Reply to: Hotel Loyalty Schemes

[SimonMac]

ibis, ibis Styles, ibis budget - Discover our subscription program ibis BUSINESS

Cheers!

[Pherlopolus]

Linky?

ibis, ibis Styles, ibis budget - Discover our subscription program ibis BUSINESS

[SimonMac]

Slightly off topic, i joined the accorhotels business thing, Gold status and a discount on food/rooms too. £60(ish) for the year, saved that on my first week

Linky?

[NotAllThere]

Hilton credit card (personal use)- spend £10k in a year and apart from Hilton points you get a Hilton Gold card which gives you point boosting, free wifi, room upgrades and free breakfast. Boom.

I avoid any hotels that don't offer decent free wifi from the off. There are quite a few very large companies that have this policy. Hopefully the practice of charging for wifi will disappear over the next few years - especially as the prices they charge are more outrageous than minibar peanuts! (Or an EasyJet G&T)

[saptastic]

Hilton credit card (personal use)- spend £10k in a year and apart from Hilton points you get a Hilton Gold card which gives you point boosting, free wifi, room upgrades and free breakfast. Boom.

[MarillionFan]

I'm Diamond at Hilton plus a Hilton Honors Credit card. This is great for free nights and I have about 7/8 in the bank at the moment.

For others I use Barclays Rewards which tends to give me a a 7% cashback, which is great when a company is paying.

[Pherlopolus]

Slightly off topic, i joined the accorhotels business thing, Gold status and a discount on food/rooms too. £60(ish) for the year, saved that on my first week

[Eirikur]

I use both IHG and accor and book through Quidco or Topcashback directly (depending which gives the highest rate) no need to use hotels.com or others. So far this contract (8 months in) 8 free nights in holiday inn/Crowne plaza and 3 free nights Novotel/Mercure
I also use a link that gives me 30% reduction if I book at least 21 days in advance for IHG hotels

[sal]

I always check direct, after hotels.com, etc. comparison sites, more often than not the price is better direct and you have one less intermediary to deal with in case of issues

[FrontEnder]

Bit of a bump, I've been using Hotels.com for a while, but they aren't always the cheapest. Seem to be staying in a fair few Accord hotels so looking at them directly, I can collect points and then move them to Avios/BA/IberiaPlus which seem to be the collecting pot for most of my other schemes (Shell/Tesco/AMEX etc all get moved automatically)

Hotels.com do price match though. Don't think they will if it's a non-advertised rate you've negotiated direct with the hotel chain though, which can often work out cheaper.

[SimonMac]

Bit of a bump, I've been using Hotels.com for a while, but they aren't always the cheapest. Seem to be staying in a fair few Accord hotels so looking at them directly, I can collect points and then move them to Avios/BA/IberiaPlus which seem to be the collecting pot for most of my other schemes (Shell/Tesco/AMEX etc all get moved automatically)

[BillHicksRIP]

Thank you.

[Zoiderman]

That's very interesting. I do a lot of long stints away, but now I'm contracting again, it's coming out of my pocket. Do they expect you to pay upfront for, say 50 nights to get that rate?

No, but you will have to sign a contract, saying 50 days over 6 months (I think mine was actually 12 months), or some such thing, of whose legality I didn't check.

Negotiate hard too, and don't be afraid to apprach others. Do it by mail so you can back up the 'A N Other Hotel Brand offered me it at X a night' that you will obviously use.

[BillHicksRIP]

I use Holiday Inn and get about 4 long weekends a year.

Contact the hotel directly, as they're mostly franchises. For a 50 night stay, you'll normally see prices drop 50% from the headline figures.

That's very interesting. I do a lot of long stints away, but now I'm contracting again, it's coming out of my pocket. Do they expect you to pay upfront for, say 50 nights to get that rate?

[craig1]

My default contract has a section in it that if I'm forced to be away from home overnight then it's an automatically reasonable expense that I can claim for the price of a Marriott standard room at their normal DBB rate. I have a Marriott gold reward card now that usually gets me a freebie upgrade to a suite and I've now had two 14 night holidays at one of the Marriott resorts out of the points earned (both in Egypt, one Taba Heights, the other Sharm el Sheikh)

For the same reason that I commute into London in first class each day, if I'm going to be doing long commutes or staying away from my home then I'm happy to pay for a bit more comfort. I understand those who take the cheapo option to maximise income but I'd much rather do it my way.