Travel Tip #28 - Earn Free Nights at Hotels

     One way we cut down on travel expenses is by getting free nights at hotels/motels. Many years ago, when we were looking at hotel prices, my wife came across a rewards program in which we could earn free nights by staying in motels from the same chain. Since we'd had good experiences in some motels, and bad experiences at others, we chose two chains that we'd enjoyed in the past. We've always had good experiences with Best Western, and they are usually within our price range, so they were a natural choice. Unfortunately, sometimes they are over our price range, or sometimes don't have a hotel near where we've wanted to stay the night. Therefore we also signed up for the Choice Hotels rewards program. Choice Hotels include about nine different branches: Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Sleep Inn, Quality, Clarion, MainStay Suites, Suburban, EconoLodge, and Rodeway Inn. Almost everywhere we travel, we can find one or more hotels from one of these two chains within our price range. We prefer some of the Choice Hotels over others, based on past experience, but we now almost always read the customer reviews before choosing one. Now we are rarely unpleasantly surprised.
     Both rewards programs are similar. Basically, you earn points each time you stay at one of the chain's hotels - depending on the price of the hotel, not the number of nights. Once you've earned enough points, you can exchange them for a free night at one of their participating hotels. Of course, the more expensive the hotel, the more points it costs to get a free night. The main difference between the programs is that the Choice Hotel points expire within a couple of years after you earn them, and Best Western's points don't. Occasionally, there are certain promotions to encourage travel during non-peak times, but since we almost always travel during school vacations, we never qualify for those. Still, we've earned several free nights over the years, and there is no fee to sign up for the program. I call that a win-win situation.
     So, if you haven't already signed up for a rewards program, it's worth taking a look. If you are going to be spending money anyway on a hotel, you might as well get some of that money back.