While air travelers can usually find a nice upscale hotel in airport locations and big cities, the road warrior and highway driver will likely be familiar with the midscale hotel segment when staying in smaller cities. This is the world of Hilton Garden Inns, Marriott Courtyards and Hyatt Place cookie cutter hotel design so dominant in current hotel construction for a traveling world. Midscale full service hotels offer truly functional rooms with the options of food and a bar. Business centers are common for basic office needs. Exercise facilities, usually with a pool, offer standardized style at mid-price rates ($65 to $125 in most places) and super-sized geographic distribution.

JD Power’s 2010 Guest Satisfaction Survey ranks Midscale Full Service hotel brands. This type of hotel is usually designated Midscale with Food and Beverage (Midscale F&B) in hotel market segment data. The JD Power survey categorizes two classes of Midscale Hotels with the Full Service Segment and Limited Service Segment.

JD Power 2010 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index - Midscale Full-Service Hotel Brands

Graphic is from JDPower.com 2010 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Press Release

JD Power Midscale Full Service  Ratings report 

Nine major hotel loyalty programs are represented in the midscale full service segment. Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, and Starwood make the four and five circle ratings for their Midscale F&B brands. 

Hilton Garden Inn and Hyatt Place ranked high with a top Power Circle Rating 5 from JDPower.com ratings. Marriott Courtyard and Starwood’s Four Points come in at the level 4 rated brands. IHG Priority Club is not represented until level 3 Power Circle Rating with Holiday Inn. 

I have stayed frequently in these brands and I guess I prefer Hyatt Place for the room design over a typical Hilton Garden Inn room but I’ll take HGI for the food. Some Four Points have great beer deals. The basic Marriott Courtyard is usually a comfortable lobby. In general I favor the upscale hotels, but I drop down to visit these brands when the price is right and the option works out best for the location. 

Wyndham, Holiday Inn, and Best Western receive three circles in the JD Power ratings.

Holiday Inn has been going through a $1 billion make-over for the past two years. At over 800 hotels in North America the brand is iconic in the hotel world and still growing strong. The disparity between Holiday Inn hotels around the U.S. is a concern, however, international Holiday Inn properties tend to be more in the upscale market in many locations. 

Wyndham Garden Hotels have a three circle rating although this brand is limited in number of hotels with fewer than 20.

Best Western is a solo hotel brand with over 2,200 hotels in the U.S. alone and almost 200 hotels in Canada. Best Western is midscale franchise brand with a wide variety of hotel properties mostly in the form of conversions of existing hotels.

Choice Hotels and Wyndham vie for least desirable mid-scale hotel brands with each representing two of the bottom four ranked chains in the mid-scale full service market. Quality Inn and Clarion Hotels are Choice Privileges brands.

Curiously the Clarion brand ranked slightly lower in guest satisfaction than the Quality Inn brand. Clarion Hotels as a brand was created in the 1980s from the high-end Quality Inn properties.  

Ramada Inn and last ranked Howard Johnson are Wyndham Rewards brands.

Hotel Brands Ranked by Number of Hotels in North America

Best Western (Best Western Rewards) = 2,400+ hotels in North America; 4,000+ globally. 

Quality Inn (Choice Privileges) = about 984 hotels in North America. Quality Inn and Suites locations.  

Holiday Inn (IHG Priority Club Rewards) = 880 Americas; 1,300+ hotels globally

Courtyard by Marriott (Marriott Rewards) = 780 hotels US; 850+ globally.                                                                              Marriott Courtyard Hotel Directory (pdf) 

Ramada Inn (Wyndham Rewards) = 910 hotels globally

Hilton Garden Inn (Hilton HHonors) = 500+ hotels globally; almost all in North America. Hilton Garden Inn Hotel locations: Downloadable PC or Mac HGI e-directory.

Howard Johnson (Wyndham Rewards) = 500+ hotels; almost all in North America.

Clarion Hotels (Choice Privileges) = 175 hotels in North America; 250+ globally. Clarion hotel locations.

Hyatt Place (Hyatt Gold Passport) = 160 hotels. Hyatt Place Hotel Locations 

Four Points by Sheraton (Starwood Preferred Guest) = about 113 hotels North America; 166 hotels globally. Four Points Hotel locations. 

Wyndham Garden Hotels (Wyndham Rewards) = about 20 hotels. Wyndham Garden locations.

Links to Related Loyalty Traveler commentary for different hotel market segments covered in JD Power 2010 North America Hotel Satisfaction Index:

Overview JD Power 2010 North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study (Aug 10)

Comments on JD Power 2010 Upscale Hotel Satisfaction Index (Aug 11)

Comments on JD Power 2010 Luxury Hotel Satisfaction Index (Aug 11)

Comments on JD Power 2010 Midscale Limited Service Hotels Satisfaction Index (Aug 15)

Loyalty Traveler comments on JD Power 2010 Economy/Budget Hotel Brand Ratings (August 16, 2010)

Comments on JD Power 2010 Extended Stay Hotel Satisfaction Index (Aug 17)

Through December 30 earn 3,000 bonus points for a Sunday night stay at any of 11 participating Starwood Hotels in New York and New Jersey. The bonus points are earned for any normally eligible stay so AAA rates and other discount rates earn this bonus. There is no special rate offer required.

SPG promotion registration is required by December 24, 2010.

Sunday night stay can be one night alone or a Sunday night in a multi-night stay. Both types of stays earn 3,000 bonus points.

Basically 3,000 bonus points works out to earning a free SPG category 2 weekend night stay. I view the bonus as about a $100 rebate value; perhaps more if you spend points for higher value nights.

The $100 rebate value really brings the overall cost of a New York City hotel down to a good value room rate if you get rates in the $200 to $250 all-in range for a Sunday night. Several of the participating hotel rates I found in my rate checks of NY/NJ Starwood Hotels show a good value can be made of this promotion.

New York Starwood Hotels are not cheap though. New York City is leading the hotel room rate recovery for the U.S. with rates having risen over 15% since June 2009. The chart below shows room rates for the eleven participating Starwood Hotels in New York and New Jersey for three Sundays in August, September and October. Some of those room rates really blow my mind when I imagine the cost of a hotel stay in New York.

I rarely go to New York.   All my New York City hotel stays have always been free nights using points. 30,000 points for the St. Regis New York or $1,100 per night.

I’ll pay points. Please!

The rates in the chart are default rates with a simple search on StarwoodHotels.com. Lower rates will likely be found using AAA, checking for hotel special offers on each hotel’s website, or booking a multiple night stay.

Starwood Hotels Sample Sunday Night Rates

Links:

Starwood Hotels New York City Sunday Stays 3000 Bonus Points Promotion

NYC Promotion Terms and Conditions

NYC Promotion Registration Page

Starwood Hotels 3,000 Bonus Points for Sunday Nights in New York City

Free nights expiring August 31 from the Hyatt Big Welcome Back promotion may be converted to 5,000 Gold Passport points according to this August 10 FlyerTalk post from Gold Passport Concierge.

Call Hyatt Gold Passport customer service to convert free nights you are unable to use by August 31, 2010 into 5,000 points.

I actually used all my free nights from the promotion twice as fast this time around by booking two rooms to share the Hyatt experience with friends and family on my free hotel stays this summer.

My free room nights each had a 22,000 points equivalent value for the Gold Passport category 6 hotels where we stayed in California and Colorado. Free breakfast all around was a huge Diamond member benefit for our groups of four and six people.

This customer service offer does not work in reverse for Gold Passport members who chose to earn 5,000 points for every two stays as their Big Welcome Back earning choice. Converting 5,000 points into a free Hyatt night anywhere would be just a little too generous!

A free night lost to expiration may be a dream stay opportunity in Paris, Tokyo or Sydney gone, but converting that earned free night into 5,000 points will at least set you up for a Hyatt Place free night in your future.

I give a thumb up to Hyatt Gold Passport for this conversion opportunity gesture.

Park Hyatt Beaver Creek, Avon, Colorado