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!
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 / night
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? This hotel is right in the middle of Manhattan on 49th street
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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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
They also status match.
Yes they offer a “no catch status match” and match just about everyone. I’m Diamond with him (which, to be fair, has not gotten me very much 😀 )
BW downgraded my diamond to platinum. But then again I never stayed.
Which dates are you looking at? You can usually find comparable NYC hotels for $100-150/night
Good point! I’d bite but just got my third Barclaycard in six months, don’t think I’d have a chance. But thanks for highlighting the possibilities. Did you have a lot of Barclaycards when you applied?
I changed my travel plans from Europe to Florida vacation in January due to this promotion. I have been to Miami several times, but not Key West yet.
Stayed in San Francisco at normally 36,000 points BW The Cartwright Union Square Thanksgiving week on 10,000 points per reward night.
We bought 5000 best western point each (for $50) to top off each of our accounts and will be at the BW Lahaina soon with this deal!!
I think it is a good card to get for the following reasons:
1. If you travel up and down the interstate sometimes you just need a place to sleep and that is all. Comfort or Best Western works.
2. If going overseas, we typically fly to the jumping off point, spend the night close to the airport, here again, a Best Western works.
3. As working folks, it is nice to just get away and a cheap hotel works sometimes. Best Western fits the key.
4. Grandkids come to town and we have no pool. Get a room at the local Best Western. Plenty of towels for everyone.
Help we are most confused. We have been Marriott loyalists for years. Sent 3 children to Hawaii for honeymoons plus we almost always select a Marriott brand whenever we need a hotel. Our current status is gold and we enjoy the benefits
The changes are confusing
Should we begin looking elsewhere to build up an allegiance?
Jane – that really depends on you and your stay patterns. You might check out our free miles and points Facebook group and ask your question there
We like the BW Estes Park. And it’s not cheap with points.
It’s cheap for the next month and a half 🙂
Your quip reminds me we stayed there end of August — end of season prices via Chase UR. Nice place indeed. By chance have you ever been to Estes Park in December/January? Got the impression much of the town, including many hotels and much of RMNP, shuts down for winter? Happens we’ll be in Denver area soon — so extra curious.
No, only been there in the summer. Stayed 1 night at The Stanley Hotel which was fun.
Dan – great under-the-radar post!
To your question, (rhetorical perhaps?) could it have something to do with the Best Western card not having any affiliate links for bloggers? (correct me if I err in that guess)
As for the 10,000 pts/night promotion, wow….. confess I’d missed your earlier post on that. (I see loyaltylobby apparently missed the promotion too — and ordinarily they’re quite good — almost too good — at collecting all hotel promotions)
Last, as for the BW brand, confess I too have turned up my nose too often, even as I’ve often suspected without reason. Wife and I recently stayed at an older BW at Virginia Beach — great off season rate (using Chase UR points). We were pleasantly surprised…. hotel in excellent condition, the long-serving staff VERY gracious, and the breakfast spread there was off-the-charts wonderful. (one of the best breakfast feats I’ve ever experienced anywhere — except maybe for some Swedish hotels)
As for the immediate card, so tempting…. though I suspect by the time we’d get and meet the modest spend, the current promo would be past using effectively.
Still, thanks for putting Best Western back on the radar for us.
LOL I’m sure that is part of the under promotion as you are correct to my knowledge there are no affiliate links for the card. I can’t believe you missed that in my post, along with my witty comment about how if there were links we’d be seeing tons of posts like “8 hotels to use your Best Western bonus at!”
Thanks !
Great Tip , snaged BW in Naples Fl for 10k
Usually only stay atBW in Montana ( best hotel in my brothers small town )
Must try the KW location !!
Awesome – glad it could help!
Hilarious. Enjoy those BW rooms.
I still have 135k Carlson points I can’t use in the USA. BW would be even less useful. Admittedly I would view this differently when I was driving cross-country multiple times in my 20s. But for luxury travelers – fergedaboutit.
Thanks for the tip. I searched their website but cannot find the promotion:
“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.”
Can you please help me find this?
Thanks
Which promotion are you talking about? It should be linked in the post
Do any of the BW hotels have big rooms for groups of 6 or more?
Dan, you are spot on with this BW promotion. The key point you did not expound on is that BW has three categories of standard. The Plus and Premiere categories are worth searching out and staying at. I have booked my favorite Plus hotel twice during the point special. Thanks
Glad it could help!