Earlier I posted 74 pictures from our last two years of travel, and I gave some stats on how we’ve done 63 international flights paid for with miles. But I didn’t mention hotels. Luckily, I also keep track of all of our hotel visits and thus can say that we’ve stayed at 69 hotels in the last couple of years that are either 4 or 5 star hotels- for free (points or BRGs).
But even when we’re not using points, and even when we’re not using BRG’s, we still find hotels to stay in. Sometimes it’s just walking around and picking one, and most of the time it’s online booking.
Always Book Cancelable Rates
This may seem like a no-brainer to anyone who has had to try to get their way out of a non-refundable room but it’s pretty important in fact it’s so important that it’s like a sub-point of the rest of of my points.
Tip: AAA rates are often similar to the non-refundable price, but often allow 24 hour cancellation.
Hilton + Marriott BRGs are way easier than IHG & Choice
When you book with IHG and Choice and then find a lower rate on a competitor’s site, they give you a free night. It’s their “best rate guarantee”. However, because this is probably more easily gamed, or IHG just hates giving anything they promise, it’s hard to find.
Yet, Marriott giving 25% off is a huge perk for people who have long stays. Huge. And Hilton could still be sort-of gamed on the cheap end (we got a free stay because they give $50 off and our stay was below that).
The main reason is that particularly IHG is really strict on matching up the cancellation policy. This means that if your IC is cancelable from 6pm on and Expedia is cancelable from 4pm on… they’ll deny your claim. So they don’t as much guarantee the best rate as much as guaranteeing their way of weaseling out of it, or rather having the best conditions.
Tip: Use Trivago, Wego, Kayak to scan rates in local currency. When you get to the competitor’s site, check the cancellation policy and rate first. Then see how much it lines up.
1 hour of research is as good as 10. Just pick a freaking hotel!
Not to be rude or anything, or to step away from strategy for too long, but who knows how much time I’ve wasted reading reviews of hotels. Heck, I’m so bad that even after getting a mistake fare for a nice hotel, I kept reading reviews to know what to expect.
Why? I have no idea. But on the other hand, I’ve gotten better. I don’t spend my life picking out hotels.
Tips: First assess free options – points and all. Then pick your ideal location and use something like the map on Hipmunk to see the hotels around that destination. Location is the most important thing to me about a city-hotel. Third, I will also search on google: “[name of hotel] site:flyertalk.com” to read reviews, particularly to see if the lounge is a tie-breaker.
Always check last minute
Almost all of our hotel bookings are last minute. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t book ahead… it just means that I don’t. So it’s a bit do as I say not as I do. :-p Because I have gotten in a pickle because a city had some special event or something. So book ahead but then check again!
But really, we have another trip to NYC and then an entire trip to Italy and then back coming up and we have yet to book a single hotel.
This is just to say that sometimes prices fluctuate more in the week to come as most bookings are done then, and my chance of grabbing a BRG goes up. Sometimes it means that the award availability I was hopping for became available.
Tip: Book now, and then immediately put it in your google calendar. If it’s something that I may forget about I set an alert to email me the day before. That way I can cancel if it’s not going to be something I use.
Mistake Fares are so great that you should go all the way
Especially for those who travel a ton and can easily burn through the points, mistake fares are great for letting the point-wallet have a break. It’s huge. And whenever I’m spending a week at a great mistake fare (like a 4 or 5 star hotel for $5/night) I tend to wake up every day and think “why didn’t I book a month?”
Plus, you earn points. On our latest mistake stay at the Sheraton Puerto Vallarta I got lucky and got some nights-based promos. Earned about 5,000 SPG points, but for whatever reason I triple set off the Air Canada promo and got 15,000 Air Canada miles. Wow, well-worth the $18/night.
Tip: Besides google calendar and setting alerts for emails the day before cancelation… I tend to book back to back weeks. I may only use the first week, but I may decide to stay the second week. Either way it’s great having the option.
Spend your points based on the deal not the ego
Look, I have tons of points across tons of hotels. And sometimes I think “it would be cool to blow all my points at the (fill in the blank)”, but it’s not all that cool when we later have to pay cash to earn those points back. Or pay cash because we’re out of points.
So I have a semi-systematic way I think about spending points based on the most number of nights. This means that I’ll save my IHG points for an IHG PointBreak sale.
“But you can’t predict when and where a PointBreaks will happen!”
True, but I can keep saving until I see one I love. So blow my Club Carlson points in the meantime, and then use my IHG points on PointBreaks whenever that comes along.
Tip: Do as I say, not as I do.
Always check the aggregators
Even when you need a paid stay, check and you may find it cheaper on another site. Thus it could get you a BRG. Or you may find a crazy deal.
I used to always check google.com/hotels because their “price compared to usual” was a bit better than it is now. But the concept remains, do an aggregator search for deals across multiple sites at once.
Tip: Search all the brands you would want to use for any deals. Kayak and many others allow you to search by brand.
Interesting take. I aspire to do what you do, though my husband doesn’t know it yet. I especially relate to the “just pick a freaking hotel” already. I may have an upcoming stay in Austin/San Antonio and have spent too much researching a hotel for a trip that I may cancel. I have the Carlson card, but the Radisson in Austin is booked for points stays. I have choice points that I bought at a good price in the last Daily Getaway deals for a possible stay in Comfort Suites Alamo/Riverwalk hotel in San Antonio, but am think I should do the Sat nite stays at a Holiday Inn for the Big Win. Analysis paralysis…
Analysis paralysis indeed! I say that all the time when booking hotels. lol. And I just don’t travel to see hotels.
Hey, just wanted to give you feedback:
The little box on left-hand side of the screen is pretty annoying, It contains the text “Share” with a image for Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. It overlays about 8 lines of text and blocks the first 2 letters making reading your text more difficult.. Instead of being able to read the entire page freely, you must shift up and down continually as you progress sentence by sentence.
I also noticed that it is even worse on an Ipad mini..
Thanks for the feedback, I got rid of it immediately after reading your comment. Sorry for the spammy feature.
That was fast. Thanks!
Agree, the share box blows!!!!
Good to know. Gone now. Thanks
Loved your post….however, you can never be too rich, too thin or spend too much time obsecessing over a hotel stay. :~)
Well… That’s what I thought until I spent hours looking at the Sheraton we were staying at in Mexico book as a mistake fare… already booked and all and yet I was still on tripadvisor photos. lol
I thought this was a very interesting post since it’s so far removed from my own style! The one thing I’m curious about is how you seem to stumble onto BRG’s relatively frequently. That rarely seems to be the case for me, but I’m not sure if that’s because I always have set dates and cities or if I’m just unlucky (admittedly, I scan Kayak for opportunities but don’t pursue further for lack of time).
@Becky – a lot of times BRG depends upon the cities that you are going to visit and the chain. I do about 1/3 – 1/5 of my SPG stays on BRG. My hometown NEVER has any BRG possibilities. The hotels just do not release any different rates to the OTA. About 2 hours down the road, I can find a BRG 75% – 90% of the time.
For other hotel chains, you usually have to start looking about a week before your stay as that is when you can compare flexible rates to flexible rates.
If you always book flexible rates, you can cancel your old reservation, make a new reservation and apply for the BRG.
Thanks for the response. I’m usually a “set it and forget it” person, so if the BRG doesn’t exist when I originally book, that’s usually as far as I take it. Appreciate the insight, though!
What Katherine said is true, but also the better sites are trivago, wego, and other more obscure ones. But it’s getting harder and harder with IHG.
Great post, thanks. Im just curious, where do you find your mistake hotel fares? Is there a website that covers these? twitter? blog?
Thanks again!
I sometimes worry I spend more time reviewing hotels than I do in hotels. I will just “shut up and book it” as you suggest.
It’s what this hobby has done to us!
I just had a quick question, do reward stays (ihg) also include taxes?
They shouldn’t. I’ve heard of a couple properties trying to pass it on.