Tag Archives: hotels

Why I Am Generally Happy With Our Lodging

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Hotel reviews are a hot topic today in the blogosphere and I thought I would chime in as I tend to get off the beaten track more than most travel bloggers in the miles & points world.  It was a thread on FlyerTalk that started it, then bloggers Kathy (Will Run For Miles) and Brian (The Gate) respectively blogged about their thoughts.

(Disclosure) I have no credit card affiliate links though I do get invited to publicly offered “member get a member” promos where existing cardmembers are given incentives to refer their friends to a card they have and get bonus points.  Chase does this often and has one active now.  But these promos are hardly enough incentives to give hotels false positive reviews.

There are two reasons I generally give positive reviews.  Firstly, I do HEAPS of research before booking a hotel or eco-lodge.  I spend hours reading reviews and in the case of eco-lodges trying to find bird lists in the vicinity of the property.  I know what I like and take care to book accommodation that I am pretty confident I will like and I usually get it right.

Secondly, I have realistic expectations.  I don’t expect an eco-lodge in the middle of the rainforest to have wifi, room service or even a swimming pool.  I know there will be bugs; hell it’s a RAINFOREST!  I’m prepared to bring my own mosquito coils and use them if the lodge doesn’t have mosquito nets.  I know that most rainforest lodges are off the grid,  will be using a generator and will probably switch it off at some point in the night.  So yeah, no fan or AC either!  But in this case, I do expect the rooms to have good ventilation so they don’t become sweat boxes!

I rarely use chain hotels other than in gateway cities before and after a flight and they will be booked using points gained from credit card promos.  We stay in a lot of chain hotels near airports and I don’t expect these to be as posh as the Hyatt Vendome.  All we need is an airport shuttle, shower and wifi so I can catch up on what I missed while I was in the rainforest.

I guess having had 30 years of backpacker travel experience helps, you should see some of the places I stayed in during the 80’s & 90’s!  My perspective is different than someone who started out as a young adult in the miles and points game and has only experienced 4 & 5 star hotels.

My reviews are never influenced by any special blogger consideration, eco-lodges don’t do that.  I give my honest opinion and I do mention ways the property can improve if I happen to think of any – just in case the management happens to read it.

Wyndham Rewards – Best Uses for Eco-Travelers

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WHICH HOTELS DO THEY HAVE?

Wyndham Rewards is the frequent guest program of several different hotel chains.

Wyndham Hotels

The largest presence is in the USA with over 6500 hotels.  This can come in handy if you are connecting to an overseas flights and want a budget hotel for the night near the airport.  The odds are great that Wyndham will have several hotels near most major airports with free shuttles.

They also have a number of hotels overseas, some of which are in countries that will attract eco-travelers and birders.  I have highlighted these in yellow.

Wyndham Overseas Hotels

HOW MANY POINTS DO YOU NEED?

It varies widely depending on the chain.  Hotels overseas tend to be more expensive than those in the USA.

Wyndham Awards

For example, LAX has several hotels all ranging between 14,000 to 16,000 redemption.

Wyndham LAX Awards

Same hotels if you pay cash/credit – notice that they are not expensive!  Not a good use of points!

Wyndham LAX $$$

Now let’s look at Brazil as an example.  Most people will use Sao Paulo as an entry or exit point for Brazil and I do recommend spending your last night here to make sure you don’t miss your connection home.  Linhares is prime birding country but there are better options to stay which I will be blogging about later.  The Parana property is near Curitiba which also has good birding in the area.

Wyndham Brazil

HOW DO YOU EARN POINTS?

1.  Stay at Wyndham chain hotels.

Wyndham T&Cs

Wyndham T&Cs

2.  Get the credit card.

Wyndham Credit Cards

 

3.  Rent a car.

Wyndham Car Rentals

4.  Use their other partners.  Out of these 3, the rate for flowers is pretty bad compared to other programs.  The Energy one doesn’t look very good either.  The Liberty Mutual quote can get you 500 points within a month if you are trying to top up to another level.

Wyndham Other Partners

WHAT IS THE BEST USE OF WYNDHAM REWARDS POINTS?

The best use, especially for eco-travelers is transferring them to an airline.  Why?  Because in most countries, the Wyndham properties aren’t too expensive and Wyndham often has bonus promos going on.  You can acquire a lot of points very quickly.  I will blog about any promos that come up.   Here is the list of redemption to airline miles partners.  3 of our top 8 frequent flyer programs are available as transfer partners – American, United and US Airways.

Airline mileage transfer rates
8,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 3200 airline miles
17,500 Wyndham Rewards points = 7000 airline miles
30,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 12,000 airline miles

Wyndham Airline Mile Transfers

WYNDHAM’S SECRET WEAPON

This is not a hack or a trick, it is in the T&Cs of the Wyndham hotel program.  What this means, is when there is a very lucrative promo running and you don’t live near any Wyndham hotels, you can simply book ANY hotel participating in the promo, give your credit card to pay for it and then simply not show up!  I have seen some really good promos in the past such as one where you get 16,000 bonus points for staying at specified hotels that could be booked for around $60.  This gives a huge discount to buying airline miles if you maximize such a promo and transfer as I said above!  I will let you know when such promos are running.

Wyndham T&Cs

IN SUMMARY

I recommend that eco-tourists pay cash (credit card) if they are staying at a Wyndham hotel, accumulate the points and transfer to an airline.  The hotels that we would be using are generally not expensive so the airline miles are a much better value.

 

 

Hotel Chains

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These are the main hotel chains you will find at the typical gateway city.  In some cases, the parent company has several brands and they all use the same loyalty program.  I have provided links to the loyalty program on their website.  When you have a layover at a gateway city traveling to or from your destination, be sure to check if you can use your hotel points for a free night.  I generally try to stay as close to the airport as possible and get an early flight onwards but if the city interests you, you may want to layover a few days.

  • Accor:  Ibis, Mercure, All Seasons, Novotel, Sofitel
  • Best Western
  • Carlson Rezidor:  Country Inns & Suites, Park Inn, Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Radisson Hotels & Resorts  Tara’s Tips
  • Choice Hotels:  Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion, Cambria Suites, MainStay Suites, Suburban Extended Stay,, Econo Lodge, Rodeway Inn and Ascend Collection
  • Hilton Worldwide:  Conrad® Hotels & Resorts, DoubleTree by HiltonTM, Embassy SuitesTM, Hampton Inn & Suites®, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Garden Inn®, Homewood Suites by Hilton®, Waldorf Astoria® Hotels & Resorts
  • Hyatt:  AmeriSuites, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Hyatt Place, Hyatt Summerfield Suites
  • Intercontinental Hotels Group: Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Staybridge Suites
  • La Quinta Inns & Suites
  • Marriott:  Autograph Collection®, Courtyard by Marriott® , EDITIONSM, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott® , JW Marriott® , Marriott® Hotels & Resorts, Renaissance® Hotels, Residence Inn by Marriott®, SpringHill Suites by Marriott®, TownePlace Suites by Marriott®, Marriott Executive Apartments®, Marriott Vacation Club® (mileage-earning stay)  Tara’s Tips
  • Starwood Hotels:  Aloft, Element, Four Points, Le Meridien, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, St. Regis, W Hotels, Westin Hotels & Resorts
  • Wyndham:  Wyndham Hotels and Resorts®, Wingate® by Wyndham, Hawthorn Suites® by Wyndham, Ramada®, Days Inn®, Super 8®, Baymont Inn & Suites®, Microtel Inns & Suites®, Howard Johnson®, Travelodge® Knights Inn®, Tryp by Wyndham

Gateway: Lima, Peru

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As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we are going to build a sample trip step by step that will ultimately get us to the birder’s paradise of the Tambopata Research Centre.

In most cases, you will arrive in the gateway city after a long, tiring flight.  Maybe a little less tired if you were in business class!  If you are lucky, you may be able to connect straight through to your destination, Puerto Maldonado; but more often then not you will have an overnight layover either before or after the trip.  Here’s how to find an overnight hotel and pay for it with your hotel points so you have more to spend on ecotourism.

First, get familiar with the major hotel chains as some of them have more than one brand.  I have a chart to help you out.  Then go to Google maps and type in Lima Airport.  Look for hotels in the immediate vicinity of the airport. 

 

BINGO!  There’s a Ramada right there at the airport!  So how many points do you need?  I plugged in some random dates.  Wyndham is unusual in that you can’t book the reward night online, you have to call them but if you have 30,000 points you’re sorted for the night and only a short walk to the airport the next morning.

So what if you don’t have Wyndham points?  Try some different chain websites for hotel programs you do have points in.  Since we are planning pretty far in advance, you would also have time to build up your points account.  These hotels aren’t near the airport but luckily taxis are pretty cheap in Lima.

What’s that?  You don’t have any hotel points at all?  You can still participate in a rewards program such as Hotels.com’s Welcome Rewards.  10 paid nights gets you a free night based on the average cost of the 10 nights you booked to earn it.  So go to www.hotels.com, type in any random date and look at the results.  Use the map view to see which options are close to the airport, for our purposes we just need somewhere safe and convenient.  You will find a variety of accommodation ranging from backpacker cheapies at $20ish up to 5 star hotels.

It’s actually a pretty long list so I can’t put it all here but have a look for yourself.  What I do is use the map to get as close as possible to the airport or if I have to stay downtown, I will go middle of the range.  I also make use of Trip Advisor to check out the hotel reviews by other people who have stayed there.  Start at the top with the top-rated hotels and scroll down until you see something in your price range.  $67?  Looks promising, let’s have a closer look.

It looks pretty good.  I read a few reviews and most people seemed to like it.  It’s not near the airport but like I said, taxis are cheap.  I’d feel comfortable staying here.

That’s it for today.  Get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow we will finally reach the lodge we’ve chosen and the adventure begins!

OTHER POSTS IN THIS SERIES

Getting to Peru

Gateway Lima

Getting to Tambopata

Choosing an Eco-Lodge

Tambopata Eco-Lodges

Review of Refugio Amazonas and Tambopata Research Center