For the new year, plan your hotel stay strategy to garner the most free rooms

    From time to time I tout various hotel loyalty programs depending on what their promotion of the season is. For the last part of 2012 it was Marriott all the way for Jinny and me as the Megabonus gave us one free night certificate for every two nights stayed.
    Now the certificates were only good in Category 1-4 hotels, generally Courtyards and Springhill Suites but not full Marriotts. This suits us just fine. Jinny and I were able to attend a couple of away football games and will spend a couple of nights in Birmingham for the Compass Bowl courtesy of Marriott free night certificates. We couldn't afford these trips without the free hotel nights!
    So we're a few days away from a new year. If you aren't signed up for hotel loyalty clubs you should be  -- for every single hotel chain where you lay your head at night.
    So where do you stay? At whatever chain has the best offers! And right now that's still Marriott, in my view. Once again they've got their Megabonus promotion going from Feb. 1 to April 30. Each Marriott Rewards member will get an individualized offer on the Marriott website, but most casual travelers will get a stay-two-get-one-free offer, with a maximum of three free night certificates.
    Marriott has three of these Megabonus offers each year, so there is the opportunity to earn nine free nights per year, or 18 nights per married couple. That's a lot of free hotel nights earned without a lot of hotel spending. And of course you'll be earning regular Marriott points along the way, along with Silver status, which isn't worth much but is better than nothing.
    I used to travel quite a bit, but now just every so often. But I still log enough hotel nights to make the Marriott Megabonus deal a great one for me. And of course Jinny is doing lots of travel with work, so she'll earn her three Megabonus nights while still taking advantage of what the other hotels have to offer.
    Here's a quick hotel strategy guide. Be aware that even if you spend only a few nights per year in a chain hotel you can earn free nights. But you have to join the club! I keep all my hotel club numbers in my phone so I have them handy; but remember, whenever possible reserve in advance on the Internet.

    Marriott: Take advantage of the three Megabonus offers that are likely to be offered this year. Stay-two-get-one is a really generous offer and that's what most casual travelers will get as their personalized offer. If 2012 is any guide you will be able to earn nine free nights for 18 stays during the next 12 months. Best of all, you can earn your points by staying in sub-$100 Fairfield Inns and then use the free rooms for Category 4 Courtyards and Springhill Suites that might run $150 or more per night. During the times when the Megabonus isn't active, take your business to greener pastures.

    Priority Club: Priority Club is the loyalty program for Holiday Inn and associated properties. These properties have been getting a bit of a face lift lately. They needed it. Priority Club points never expire and there are quarterly bonuses that you can place on your account to get extra points. Visit the Priority Club Forum on flyertalk.com to find out the details about how you can use this program to your benefit. Ole Miss played Tulane this year on the same weekend as an AARP convention and hotel rates were sky high. We used Priority Club points to get a $450 Crowne Plaza French Quarter room for $70 and 25,000 points. Obviously we couldn't have afforded the trip without the almost-free room. One tip: Priority Club has terrible "elite" benefits, but is a great program for people wanting to earn points for free rooms for family vacations. You are much more likely to get a "family" room in Europe or elsewhere with Priority Club and the points accrue faster.

    Choice Hotels: Not many business people on expense accounts stay at Choice hotels. This chain includes Comfort Inn, Sleep Inn, Quality Inn, Rodeway Inn, and EconoLodge, among others. But for those traveling on their own dime they are sometimes adequate. And they sometimes have outstanding promotions. Last year they had at least two promotions that awarded 8,000 bonus points for each two stays booked on the Internet. In some cases that's enough for a free night. Sometimes they have Europe sales so that 8,000 to 12,000 points gets a decent hotel in Europe. So two nights in a $59 EconoLodge or Sleep Inn can earn you enough points for a room at the Hotel Diana in Venice or the Hotel Axel Opera in Paris. I've stayed at both at 10,000 and 8,000 points respectively and they are fine budget hotels. Choice Hotels have limitations on how far ahead they can be booked, and the Europe properties aren't always on sale, but this is a fine program for the budget lodging crowd. This chain's current promotion is triple points; not the greatest, but not terrible, either.

    Club Carlson: This loyalty program has essentially bought themselves some attention recently with some unbelievable stay-one-get-one offers. For just a few stays Jinny and I have about 250,000 points between us as well as two free night certificates. Points can be cashed in on free rooms for 8,000 to 50,000 each. This one is worth joining. Keep an eye out for additional generous offers. Club Carlson has both the Radisson hotels, which can be weak and variable in the U.S., and the growing and popular Country Inn and Suites, which I think are a notch above a Hampton Inn. They have a fairly large footprint in Europe with their Park Inn and Park Plaza brands.

    Hilton: I've listed this program fourth. There is nothing wrong with Hilton, but it's really not a great program for casual travelers; certainly not when compared to those above. Jinny is a HHonors Diamond and will likely stay enough next year to requalify for 2014. The Diamond status is great to have and the points do add up quickly for elite members. Hilton's first quarter promotion is double points and it's not a bad promotion, but not nearly as good for casual travelers as Marriott's Megabonus. I just think Hilton is a better choice for those who can earn Gold or Diamond status instead of the casual traveler. On a personal level I used to have Hilton Gold status and I'm now satisfied to stay four times a year to keep Silver status so that I will have access to VIP point redemptions. Hilton has "double-dipping," giving both hotel points and airline miles. The best airline is probably American, even though they have poor flights to Memphis. Their program is so much better than Delta, so their miles are worth about 50 percent more.

    Starwood and Hyatt: Nothing wrong with these programs, but they have so few properties in the South that the average traveler can't take advantage of most of their promotions. But if you find yourself staying in one of them, by all means join their loyalty program.

Hold your horses! Radisson offers one free night certificate for one paid night, must book by Oct. 31

    Okay, I said in my previous post I had only one word for travel and that word was Marriott. Well, add one more word to that list for one stay: Radisson.
    Club Carlson is offering a 1-for-1 offer for stays at Radisson hotels booked by Oct. 31 and completed by Dec. 31. The free night can be used at any Radisson or Radisson Blu in the United States, Canada or the Caribbean and expires after one year. So before you start booking those Marriott stays you do need to book one night at a Radisson!
    You must be a Club Carlson member. To sign up for this promotion click here.
    Club Carlson has been offering some pretty good promotions. Earlier this year they offered 50,000 points for a single stay at Country Inn & Suites and another 50,000 points for a single stay at any Radisson.  50,000 points is enough for a free night at virtually any Radisson in the world, and is worth anywhere from $200 to as much as $500, depending on where you decide to land. Jinny and I both took advantage of this offer, and I took advantage of another offer for 25,000 points. So for very little spend we have roughly 250,000 Club Carlson points between us. Hopefully we'll both be able to take advantage of this most-recent offer so that we'll have an embarrassment of Club Carlson riches.
    One of the reasons hotel chains offer these deals is to try to reel in new customers. To earn her bonus Jinny stayed at the New Orleans Country Inn & Suites on Magazine Street, which is really more of a boutique hotel than a run-of-the-mill Country Inn, and I think it is her favorite New Orleans hotel. She may be a Hilton Diamond and  Marriott Silver, but this is where she would rather stay in New Orleans. It's frequently booked, though.
    I would describe most of the other Country Inn & Suites as a notch above a Hampton Inn and a notch below a Hilton Garden Inn. I like them.

    Be aware that Country Inn & Suites is offering a free-night certificate for two-night stays Oct. 1 through Nov. 29. To book this click on the "Packages" tab when booking Sunday-Thursday stays. The certificates don't have a long shelf life though; they are only good Dec. 15, 2012 through Feb. 15, 2013, and you apparently have to register for the certificate after your stay. So all in all this offer isn't anywhere as good as the Marriott MegaBonus, but still worth a look for those who know they will get all their MegaBonus free nights.

    If you are going to take advantage of these Club Carlson offers, you might as well sign up for some extra bonus points. Click here to sign up for a bonus of up to 6,000 points per night for stays through Dec. 31.

    Jinny has requalified for HHonors Diamond for this year, and certainly there are some great benefits to the HHonors program for elites. But when it comes to bonuses -- things offered above and beyond the regular point earnings -- HHonors sometimes comes up short. For the Fourth Quarter HHonors is offering 1,000 bonus points per night; it takes 50,000 points to get a top Hilton room.
    A quick comparison of some various bonus offerings:

Radisson: Stay one night, get one free night certificate, maximum of one.
Marriott: Megabonus, stay twice, get free night certificate, Cat 1-4, maximum of three.
Country Inn & Suites: Complete a two-night stay Sunday through Thursday, get quick expiration free night certificate (plus earn generous bonus points!).
 Hilton: Stay 50 nights, get enough points for one night at a top Hilton.

    Needless to say, Hilton is at the bottom of Jinny's list until next year.

For occasional travelers this fall and winter, just one word: Marriott

    For those of you with travel plans in the next few months, I have just one word of advice. It's not plastics; it's Marriott.
    For the casual or even not-so-casual traveler, Marriott has the best hotel deal going with their current MegaBonus offer, which runs through Jan. 15. Combined with a current gift card offer, this one can't be beat. You only have until Oct. 31 to sign up though, so hurry!
   So what is the MegaBonus offer? Well, it depends. Everyone gets their own, but most low-level Marriott Rewards members will be offered a free night certificate for each two stays, up to a maximum of three free nights. The free nights are good in any Category 1-4 Marriott Family hotel and expire after one year, which is an improvement over past promotions, where the certificates were only good for six months. This is the offer that both Jinny and I got.
    But each offer is personalized. Other MegaBonus offers which have been reported include:

Earn 2 Free Nights (Category 1-5 hotels)
1 free night certificate earned after every two stays.
Free night certificate valid for category 1 to category 5 hotels and expire one year from issuance. Maximum 2 free night certificates during promotion.

Earn 40,000 bonus points
25,000 bonus points after 15 paid nights
+15,000 bonus points after 20 paid nights.

Earn 50,000 bonus points
35,000 bonus points after 20 paid nights
+15,000 bonus points after 25 paid nights. 

Earn 50,000 bonus points:
Earn 5,000 points every second stay.

        It's important to note that the limitation to Category 1-4 hotels pretty much eliminates all of the top-end Marriotts. For New Orleans, that means the Canal Street Marriotts are out, but the Residence Inn and Springhill Suites a few blocks away in the Warehouse District are in. This is just fine for our family, as these rooms are great for families and our certificates save us about $150 per night. Last year we had a great New Year's Eve vacation at very low cost thanks to free Marriott certificates. Those lucky enough to get a Cat-5 certificate will find a few luxury properties available.
     You'll note I mentioned a Gift Card offer. To take full advantage of this offer, you really need to buy a Marriott Gift Card through the Southwest Airlines website to pay for your stays. You can earn up to 12,000 Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards points by buying a $1,000 gift card. A smaller purchase earns fewer points. These points are worth $200 when buying a Southwest Airlines ticket. These are actual usable points, so this is money in the bank if you plan to fly Southwest.
    Let's do the math on this offer. A $750 Marriott gift card will return $150 in Southwest Airlines points, so your total investment is $600. Assuming a mix of Fairfield Inns, Courtyards and perhaps one full Marriott, all with one-night stays, you should be able to average six stays at $125 per stay. But thanks to your Southwest rebate, your real cost will only be $100 per stay. In exchange you will likely get three Cat 1-4 free night certificates. When buying the gift card, remember that if you will be charging food and drinks to your room you will want to go ahead and get the full $1,000 card rather than just enough to pay for six nights.
    If you are traveling on business and being reimbursed for your travel, the value of this deal is at least $125 for the free certificates plus $150 for the Rapid Rewards points, for a total of $525 in fairly easy money. If you are traveling for leisure or on your own dime, it still is a way to spend nine nights in nice hotels for an average of $50-70 per night (depending on whether your paid nights are at Fairfields or Courtyards). So it's a way to get Courtyard luxury for EconoLodge prices.
    To sign up for the Megabonus, just go to the Marriott site. Make sure your earning style is set to points and not airlines miles before trying to sign up.They have a Megabonus for airline miles, but it is weak.

    If you aren't a member of the Marriott Rewards program, please allow Jinny or me to "refer" you to the program. We will both get bonus points for your next five stays! Just click here to send me an email and I will send you a referral! (Or Facebook message me for my friends, so I'll be sure to get your message).

    Here's the link to sign up for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards program. (Note: this link was down when I wrote this but should be repaired soon).

    Here's the link to sign up for the Marriott Gift Card Offer.

    Now as a matter of hotel-point strategy, it's hard to earn a lot of points in the Marriott system, and it's hard to earn Elite Status beyond Silver. I think Marriott has these Megabonus offers three times a year, with a maximum of either two or three free nights. So for the heavy traveler, I suggest planning for enough stays to make your desired tier in the Hilton system, then just graze on the best offers that Marriott, Priority Club, Hyatt, and lately Club Carlson throw out. (And for the "own-dime" traveler, the Choice Hotels program actually has some great offers!).
    Between the various promotions that the various hotel loyalty programs put out there to lure customers, combined with the regular points that one offers just as a matter of course, a heavy traveler like Jinny will earn enough certificates and points for about 15 free hotel nights per year, if not more. Thanks to the Marriott MegaBonus plus some other offers, a lightweight such as myself can still earn five to seven free nights. For example, Jinny and I will soon have 10 of the Marriott free-night certificates between us; our challenge will be to start using them before the first one earned expires in July 2013 (I'm going to save my brother a phone call; these certificates are non-transferable, even to a family member).
    We recently went to New Orleans to watch the Rebels play. Between the Rebels, the Saints game and an AARP convention the city was booked solid, and hotel rooms were literally going for $300 and up per night. We had to do a split stay, but we stayed for free at two different hotels on points. Needless to say, we never would have made the trip if it had involved $800 in hotel costs. So it's nice to have free hotel rooms when you need them.

Cheap Hilton points can make for a cheaper Hilton stay

    It's been almost a year since I posted about the good deals offered on the Daily Getaways site. There are lots of good deals, but a year ago I thought one of the best deals was the Hilton points. I still think so.
    I will allow you to visit the website and decide for yourself what constitutes a good deal. They have some great discounts on MGM Skysuites, for example, but I have no burning desire to stay in a Skysuite. (Okay, I do, but I'm not even willing to pay the heavily discounted price).
    I still think one of the best deals being offered is the chance to buy HHonors points. And this year they are being offered on two days, April 25 and May 2, and they are being offered in great enough quantities that they shouldn't sell out in 10 seconds. That said, they will sell out in ten minutes to two hours, so you need to be online when they hit the market.
    250,000 points costs $1,375, with a 10 percent discount for paying with the American Express. So 250,000 points will cost $1,237.50. For a Hilton Silver, Gold or Diamond, these points are good for six nights at virtually any Hilton.
    Suppose you want to spend a week in Sandestin, perhaps for the Mississippi Bar Convention, July 8-14. Six nights will cost an elite 225,000 points, versus more than $2,300 if paying cash.
    Suppose you want to go to Paris. To book a room at the Arc de Triomphe Hilton for the above dates would cost you roughly $3,240. Or you can buy the points for $1,237.50 and live like a king for what in Paris is a very low price.
    Of course, the same is true for places like Amsterdam, New York, and London. Ah, London, where you can stay six nights in the Waldorf Hilton for $4,583. Or buy the points for $1,237.50 and have points left over. You choose.
    One more thing. Point stays aren't always available, but all three examples above used the July 8-14 dates of the Mississippi Bar Convention, and rooms were available. So if you have a trip planned, buy the points and save.

The cobbler has no shoes (or HHonors points)

    Late last year I reported on the Hilton HHonors First Quarter Promotion, simply entitled More Points. It offers a bonus of 1,000 HHonors points per night.
    I get an especial thrill out of earning the maximum amount of airline and hotel points and Jinny doesn't want to fool with it, so that makes me the official Pointmeister of the Col. Reb household. I thought I had signed her up for the Hilton special, I really did!
    Apparently I didn't. I didn't see any bonus points posting in her account so I went to the sign up screen and put her name in, and instead of telling me she was already signed up it thanked me for registering. I checked her email, and there was no sign of my having signed up back in early January.
    I did sign Jinny up for a Delta Airlines bonus that gives her 2,012 HHonors points for every two night stay if she chooses Delta as her Double-Dip partner. At present she has one 2,012-point award, but there may be another waiting in the wings that hasn't posted yet.
    But thanks to my malfeasance, misfeasance, nonfeasance or just plain stupidity, Jinny has missed out on roughly 12,000 HHonors points. That's 33-40 percent of a Paris-London-New York hotel room. Calculate the value of the room at $350, which is really on the low side, and my failure to get her signed up has cost our family $140 or more in quasi-luxury hotel value.
    What's done is done. In all honesty I remember signing her up; perhaps it was so soon the sign-up wasn't registering people properly. Learn from my mistake and treat good offers like voting. Sign up early and often.

Hilton HHonors announces First Quarter 2012 promotion

    Hilton has announced its First Quarter 2012 promotion, and while there is some moaning and groaning over at the flyertalk.com board, I think it's decent enough for several reasons.
    The promotion, simply called More Points, offers a bonus of 1,000 bonus HHonors points per night from Jan. 1 2012, to March 31, 2012. As an added bonus guests who stay at least two weekend nights, counting Thursday night as a weekend night, will get an additional 5,000 bonus points. So if I'm reading the offer correctly, a stay of Thursday and Friday night would garner 7,000 bonus points.
    Here's why I think the Hilton offer is generous enough. Promotions have been decreasing across the board at all hotel chains. Most hotels offer fewer promotions at the start of the year as everyone is concentrating on booking enough stays to guarantee their loyalty status for the next year. And many chains offer absolutely nothing until Feb. 1.
    Using Jinny as an example, she will need 28 Hilton stays to keep her Diamond status for 2013. There is a natural desire to get ahead of the curve and get a few more than 14 stays under her belt by July 1. That way she will almost be assured of making Diamond for the next year. Aware of this, the chains then roll out some better promotions after mid-year, to make sure that people who have already earned their tier status don't stray to greener pastures.
    The fact is that with this promotion a traveler with 12 nights that include two weekends is almost certain to earn enough regular and bonus points to get a free hotel room anywhere in the world. In places like London these rooms cost as much as $500 per night. So unless or until the program gets gutted, it's a pretty good deal.
    We can always hope for more, but for a First Quarter promotion I think it's okay. Be sure to check the exclusion list as a number of hotels aren't participating.

Hilton HHonors offers great fourth quarter promotion

    Hilton HHonors has announced its fourth quarter promotion and it's a great one!
    Last year when all of the hotels were falling all over themselves to offer great promotions Hilton gave out free-night certificates for every three stays. This year the Hilton Fourth Quarter offer is a free-night certificate for every four stays or 10 nights.
    While not quite as generous as last-years offering, this promotion, entitled "Fast Ways to Free Stays," is a good as any major hotel chain is offering this year.
    Marriott has a Megabonus promotion that has some merit, but it is only valid if you pay for your room with a VISA card. Most business people use AMEX, so the Marriott promotion is pretty worthless. Priority Club has a promotion I reported on August 28 that offers 2,000 bonus points per night for members who stay in four different brands, for example, Holiday Inn, HI Express, Intercontinental and Hotel Indigo. It was a good enough promotion that Jinny was planning to move a bit of her business to Priority Club for the fourth quarter. It looks like she'll be coming back to Hilton, although I do think she'll try to stay at four Priority Club brands just to maximize her points on stays that she does have with them.
    The free-night certificates can be used at any Hilton for a standard room. If the hotel is out of standard rooms they can't be used. So there is a bit of capacity control, and Hilton has done away with the "Diamond Force" that gave its most elite members guaranteed availability. That said, most have reported that they've been able to use the certificates in the past at better properties with nightly rates of $300 or more.
    Certificates will be issued within 14 days of their being earned and are good for six months.
    The Hilton elite recognition system is weighted towards stays, not nights. For this promotion, four one-night stays gets the same certificate as one 10-night stay. The latter costs two-and-one-half times as much. In addition, Hilton grants Diamond elite status after 28 stays or 60 nights. So the Hilton reward system creates a perverse incentive to move from hotel to hotel every night; and that's what many point misers do.
    There are plenty of Hilton properties out there charging in excess of $200 per night. Lots more are in the $160 or more range. So these certificates are worth at least $160 each. So for longer stays it is well worth it to check out of one Hilton property and into another (you can't check right back into the same property). Thus on a four-night trip by staying at Hotel A, then B, then A again, then B again you get four stays and a free night certificate.
    Bottom line on this deal is that if you have 12 one-night stays at $150 per night you will spend $1,800 over the three month promotion period. In return you will get three certificates worth at least $160 each, for an effective rebate of more than 26 percent of hotel costs. Add in the value of the hotel points earned, and the rebate gets even higher.
    Of course, it is possible to get even more value out of these certificates. Hiltons in Paris, London, Venice and other European cities often cost in excess of $400 per night. Although not common, one can sometimes find a Hampton for less than $90 per night, all in. So it is technically possible to get a rebate value of greater than one spends on the hotels in the first place, and that's not even considering the value of the HHonors points.
    It's likely a poor idea to stay at hotels just to get the certificates, but many people will book a few extra stays for no other reason than to earn Diamond status. If we should find Dec. 31 is approaching and we only need one more stay to get that certificate, I dare say you'll find us at the cheapest Hampton we can find, letting our children enjoy the pool for the night and planning on how we will use our free room night at any Hilton in the future.

Addendum 9-28-11
    Many or all members of the Flyertalk board have reported that they have signed up for this promotion seeking the free nights and instead have been enrolled in an "extra points" version of the promotion. The extra points version is inferior, having only the advantage that the points don't expire while the certificates do. Probably best to wait a day more to enroll and then call to check and make sure you are enrolled for the free certificates.

    In addition, I stated the value of the rebate to be received as approximately 26 percent. It could easily be much higher. Spend your certificates on a $300 hotel room, such as the SanDestin Hilton or a New York or European property and the value of three certificates is $900. One is likely to earn more than 22,000 HHonors points for the 12 stays which, when used at a top property, are worth at least $200. And if you double-dip for American Airlines miles you will get 6,000 AAdvantage miles, worth about $100. So if used wisely you can easily get a 66 percent rebate out of this offer. Use your certificates in New York, Paris or London and your rebate can exceed 100 percent, but of course you have the expense of getting to these places!