Down To One Last Hotel Program

Although technically I have accounts with about 8 hotel chain programs, they have all fallen by the wayside as being not worth the effort.  I really hate being limited to a chain hotel’s offering in any given location and prefer being able to choose from a wide variety of hotels.  For this reason, I have been concentrating on programs like Rocketmiles & Pointshound which earn airline miles and jump on social media games that offer free points in programs such as Expedia & Orbitz.  We each gained $100 vouchers in Expedia over a mistake they made with a promo back in March, then more recently we each gained $110 in Orbucks during the August-Sept photo competition in which Orbucks were given out for uploading summer themed photos (I wish they would do this every year)!  I’ve put these to good use for next year’s trip to Ecuador, Colombia & the Caribbean.

Club Carlson ditched the bogo free award night so I ditched their program after using up all existing points for next year’s trip.  So now it’s down to one program – IHG Rewards.  The main attraction here is the benefits from the Chase IHG Rewards credit card.  The $49 annual fee gets us a free night at any IHG hotel worldwide and I have gotten some amazing usage out of this at places like Intercontinental JNB Airport, Intercontinental Moorea, and have the Intercontinental San Juan booked for next year.  There always seems to be at least one place where I can use the certificate, usually at an airport hotel so the card is excellent value!  Knock wood, I hope this benefit never goes away!