Hotel Reward Cards and Bonus Scheme

kinnth

I wondered if anyone could give me a breakdown on which are the overall best schemes to sign up with for booking hotels. I've recently joined a company where I book and claim everything back. I do a lot of travel and want to quidco the bookings as well as earn airmiles and hotel points so that i'm earning while travelling.

My specific conditions would be

1. Each night I would spend upto a maximum of £100 per night, but usually it should be lower.
2. I'd be travelling much more in Europe than America or Asia although this may happen once or twice a year.
3. I need the ability to pay in various currencies with my credit card for low cost.
4. I generally want the best range of locations so breadth is better than specific places.

Also what can you expect to actuallly get with the points and often how long does it take?

Blue264

First of all, you need to find out if your company has a travel provider. If so, you may be acting outside of your company's policy if you make the bookings elsewhere. The reason for this is, your employer needs to know where you are and what flights you're on in case of emergencies. Recent tragedies have been a sharp wake up call for many large employers.

Once you have this information, look at the main locations you will be travelling to, the budget your employer allows per night, and if they have negotiated preferential rates at hotels close to their offices abroad, or have negotiated air fares with certain airlines.

Based upon this, start applying for your memberships with the airlines and hotel chains you will use most frequently.

PeacefulWaters

Good post above.

My company doesn't let me make the arrangements privately, although I do have to settle up the bill myself and claim back expenses.

Ideally you'd focus on convenience of location for where you travel most. London sees a lot of me and Radisson have a reasonable hotel within walking distance of my usual meeting place. I'd rather walk than tube it. As such, I look for Radisson, Park Plaza, Park Inn etc when travelling to other locations as they're all part of the same chain.

The points roll up, especially if you use the chain more as you attract higher reward rates and one-off incentives, and while you can cash them in for Avios etc best value is for free rooms in a lesser location. For example, points that would buy you a night in London or New York might buy you seven nights in Sharm-El-Sheikh or Rotherham!

The key is to try and avoid using multiple reward schemes that give points that you never quite get to redemption value. Try to limit it to one or two hotel schemes.

I also settle the bill with my cashback credit card to make a few quid back for me each time I travel with work.

If you are lucky enough to be able to book privately then Topcashback pay 8%-12% most of the year for Hotels.com bookings. Hotels.com appear to do a fair currency conversion allowing you to pay sterling. They also pay a free night for every ten nights stayed, based on average spend (you still have to pay VAT). This would mean you are unlikely to get any chain loyalty points but will almost certainly give you better value and more choice.

I'd be quite interested to read if any other posters have managed to identify a better way of doing it.

blindman

I echo what Blue264 says:Check what your company allows you to do.

Look at HeadforPoints for both Hotel and airline reward scheme comparisons and also Credit card comaparisons.

Flyertalk and other blogs have similar comparisions

Blue264

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

If you are lucky enough to be able to book privately then Topcashback pay 8%-12% most of the year for Hotels.com bookings. Hotels.com appear to do a fair currency conversion allowing you to pay sterling. They also pay a free night for every ten nights stayed, based on average spend (you still have to pay VAT). This would mean you are unlikely to get any chain loyalty points but will almost certainly give you better value and more choice.

I'd be quite interested to read if any other posters have managed to identify a better way of doing it.

Same here!

When I'm searching for personal travel / leisure travel, I temporarily set Topcashback as my home page so that all searches are done through that site. The cashback has been enough to pay for the last two Christmases.

Also agree on the Radisson rewards scheme because they are Worldwide and often have the closest airport hotels for when you have an early flight, e.g. Stansted, Manchester, Zurich, Hamburg, etc... As Peaceful Waters pointed out, Radisson have a wide range of brands within the company so there will often be one of their hotels to fit your budget.

Personally, I have Rezidor, Hilton Honours, Marriott Rewards, IHG (Holiday Inn, etc..) and Shangri-La Golden Circle. For airlines, I have memberships with Lufthansa / Swiss, BA & Aegean.

Blue264

blindman wrote: »

Look at HeadforPoints for both Hotel and ailrine reward scheme comparisons and also Credit card comaparisons.

Dependent on the employer's company policy, any points accrued could be used for personal travel, holidays, etc... Where these membership cards really win for business travellers is when it comes to clearing waitlists on fully booked flights, or when business class is full and the client is waitlisted in that class. They also make the seat map of the cabin available to the client earlier than other passengers.

redpete

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

If you are lucky enough to be able to book privately then Topcashback pay 8%-12% most of the year for Hotels.com bookings.

Beware that some hotel loyalty programmes do not give loyalty points for stays booked through some third-party agencies. I booked a stay at a Radisson hotel (Club Carlson points) through Quidco and one of the discount sites (could well have been Hotels.com) and Club Carlson didn't award points.