I base out of there and cover the other two casinos.

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I'd suggest that anyone who is spending time in a casino outside of their homebase to try booking rooms at the hotel via a players-club before they try any of the third party apps. I know this is beyond obvious for regulars here but I don't think I appreciated this until I started to really hang out in casinos (outside poker). Even if I only get 2 Sun-THurs comped days, those weekend days that aren't comped are often cheaper than third party rooms while also being far superior.

My homebase casino will give me 2 days a week. They're really nice rooms. If I go to a lesser casino an hour away I'd expect to get more than those 2 days and perhaps even free weekends. Now this secondary casino isn't near as nice and there might not be as much to do but this is about cheap rooms.

Micky's advice about working choice hotels is some golden stuff. I've already looked at getting away from Hotels.com and I'm sorta expecting hotels.com to become my secondary goto.

Wyndam also runs promotions where two separate one-night stays will get you an extra 7500 points.

For the most part, these third party booking apps suck. In the 1990s, they were good. Now they're trash.

Among other things:

- You usually get about the same price as the hotel charges

- You are frequently given the worst room in the house

- Since the site acts as a travel agent, you pay them, not the hotel. So if there's a problem with your stay and you want some kind of reduction in price, forget about it. Extremely difficult.

- Customer service is foreign-based and horrendous


The last time I used one, it was for a hotel near Yosemite which didn't have its own direct booking system. Laughably, I was booked in a room type which no longer was available, and I got the bad news when I was about two hours away. Fortunately a slightly "worse" room type was available, so they moved me to that, and of course the price reduced. It took about an hour to resolve this on the phone. I couldn't get any compensation other than that, other than some useless credits with that booking site, which I vowed never to use again.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

For the most part, these third party booking apps suck. In the 1990s, they were good. Now they're trash.

Among other things:

- You usually get about the same price as the hotel charges

- You are frequently given the worst room in the house

- Since the site acts as a travel agent, you pay them, not the hotel. So if there's a problem with your stay and you want some kind of reduction in price, forget about it. Extremely difficult.

- Customer service is foreign-based and horrendous


The last time I used one, it was for a hotel near Yosemite which didn't have its own direct booking system. Laughably, I was booked in a room type which no longer was available, and I got the bad news when I was about two hours away. Fortunately a slightly "worse" room type was available, so they moved me to that, and of course the price reduced. It took about an hour to resolve this on the phone. I couldn't get any compensation other than that, other than some useless credits with that booking site, which I vowed never to use again.

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Since I started using Wyndom I'm moving away from Hotels.com. I've got 2 more stamps to collect for a free night then that's pretty much it. But here are some situations/locations, usually in small towns without Choice or Wyndam, that I might use them.

Last night I checked into a Wingate by Wyndam. Had made the reservation on the mobile app. When I got to the room it hadn't been cleaned. Went back to the desk. They didn't have another room available to switch me to so they sent a maid to clean the room.

I sat in the lobby for half an hour while they cleaned it. They comped me the room for the inconvenience.

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

I also work room comp where I can.

Oklahoma City has 3 big casinos, Riverwind, Remington and Newcastle. Riverwind sends me a two-day hotel package every month so I base out of there and cover the other two casinos.

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I'd suggest that anyone who is spending time in a casino outside of their homebase to try booking rooms at the hotel via a players-club before they try any of the third party apps. I know this is beyond obvious for regulars here but I don't think I appreciated this until I started to really hang out in casinos (outside poker). Even if I only get 2 Sun-THurs comped days, those weekend days that aren't comped are often cheaper than third party rooms while also being far superior.

My homebase casino will give me 2 days a week. They're really nice rooms. If I go to a lesser casino an hour away I'd expect to get more than those 2 days and perhaps even free weekends. Now this secondary casino isn't near as nice and there might not be as much to do but this is about cheap rooms.

Micky's advice about working choice hotels is some golden stuff. I've already looked at getting away from Hotels.com and I'm sorta expecting hotels.com to become my secondary goto.

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AIQ, remember when working the Choice promotions that it takes two separate 1-night stays to get the bonus points.

Boz has already posted about Caesar's and Wyndam. You can also use the Choice Privileges app to book casino hotels. A promotion for 5000 points for two separate casino stays just ended. But they will come with another one. Here's a link to Choice Hotels. And the bottom link lists the casino hotels that work with Choice Privileges:

https://www.choicehotels.com/?mc=smg...D_BwE&gclsrc=a

https://www.choicehotels.com/ascend/casino-hotels

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.

MICKEY WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't don't ruin this forum with BS like this. Please get back to the good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srq6ECieEg8

Choice hotels seems pretty solid but having to book 20 nights before I get the multiplier boost (to really gain the benefit over competitors) is a bit too much. If it is a calendar year then thats fine but a sliding window would be better but these things are almost always a calendar year. We will see.

I had a sweet deal with MGM because my status there gives me no resort fees but meh no easy way for me to give that sort of action due to strip conditions and them no longer giving points for purchases.

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

Choice hotels seems pretty solid but having to book 20 nights before I get the multiplier boost (to really gain the benefit over competitors) is a bit too much. If it is a calendar year then thats fine but a sliding window would be better but these things are almost always a calendar year. We will see.

I had a sweet deal with MGM because my status there gives me no resort fees but meh no easy way for me to give that sort of action due to strip conditions and them no longer giving points for purchases.

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The current Choice Privilege bonus point promotion is just about over. July is the last day. And you need two separate 1-night stays to get the bonus points.

In the bonus point period, being Diamond I average about 4800 points per night. Someone who is not Diamond would average about 4000 points a night. So you are still getting a good deal even tho you are not Diamond.

And when you do buy that 20th stay you go Diamond on that very day.

After July 31 you just need to monitor the site to see when they come with a new bonus point promotion.

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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

Quote:

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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

Quote:

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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.

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Originally Posted by mickeycrimm

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Originally Posted by accountinquestion

Choice hotels seems pretty solid but having to book 20 nights before I get the multiplier boost (to really gain the benefit over competitors) is a bit too much. If it is a calendar year then thats fine but a sliding window would be better but these things are almost always a calendar year. We will see.

I had a sweet deal with MGM because my status there gives me no resort fees but meh no easy way for me to give that sort of action due to strip conditions and them no longer giving points for purchases.

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The current Choice Privilege bonus point promotion is just about over. July is the last day. And you need two separate 1-night stays to get the bonus points.

In the bonus point period, being Diamond I average about 4800 points per night. Someone who is not Diamond would average about 4000 points a night. So you are still getting a good deal even tho you are not Diamond.

And when you do buy that 20th stay you go Diamond on that very day.

After July 31 you just need to monitor the site to see when they come with a new bonus point promotion.

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Bump

Sad Mick doesn’t get much response to an AP thread most of us can use. But anyway I am currently in the Caribbean on an Island at a bar and what did I see? A Montana Griz flag that Mick would appreciate. Had to take a pic.

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Originally Posted by The Boz

I am currently in the Caribbean on an Island at a bar

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Looks like you found a sneaky way to send Rob your phone #.

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Originally Posted by The Boz

Sad Mick doesn’t get much response to an AP thread most of us can use. But anyway I am currently in the Caribbean on an Island at a bar and what did I see? A Montana Griz flag that Mick would appreciate. Had to take a pic.

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Surprising that theres Griz fans everywhere. I bumped the thread up so I could link it to a thread on PFA. Griz no good this year. 4 losses. But the bobcats are the number one seed in the FCS.