This piece focuses on room rate and reward rate survey for over 60 hotels along the I-15 and I-70 route from Las Vegas to Colorado. Most hotel reward analyses and surveys I have done focus on one city. In Utah there are so few hotels that this survey covers all the major brand hotels along the Interstate in five locations.

I will be traveling east and south of the Utah interstate I-15/I-70 route to Colorado as I travel to Utah’s National Parks over the next week. Hotels in the parks region will be covered in different posts as I travel.

This piece is a comparative look at seven major hotel chains with particular emphasis on Best Western, Choice and Wyndham brands which are the majority of hotel properties in southern Utah.

• Best Western Rewards
• Choice Privileges
• Club Carlson
• Hilton HHonors
• IHG Rewards Club
• Marriott Rewards
• Wyndham Rewards

Utah is not like Disneyland.

Read More…

In January I published a post on the Hilton HHonors $6,000 TeacherTreks grant contest.

http://hhonors.com/TeacherTreks is the website where you can read the 30 finalists essays. You are allowed one vote per day and your vote  for one of ten is an entry into another contest to win a $250 HHonors gift card.

Voting closes April 30, 2012.

Today I came across an article about a teacher who is one of 30 teacher finalists in the contest. Her teacher trek story is about spending ten days in  Mexico to better understand the experience her students have who spend part of the year living in Mexico. She works in the farm lands of Illinois.

Her teacher experience sounds similar to my student population in California ten years ago when I was a public school teacher. Many students in this area return to Mexico over the December holidays, often for 4 to 6 weeks.

Another story I read was a teacher who wants to spend time in Berlin and Poland studying the Jewish Holocaust.

I made that teacher trek last month. I still need to get my head around writing an article about the German History Museum exhibit ‘Diversity Destroyed: Berlin 1933-1938’.

Hilton HHonors has a variety of miles promotions for stays through June 30, 2013. Here are six offers.

Delta and United are global, but require two night stays and set earning limits. Emirates is worldwide and unlimited earning.

Las Vegas, London, Scotland and Europe, Middle East and Africa offer bonus miles for stays in specific regions.

Miles & More is only for weekend stays, but covers all Europe, Middle East and Africa Hilton brand hotels.

These are great opportunities to earn 1,500 to 4,000 frequent flyer miles per stay from now through June 30, 2013. 

• Earn 2,013 Delta Skymiles with a two-night stay at Hilton brand hotels worldwide. Delta promotion limit of 14,091 miles.
• Emirates 4x miles. HHonors.com/SkywardsQuadruple. Earn 1,000 miles 2nd stay, 1,500 miles 3rd stay and 2,000 miles per stay from 4th stay onward.
• United Mileage Plus 1,000 bonus miles for stays of 2 or more nights at Hilton brand hotels worldwide. Up to 5,000 bonus miles.
• 3x miles with a variety of airlines for stays at Las Vegas hotels. Aeroplan, AIR MILES, Alaska Air, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Jet Blue, United, US Airways or Virgin America.
• Miles & More 4x miles (2,000 miles per stay) with weekend night hotel stay (Friday, Saturday or Sunday) at any of 303 Hilton brand hotels in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa).
• Virgin Atlantic 4,000 miles per stay at participating London and Scotland hotels only.

I will follow up with a more extensive look at the opportunities these airline bonus miles offer.

Virgin Atlantic is particularly appealing for London and Scotland travelers with 4,000 miles per stay. Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles can be exchanged into HHonors points at 10,000 VS miles = 20,000 HHonors points. That is a hefty miles bonus for hotels stays in the UK region.

Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. Follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.

April 2013 is a time of reassessment for many hotel loyalty program members. The sudden and dramatic changes to the structure of hotel rewards across five of the top ten global hotel loyalty programs in the first quarter of 2013 was an incredible amount of information to digest.

The changes in the opening months of 2013 comprise the biggest overall change in the hotel loyalty program industry over the past decade.  Read More…

Studying the hotel rewards available for HHonors points in five U.S. cities of Boston, Charlotte, Minneapolis, New York and San Francisco revealed some trends and standard practices for HHonors based on my analysis of about 100 or so hotels.

Standard Rewards in the USA typically offer redemption value in the range of $4.00 to $6.00 per 1,000 points. This means 100,000 HHonors points will buy about $400 to $600 in Hilton-brand hotel room stays based on the Best Flexible Rate (BAR). Standard Reward value in the USA is more likely to fall below $4.00 per 1,000 points (e.g. 50,000 points for a $200 room rate) than above $6.00 rate (e.g. 50,000 points for a $300 room rate).

In my survey of Hilton-brand hotels I generally found 90% or more hotels offered Standard Rewards. Read More…

The new Hilton HHonors is confusing. HHonors redesigned their hotel rewards in a radical way that no other hotel loyalty program has gone, except for Choice Privileges. HHonors in its restructured form is more member-friendly than Choice Privileges, yet it has removed one of the basic tenets of reward stays for consumers: the ability to know what a hotel reward will cost based on its hotel reward category within the program.

Book a Marriott category 6 hotel and the price is 30,000 points whether it is for a stay tonight or six months from now.  Book a Hyatt category 6 hotel and it is 22,000 points. Book SPG category 5 standard reward and the rate is 12,000 or 16,000 for peak season. In all the major hotel loyalty programs the hotel reward category does not change until the annual reassignment of hotels. Choice Privileges was the exception with seasonal rates changing the cost of rewards at some hotels every few months with a swing like 8,000 points per night to 20,000 points per night from season to season.

HHonors joins Choice Privileges in letting hotel reward category drift, yet HHonors is not displaying their HHonors Hotel Category and Standard Reward chart in that way. Read More…

New York City saw a blistering rise in the points price for HHonors Standard Rewards with the March 28, 2013 changes. Many hotels that were 50,000 points per night are now 80,000 to 95,000 per night.

New York City was the first U.S. city to make a striking comeback in room rates following the 2008-2010 hotel recession. At one point nearly all the hospitality industry gains in the U.S. were coming from New York and a couple other cities. New York room rates are back up in the $400 range for an upper upscale hotel and even Hampton Inn is fetching that rate after taxes in Manhattan.

DoubleTree Suites New York Times Square is a hotel rising from 50,000 to 95,000 points per night as a new HHonors category 10 hotel reward. Hilton Times Square goes from 50,000 points as a Category 7 to 80,000 points peak season in may as a category 9 hotel in the new rewards system.

The Waldorf-Astoria is 80,000 points per reward night for the historic flagship property of Hilton’s luxury brand while the hotel charges a $459 room rate.

And the Hampton Inn Times Square North is also 80,000 points per Standard Reward night at Hilton’s upper midscale brand with a $359 rate.

New York lights up the topsy-turvy world of the new Hilton HHonors rewards.

New York is the fifth city in my five U.S. cities survey of Hilton HHonors rewards following the March 28, 2013 changes to the loyalty program. Read More…

Charlotte is the fourth of five US cities I examined in a survey on the value of HHonors points for hotel award nights.

There are 40+ Hilton brand hotels returned in a search of Charlotte. This article looks at eight of those hotels closely. Charlotte has lower average rates and lower hotel award category on average for hotels than the four other cities I checked. There were only a couple of other hotels offering Points & Money Reward nights among the 30+ Charlotte area hotels not shown in the table. Read More…

San Francisco is the second city in my five U.S. cities survey to show the redemption value of Hilton HHonors points following the March 28, 2013 award category changes.

I checked random dates over the next three months for Hilton brand hotels in five U.S. cities.

• Boston
• Charlotte
• Minneapolis
• New York
• San Francisco

My objective is to see what the typical redemption value is for HHonors points. A decade ago I typically received about $1,200 to $1,500 in hotel stay savings for every 100,000 points I redeemed when I was able to book a category 5 hotel for a six night award stay. There were only six award categories and top hotels in Category 6 were a select group of VIP premium awards with high rates and even better redemption values.

Hilton HHonors has gone through three devaluations since then. $12 to $15 per 1,000 points is a rare value to find these days. Most of the category 5 hotels from 2003 are now category 7 or higher. 5th night free awards means a 5-night stay at a 50,000 points per night hotel will cost 200,000 points today.

Hotel category has less meaning now that there are also peak season rates. Read More…

The changes to Hilton HHonors with new reward categories, variable and peak season rates on March 28, 2013 makes this a good time to look at hotel reward rates in five U.S. cities. My objective is to show the comparative value of HHonors points in different cities with different HHonors award types.

I read a Hilton HHonors FlyerTalk thread where a member wrote that a value of 0.8 to 1.0 cents per point is his desired objective. I wondered if that is a reasonable value per point after the HHonors program change to 10 award categories and peak season rates on March 28.

My preference is to discuss hotel points value in whole numbers. The value of 0.8 to 1.0 cents per point can be read as $8.00 to $10.00 per 1,000 HHonors points. The table in this post shows HHonors points redemption value in dollars per 1,000 points.

I checked random dates over the next three months for Hilton brand hotels in five U.S. cities.

• Boston
• Charlotte
• Minneapolis
• New York
• San Francisco

Boston

An examination of HHonors room rates and award options will provide some insight into the current value of HHonors points with the new hotel award categories, peak season rates and award options like Standard Rewards, Points & Money Rewards and Premium Room Rewards.

Boston is one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. for hotels. The city saw large rate gains in 2012. Boston along with Miami, New York and San Francisco has seen rates climb to near record levels. Rates for weekdays in May 2013 averaged around $400 per night.

HHonors Award observations:

• The search for Boston May 21-23, 2013 returned 12 hotels. Three hotels had no availability. Six hotels surveyed closely.
• None of the Boston hotels offered Points & Money Reward Nights.
• Standard Hotel award redemption value range: Low – $3.98 per 1,000 HHonors points at DoubleTree Suites Boston on a $239 rate for 60,000 points at a category 7 hotel. 
• Standard Hotel award redemption value range:High – $11.23 per 1,000 points at DoubleTree Boston Bayside on a $449 rate for 40,000 points at a category 5 hotel.
• Standard Hotel award redemption average value: $7.11 per 1,000 HHonors points.
• Premium hotel room awards allocation offered the same room type on a high floor of the hotel for as much as triple points per night. DoubleTree Boston Downtown offers a standard room for 50,000 points or $399 room rate. The Deluxe room is $20 more at $419 rate, yet the Premium Room Reward is 150,000 points per night. That is a 100,000 points payment to be located on a higher floor of the hotel.
• Hotels fix the redemption rate for Premium Room Rewards. The redemption rate for premium rooms is the same and generally, but not always, much smaller than the standard reward redemption rate. Three of the Boston hotels had a set $2.78 value per 1,000 points. Every increase of $20 in the room rate cost 7,200 additional points for the Premium Room Rewards. Each hotel showed a fixed rate for HHonors Premium Room Rewards. DoubleTree Suites Boston was the anomaly with a better redemption rate using Premium Room Rewards.
• In most cases, redeeming points for a Premium Room Reward will mean your points redemption value is reduced by more than 50%. Hilton Boston Downtown Faneuil Hall has an award value at $6.65/1,000 points when redeeming a standard reward at 60,000 points for a $399 room rate. The HHonors Premium Room Reward for 149,040 points is basically the same standard room type on a higher floor and reduces the redemption value to $2.78/1,000 points for a $419 room rate. Redemption value drops 58% with Premium Room Reward.

Next up: HHonors Award Analysis San Francisco