ADVANTAGES OF HOTEL REWARDS PROGRAMS

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When you are a frequent traveller, its best to register for hotel rewards points since registration is free and it will earn you points for future complimentary stays.

Since hubbys job requires a lot of travelling he has joined several Hotel rewards programs among them Holiday Inn's Priority Rewards, Starwoods Preferred Guest Program, Hilton HHonors Rewards, Best Western Rewards and we are also a member of the Marriot Asia Pacific Club.

He has also registered under AGODA so that if the hotel he stays in is not with the other programs he still earn points to be used for future hotel bookings.

There are a lot of advantages of having hotel rewards points

More Options: Though hotel points are generally only redeemable within a single hotel group , most of these chains have created, or bought other brands to put under their umbrella and usually you can both earn points on stays at any of the brands within the chain, as well as using points earned at any of the brands within the chain for stays at any of the other brands. Just to give you a quick rundown of some of the biggest:

-IHG Priority Club: This is the biggest group, with over 4,000 properties worldwide, and brands like InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn.

-Hilton HHonors: Another huge hotel group of over 3,600 hotels worldwide with familiar names like Hilton, Waldorf Astoria, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites and Hilton Garden Inn.

-Marriott Rewards: The next largest chain, with over 3,400 properties in the Marriott, JW Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, Renaissance, Edition and Residence Inn brands.

-Starwood Preferred Guest: This group has over 1,000 properties across several great brands including Westin, St. Regis, W Hotels, Sheraton, Element and Aloft.

-Hyatt Gold Passport: One of the best hotel programs out there even though they only have just over 400 properties across brands like Hyatt, Park Hyatt, Andaz and Hyatt Place.

Airline Transfers: You can actually use them or exchange them for airfare. In fact, most hotel programs allow you to transfer points to several different airline mileage accounts. In general, however, hotel points are more valuable when used on hotel stays rather than on flights.

Elite Status: Like airlines, many hotel brands offer their most loyal customers elite status upon completion of a certain number of stays or amount of money earned within a set time period (usually a calendar year). Once earned, elite status confers upon members a host of great value-added perks like early check-in, late check-out, room upgrades which can be worth hundreds of dollars, and more. We normally get upgraded at Marriot and Holiday Inn hotels since this is where hubby most often stays thus his status is already on the higher bracket.

So this coming June, the points he has earned has come in handy since we are redeeming some of them to pay for our stays.

HOTELS WE ARE BOOKING WITH HOTEL REWARDS POINTS

Holiday Inn Seongbuk,Seoul (Priority Rewards 15,000 pts/night) Courtyard By Marriot,Nusa Dua,Bali (Marriot Asia Pacific Club Points: 3,500 pts/night) Portman Ritz Carlton, Shanghai(Marriot Asia Pacific Club Points: 5,000 pts/night)

HOTELS WE BOOKED PARTLY WITH AGODA REWARDS AND CASH

Youniq Hotel,Kuala Lumpur(AGODA dollars and $17.09 cash) Sinakhonne Hotel,Vientianne,Laos(Agoda dollars and $13.85 cash) In essence, we are saving a lot of money since we are paying only $370 for our hotel stays in Asia. I have estimated that we have saved about US$600 for all our hotel bookings