This week’s Deal Dispatch brings you an overview of current hotel promotions that you can use to save money on travel around the world. I’m highlighting IHG’s ShareForever promotion, as well as promotions by Hilton, Choice, Wyndham and Best Western – all of which are participating in the current Daily Getaway promotion as well, so you might get double savings!
Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) is launching the second iteration of their ShareForever promotion in cooperation with Coca Cola, for the period from May 1st to September 5th, 2016. As before, you can earn bonus points in the IHG Rewards program for staying a targeted number of nights, some points for yourself and some to share with others. The number of points and number of nights you have to stay to earn them depends on how many nights you have stayed at IHG hotels previously – the more you have stayed, the higher your goal. You can also earn a free night to share, which is worth up to 60,000 points – a pretty good price. Keep in mind that you can “share” the points and nights with yourself, too. If you deserve a treat, go ahead, we won’t judge 😉
This is how my goals look like:
I receive up to 8,000 points for a single night, a value of $54 – more than many IHG hotels cost per night, so I’ll make sure to stay at least one night with IHG! I then add incremental points for staying 3, 6, 11 and 26 nights. And the big price of a free night is after 15 nights. The total value of the points and free night (calculated at 0.6 cents/point, read more about that here) is $807.60 – that’s a big price! The “sweet spots” for me are at one night, 15 nights and 26 nights. While I won’t be likely to achieve those nights based on my current travel plans, I’ll certainly keep it in mind!
IHG also just launched their PointBreaks list for summer. PointBreaks is one of the best promotions in the industry, offering a stay at around 140 hotels worldwide for 5,000 points/night through the end of July. You can currently still buy points from the Daily Getaway promotion at 0.565 cents/point, so you’d pay less than $30/night. You have to be quick though, the best hotels sell out quickly – see the list here!
Hilton participated in the Daily Getaway as well, selling points at 0.5 cents/point – which is roughly the value of Hilton Hhonors points. While all packages at the Daily Getaway sold out, you can still buy them through June 3rd on the Hilton website at the same price point. As with my recommendation for the Daily Getaway, I would only purchase the points, if you have travel plans where the points represent a decent saving – or be prepared to have those points for a while!
Wyndham hotels participated in the Daily Getaway with up to 30,000 points for 0.01 cents/point. While that is not a great deal compared to the average value of the points at 0.6 cents/point, Wyndham offers a points & cash rate where you can easily get 2-3 cents/point of value. And you can still buy those packages at the Daily Getaway! If you have maxed out on the points, you could also participate in one of their current promotions that are different by region of your account:
In the US, you can earn 4x$25 gift cards after two stays. While $100 sounds pretty generous, you can only use one of the $25 gift cards per stay and they are only valid till October 31st, 2016, so they are only useful for very frequent guests!
In Asia and Europe, you can earn 6,000 points after two stays, a lesser value in total, but much more useful and flexible!
Check for your promotion here!
Choice Hotels participated in the Daily Getaway and their points packages (priced at 0.4-0.45 cents/point) sold out quickly – no wonder, the points are worth around 0.8 cents/point! If you missed the Daily Getaway sale, like I did, you can still participate in their promotion running through May 5th and earn 5,000-8,000 points after two stays, depending on the value of the two stays (sign up here)! I’d prefer that promotion over Wyndham for the greater flexibility!
If you don’t have any points with Choice Rewards so far, you can get a head-start with the Choice Mystery Gift Sweepstakes and win up to 10,000 points or various gift cards. You only have to register and can play once per day. I did and won 10,000 points on my second try – well worth the few minutes it took me to play!
Best Western sold points in the Daily Getaway for 0.55 cents/point – or roughly what they are worth. While they didn’t sell as quickly as the Choice packages, they are all gone now. You can still participate in their current promotion and receive a $25 gift card after two stays before May 8th – I’d consider that the weakest promotion among the three budget chains, but it might be valuable to you, if you already have stays planned! You can register for it here! And if that doesn’t work, you can try your luck at their current sweepstakes “Dream to Redeem” where you can win 100 free nights!
If you’d like to get more deals like this, please follow me on Twitter – I’m posting great deals daily and many will sell out quickly, so stay ahead with my Twitter updated!