The day all my hotel rewards points from my road-warrior days at Ford would be gone. The loyalty points were one perk that made all the travel a little easier to swallow. During certain stretches, I was on the road 3-4 nights a week, 3-4 weeks a month. I had Gold status with Marriott Rewards, Gold with Holiday Inn’s Priority Club, and Silver Elite with Hilton Honors. These programs do an excellent job of making you feel like you’re earning something valuable for your time. I’m living proof that loyalty marketing programs work: I would drive an extra 15 minutes out of my way at the end of a 4-hour drive to stay at one of these chains and earn my points.
We certainly have done our best to get the most use out of them and make them last. Thanks to Uncle Henry, Bryn and I have enjoyed free stays in Washington DC (2x), Phoenix (2x), San Francisco, Disneyland, Monterey, Brussels, and a few more random spots. I’ve also used points for free rooms in Charlotte, NC and Santiago, Chile.
I’ll definitely miss having that supply of free places to stay to fall back on when planning trips, but I think the cost of paying for hotels out of pocket is far less in real terms than the time it took to earn the points. For example, it might take 10-30 nights on the road to earn one free night (depending on the hotel). In the end, I think I’m going to be ok paying for hotels knowing that I didn’t give up all that time at home for only a $100-200 “reward.” In terms of dollars/hr, that’s a pretty crappy rate.
But if you do have to travel for work, it’s better than nothing so make sure you’re earning all the points you can get!
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Tags: california, marketing, Travel
Too bad dad isn’t racking up any points for all those nights in Brazil…even the ‘best’ hotel isn’t a brand name!
[...] programs are a big deal, and I know from personal experience they work. It’s unclear whether or not they intend to change any elements of Rapid Rewards [...]