Originally Posted by mickeycrimm View Post
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.
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.