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It is always interesting to see which types of deals / posts get the most blog coverage.  As a blogger, I know that deciding what to spend time writing about is a constant struggle, especially for those who have “real” jobs or families (or in my case, both!)  But there’s a deal that’s been going on

A few weeks ago I talked about the confluence of two deals.  First of all, Best Western’s fall / winter promotion has every Best Western in the US on sale for only 10,000 points (in addition to 2x points on every stay which is much less interesting).  Considering top-tier Best Westerns (yes, such things exist!) go for 32,000 to 36,000 points / night, this is a significant discount!

a man and woman smiling

Combine that with the signup bonus of the Best Western card – 50,000 points after spending $1000 (not an affiliate link) gives you 5 free nights at any Best Western through January 31st 2018.  My wife and I both signed up for the card so we’re looking at 10 free nights at any Best Western.  The Best Western card is still available but you’re running out of time if you want to get the card, meet the spend, get the points and book the rooms before the promo ends at the end of January

You can also get 20,000 more bonus points if you spend $5000 on the card in each of the 12 months, but I generally wouldn’t recommend doing that.

How I’m getting 10 free nights at a ~$300 / night hotel

Okay so sure it’s 5 or 10 free hotel nights but are there really any nice Best Westerns?  Again, it all depends on what you’re looking for.  Best Westerns are generally not going to be your ultra fancy Park Hyatt / Conrad Hilton / JW Marriott hotels.  But that’s okay – “budget” hotels DESTROY those fancy ones anyways! I’ve had good experiences with Best Westerns – Best Western saved my butt in Wilmington NC and my son and I stayed at the Best Western Arlanda Hotellby in Stockholm Sweden that was quite nice

But here’s a few examples of some hotels that I’m looking at.  First, how about the Hibiscus hotel in Key West Florida – $349 / nightInvalid request error occurred.

a store front with a white sign

It’s right near Duval Street and right in the middle of the action on Key West and has nearly 2500 TripAdvisor reviews – half of which are “Excellent” and 40% are “Good”

Or perhaps New York City?Invalid request error occurred. This hotel is right in the middle of Manhattan on 49th street

a screenshot of a hotel

I should mention that although Best Western claims “no blackout dates” for their points, they do say that individual hotels control how many rooms they make available.  I find this pretty lame, but you may run into this especially if you’re trying to go to popular places at popular times.  The Traveler’s Triangle strikes again!  For instance, many of the NYC hotels were not available on points over New Year’s Eve, though you may have success contacting the hotel directly to see if they’ll open up any rooms (many of the hotels in Manhattan were completely sold out of course)

So why aren’t more people talking about this deal?

As I said before, I get it, it’s a Best Western and Best Westerns aren’t super exciting.  Plus, I don’t believe there are any affiliate links for bloggers or others (at least I don’t have one).  If there were, I’m sure we’d see a litany of “8 best hotels where you should use your Best Western free night” posts 🙂

In fact, when I was at the Sunday morning panel at the recent Chicago Seminars, one of the questions asked of the panelists was “What was the most recent credit card you signed up for?”  When I responded with the Best Western card, I got more than a few odd looks!

Anyway fine by me – I’ll stay at the Best Westerns myself! 😀


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