Welcome to the next post in the Earning Stories series right here on Rewards Canada.
For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and
miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) and these stories show the actual offers in action.
This story revolves around my recent family trip at the beginning of July and looks at the points
earning for our week long Hampton Inn hotel stay.
The stay was at the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton Regina East Gate and was booked on
a AAA rate. I
booked based on location and also wanting to try a Hampton Inn for the first time as we normally stay at the Holiday Inn & Suites just a block away. Another factor was that the hotel is only a year old versus the Holiday Inn which is one of the older hotels in that area of hotels, not to mention the Hampton also included breakfast if we wanted to eat at the hotel. I booked it knowing that I would earn bonus points since I had
registered not only for Hilton’s Double Points on all stays but also their limited time offer of 5,000 bonus points on stays taken from our Hilton HHonors Bonus Points page:
Here is Double Points the offer in detail as you still have most of the summer to take advantage of it! (The 5,000 point offer expired the day after we arrived into Regina)
Double HHonors Points or Double Airline MIles for eligible stays at participating Hilton Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. Full Details, Online Registration and Booking (Registration is required) Until Aug 31, 15
And my screen shot of the HHonors Points that posted with this stay:
At the outset of the stay we ended up earning the 7,296 base HHonors Points plus 7,296 points from the Double Points offer and the 5,000 bonus points from the other bonus offer. Add in the Hilton Gold Elite status bonuses and the 50% bonus from the Points+Points option and all told 25,314 points posted from the stay. What can 25,314 HHonors points get? 5 nights at a Category 1 hotel, 2 nights at a Category 2 hotel, 1 night at Category 3 hotel and potentially a Category 4 hotel.
As
you can see by registering and taking advantage of these two bonus offer
along with the base and elite tier points we earned a decent amount of points on a
stay that we were going to do no matter what! With Hilton HHonors you have two options for base earning, Points+Points or Points+Miles. I choose the former so the base points earned at 10 points per US$ + an additional 5 points per US$. Everyday people have stays
like this that are not earning any bonus points or even in some cases
no points at all since the people aren’t part of the hotel’s program! We
cannot reiterate enough that not only should you join a hotel program
to earn points (or airline miles) but always register for bonus point
promotions even if you think that you may not use it.
We’d love
to hear how you have maximized the Hilton Double Points/Miles and 5,000 Bonus Points offers! Leave us a
comment below or submit your own earning story to be featured here on Rewards Canada.
Tips for Hotel Stays
–
Watch the rates that include bonus miles/points – If there is a bonus most of
my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus
points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like
AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying
for the extra points. Systemwide bonuses like those provided in this post are typically not associated with higher rates. For a complete list of hotel bonus offers
see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
– Read the fine print – When a bonus offer is available be sure that
your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
–
If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn’t your primary
program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred
airline rather than earning the hotel points. You’ll still have to join
that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your
preferred airline.
Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories featured in this series, we
want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or
miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to
hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada.
Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you
earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what
offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca