The US Travel Association is going into the fourth week of their annual Daily Getaway sale today, Monday 27, 2019. The deals in the fourth week include Marriott Bonvoy giftcards, Fairmont Hotels and Caesars Casino vouchers, Universal Studio tickets and Hertz rental car vouchers. Read below to find out my personal take and recommendations for this week’s Daily Getaway deals!
The US Travel Association works with travel providers each year to bring deals on hotels, rental cars, amusement parks and more in time for the summer travel season. In past years, it has been a great occasion to stock up on points or vouchers to make your next trips a little cheaper. There are different deals each week – some are so good, they sell out in minutes, other are less interesting and will be available through the end of the sales period. Here is the schedule of daily deals for the first week from today, Monday May 27 to Friday, May 31, 2019:
I consider the Marriott Bonvoy gift cards the best deal of the week: you can purchase gift cards with a face value of $100, $250 or $500 at a 20% discount. The gift cards never expire and can be widely used for any of Marriott’s 30 brands of hotels, giving you thousands of choices. The good discount and flexibility make this a good value, low risk purchase and I expect them to sell out quickly, so be quick.
In the spirit of transparency, I am personally staying away from Marriott for a while due to the chaos of their Starwood acquisition that has left their systems and customer service in an utter mess. I encountered so many issues with messed up reservations, missing points and poor customer service, spending weeks (!) to resolve simple issues, that I’ll take a pass.
The vouchers for Casesars resorts and Fairmont Hotels come with some restrictions, making this a risky choice. Make sure that you have solid travel plans and and read the terms & conditions in detail to ensure this works for you.
The same is true for the Universal Studio vouchers – they can be a good deal, but make sure you understand the rules before you buy.
I would personally stay away from the Hertz points – the program was just devalued significantly and the availability of rentals with points is limited, making this more a gamble than a deal.
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