Lodging choices

I was doing a little research for myself and thought I'd share it here, in case someone else was searching for the same information. My husband and I have joined a couple of lodging clubs/rewards/perks systems, hoping to save points and get free night of lodging here and there. It worked for us this past trip. So here's a list of hotel/motel groups, what properties they own, the name of their perks/rewards/points club, and a website. I'm sure it will change, as groups sell and purchase new ones, but it's a good start for 2016:

Choice Hotels - Choice Hotels
Choice Rewards – (points don't expire)

Rodeway
Econo Lodge
Mainstay Suites
Suburban
Clarion
Sleep Inn
Quality Inn & Suites
Comfort Inn & Suites


Wyndham Hotels - Wyndham Hotels
Wyndham Rewards – (points expire!)

Knights Inn
Travelodge
Howard Johnson
Super 8
Days Inn
Baymont Inn & Suites
Ramada Inn
Microtel
Hawthorn Suites
Wingate
Wyndham
Wyndham Garden
Wyndham Grand

Best Western - Best Western
Best Western Rewards -

Best Western
Best Western Plus
Best Western Premier


Marriott Hotels - Marriott Hotels
Marriott Rewards

Courtyard by Marriott
Residence Inn by Marriott
Springhill Suites by Marriott
Fairfield Suites by Marriott
TownePlace by Marriott
Westin Hotels
Sheraton Hotels

RitzCarlton by Marriott - Marriott Hotels
Ritz Carlton Rewards

Ritz-Carlton
JW Marriotts
Renaissance Suites
Delta
Marriott
Marriott Vacation Club


La Quinta Inns - La Quinta
La Quinta Returns

La Quinta Inn & Suites
LQ Hotels



Vantage - Vantage Hotels
Vantage Rewards

Americas Best Value Inn & Suites
Canadas Best Value Inn & Suites
Value Inn/Hotel Worldwide
Signature Inn
Country Hearth Inn & Suites
America's Best Inn & Suites
Jameson Inn
3 Palms Hotels


InterContinental Hotels Group - IHG.com
IHG Rewards

Hotel InterContinental
Crowne Plaza Hotels & Suites
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn Express & Suites
Candlewood Suites
Staybridge Suites
Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants


Accor
Red Roof Inn
Motel 6


Hilton Hotels - Hilton
Hilton HHonors

Hilton Hotels
Waldorf Astoria Hotels
Conrad Hotels
Canopy by Hilton
Doubletree
Embassy Suites
Hilton Garden Inn
Hampton Inn & Suites
Homewood Suites
Home2 Suites


Red Lion - Red Lion Hotels
Hello Rewards

Red Lion Hotels
Red Lion Inn & Suites
Hotel RL
Settle Inn Extended Stay

Extended Stay America - ESA
Extended Perks

Extended Stay America – full kitchens






Donna

Donna,

Nice work preparing this list. What affinity clubs do you belong to?

I have membership in 3-4 of these groups.

Without question the best value, in my opinion, in terms of accommodation, free lodging and remarkably free and excellent food is Drury Inn Drury is mostly located in the Midwest. In addition to the free breakfast, which is not pre-cooked for guests, they also provide what they call Evening Drinks and Snacks and it is good enough to get your evening meal from it. More about the offerings of this chain here.

The one program I use for about 70% of my motel accommodation when working is IHG.

Mark

Addition to list (thanks, Mark!):

Drury Hotels Drury Hotels
Drury Gold Key Club

Drury Inns and Suites - in 21 states
Pear Tree Inn
Drury Plaza Hotels

The ones where I have annotated whether or not points expire, are the ones we belong to: Choice and Wyndham. Of the two, after the past two trips, we have decided that we like the Choice Hotels better, particularly Quality Inn and Comfort Inn. At Wyndham's properties, we always seemed to be stuck down on the end of the hallway in a small room - and we were coming in on a reservation made via the Internet, not on a coupon (where you expect that).

I did look up a couple of so-called "hotel chains" which were more hotel management companies -- Access Hotels was one of those -- and at least one that was only located overseas, such as Four Seasons. (Don't confuse the latter with Lodge of the Four Seasons at Lake of the Ozarks, it's independently owned but managed by Access Hotels.)



Donna

Quote:

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Choice Rewards – (points don't expire)

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Actually, there's a little bit of some small print on that one. Choice's points don't expire, as long as you are using/earning them at least once every 18 months. If you aren't active for a year and a half, then your points would expire.

Choice is really about the only one I use, as they very frequently have a "get your 3rd stay free" promotion going on, and within the last year they even changed the policy so their budget motels (Rodeway, Econolodge) qualify for the program with even a 1 night stay. Those promotions have saved me a lot of money, and given me several free rooms.


It's not a loyalty program, but I also use priceline quite a bit and it seems like more often than not, I've wound up at an Extended Stay America when I win a bid on a 2 star property - which is quite nice due to the full kitchen.

...Actually, just about every company on your list are.... "hotel management companies." With rare exception, very few of those brands own any of the buildings that they manage. They manage the operations of the motel -- so, technically ~ 89% of them are management companies.

My problem with some of the booking sites such as Priceline, TripAdvisor, etc., is that they usually require pre-purchase with penalties for cancellation. If your trip plans change, you can't get out of it without losing either a portion or all of what you paid. This past summer, we prepaid for one place, through Priceline or something, and there was no cancellations allowed, period. When we got there, we did NOT like the room, though its location was fine. Had we not prepaid, we would have canceled and moved on, as we were there long before most of the places that had "up to 4pm of day of arrival" type cancellation policy. After that, we decided, no more prepaid.

Our Choice points were still in effect from summer 2014, when we added to them in 2016. Choice bent over backwards to get us more points when I called for help in booking a free night just before we ended our trip in July. So if they have the same "18 month" policy that Wyndham has, they didn't bother cancelling our points like Wyndham did at the end of 2015. So....who knows!


Donna

You should log into your choice account to make sure - they did make some changes to their policies within the past year and that may have impacted you and your points.

Prepaid is certainly taking a risk, but I've usually had pretty good luck as long as I picked at least 2 or 2.5 stars. The savings can be significant, if you're willing to roll the dice, but as you said, you have to be certain that you know where you want to be at the end of the day. On a roadtrip, if I'm going to use priceline or hotwire, I don't make that reservation until usually just a few hours or less before I'm ready to stop for the day.

Accor no longer owns Motel 6 or Red Roof. Most of Accor's properties are overseas, they are based in France. They are primarily high end establishments.

Joining the "clubs" for the airlines and rental car agencies are also a virtual necessity. Sometimes an affiliate credit card will keep your reward points from expiring. Some of the affiliate credit cards cost money and some do not. Sometimes it makes sense to pay the $99 for an airline (or other travel) affiliation if it loads a bundle of points one can put to good use. Read the fine print!

AAA and Costco can also help secure good deals. For some reason the AAA of Southern California is much better than other AAA localities. Not sure why better deals or even lists can show up around the USA from the AAA of SoCal than my AAA on the east coast!!! And you don't have to be a member of AAA/SoCal, just an AAA member to use it.

Costco recently has saved me a bundle for an upcoming car rental in Puerto Rico. I have not used their hotel or airline travel components yet.

We've used Costco Travel for car rentals a few times. The first one was out of St Louis, and they saved us about $150 for a 6 day rental. Another one was here at home, and it saved us about the same on an 8 day rental. The third time will also be out of St Louis, and after some price checks all over, it looks like it is saving us well over $225 for a 13 day rental.

Motel 6 website still has "Accor" on it, near the bottom, I think. And my points are still on Choice.


Donna

Welcome to RTA!

One great way to find lodging is to look to the right side of this page. There's a motel finder provided by RTA. I believe there are all price ranges, so you may have a good choice. Monterey has a lot of the "big names" in lodging, plus a lot of independently owned "mom and pop" places. The big names include Hyatt, Best Western Plus, Comfort Inn, America's Best Value Inn, Super 8, Holiday Inn Express, and more. Lots of smaller places too.



Donna

In a related question....other than the extended-stay chains such as Extended Stay America, Candlewood Suites, etc., has anyone found a listing for lodging with kitchenettes that is for the whole US (similar to the Truck-stop lists)?

One of the things that started this research about hotels and grocery chains was my own desire to do more cooking while we are out on the road. As my hubby and I age, we are each fighting health issues, and restaurants don't help. The sodium count, fat and carbs, and portion size are ridiculous. Even the Senior and "Fit Fare" plates with reasonable nutritional counts are limited in selection. Besides, after about a week on the road, going out for a meal has become, "ho hum, what now?"

After this past trip, where it was difficult to find room in the motel to cook (or the place had requests posted, "please don't cook in the room"), we are trying to look for alternatives. Places with kitchenettes or full kitchens, or even those that might allow one to use the breakfast room to cook your own meal, are in our plans now. Yet, we don't want to mess with the cleaning deposits and other things required for airbnb, VRBO, and similar.




Donna

Many of the "suites" have some form of kitchen but the kitchenware can be hit or miss. Time shares can be one option and looking for "hybrid" places via Trip Advisor aka some B&B places. VRBO are tough unless you are staying for a week or more due to the added fees (cleaning, service, etc.).

Timeshares generally can't be had for only one night - the ones I have are minimum 2 days to a week.

Quote:

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As my hubby and I age, we are each fighting health issues, and restaurants don't help. The sodium count, fat and carbs, and portion size are ridiculous.

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The main complaint about food in an unregulated society.

My favourite meals are the ready made salads, with maybe a couple of slices of ham/corned beef or such. If the contents of the salad dressing create a health concern, buy the salads available in the containers, which do not have the dressing mixed with them. Then carry your own favourite dressing. That together with a tub of yohgurt does me for a meal. Proper yoghurt that is. Yoghurt with a minimum of sugar and with pro biotics, not the cheap mass produced so readily available, which are full of sugar and do not contain the proper yoghurt (pro biotics) culture. It does not involve any cooking, is healthy and satisfying (and cheap!).

Though as the years pass, I tend to stick very much to my normal diet - so long as I do not have to eat typical American food. Sodium and things like fat no longer bother me. No one is dependent on me any more. I have surviived cancer and a stroke. The day I die my pain will die as well. Living with pain 24/7 is wearing me down.

Lifey

Thank you.... this is very good information!!

Hi and Welcome to the Great American Roadtrip Forum.

Glad you found this thread helpful. There are many more threads full of helpful hints for roadtrippers. You might also like to peruse the rest of this website, where there are mmany articles with information for roadtrippers.

Happy travelling.

Lifey

I am starting to answer some of my own questions. That's a wee bit scary. (grin)

Online, I found a listing of a lot of "extended stay hotel chains" and their amenities. The intended audience for this article was the business traveler, but if one is planning to get to a place like NYC, DC, LA, and hunker down for a long sightseeing stay (or needs a place to stay until ones home or apartment is ready), this might be a starting place to check:

Extended Stay Hotel Chain Comparison Chart: this link compares places like ESA, Homewood Suites, TownePlace Suites, Candlewood Suites, and many more. Following some of the links from that page helped me decipher that ESA is in the "budget" category and TownePlace Suites is in the mid-price, for instance.



Donna

Back to the lodging chain points here -- just got an email from Marriott Rewards. (We joined them because of plans for this summer to include one of their places with a kitchen.)

In August, Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and SPG will become one program. To quote their website:

In August we’ll become one powerful program with separate names; we’ll consolidate everything else into one set of benefits to give you easier access and more opportunities.

If you are already a member, they'll want you to combine your accounts in August, make sure your email address is correct, member titles will be changing, and more.


Donna

Thanks, Donna for a very helpful research and a good list of hotel/motel groups. This information will be a great help for our future trips!

Towne Place Suites review -

When in the Washington, DC area for about a week (7 nights stay), we chose a Towne Place Suites, which is budget-to-mid-price range hotel under the Marriott banner.

This particular one had a full kitchen. It had an "apartment-sized" fridge, a 2-burner smooth top stove, an over-the-range microwave, and a half-size dishwasher for the appliances. The cabinets contained a service for 4: plates, bowls, coffee cups, bread plates, and drinking glasses. The drawers contained a set of saucepans and a fry pan, all with lids (and all of decent quality). The silverware included service for 4: forks, butter knives, spoons, and tablespoons. There was a paring knife and a bread knife, a large serving spoon, "pancake flipper", and a hand-operated can opener. There was also a toaster and a coffeemaker.

This particular Towne Place has a "loan" system. They said they had Crock-Pots, hand blenders, full-size blenders, and a few other portable appliances to loan. Plus cards, board games, umbrellas, pen and paper.

The room contained a good king-sized comfortable bed, plus a sofa that could be made into a single bed. There was a roll-out table with a countertop directly over that, and about 30" above that was a shelf (which we used for stowing camera cases and other things).

The closet had an organizer in it. One shelf was strong enough to hold a suitcase, then there was a slide-out basket, and another shelf (on which they had a plastic laundry basket). There was plenty of hanging space and hangers.

The bathroom was of good size, all in one room (instead of a sink and counter outside the toilet/shower area). Instead of hanging a hair dryer on the wall, it was inside a drawer in a bag. The shower was gorgeous and huge, with a good showerhead.

At this particular hotel, there was plenty of parking. The AC worked beautifully, and with none of those problems that some hotels have with "flying curtains" over the AC unit.

We reserved this hotel several months in advance, for 10 nights. When plans changed that made us cut back our stay in DC to 7 nights, a simple phone call allowed us to alter the reservation without changing our rate.

Just down the street was a Candlewood Suites and a Hampton. Neither of them had an indoor pool like this one. My only "complaint" was that the pool appeared to be open only between 3 pm and 9 pm. This one also had a fitness center, and it was a good sized one. Though there was a sign apologizing for their finicky electronic fitness equipment, the one I used worked perfectly, though I did not use the TV that was attached to it.




Donna