Hotels, how often do you stay? General thoughts on hotels?

As I was checking into one of the hotels I regularly stay at, they let me know that this was my 11oth visit there. Not 110 stays with this chain, but 110 stays at this specific property. I know of at least two other hotel properties that I've stayed at 100+ times. Yikes.

So it made me think to create this thread.....

How often do you stay in a hotel?
What do you usually stay in a hotel for?
Do you have a specific chain that you are most loyal to?
What is important to you in choosing a hotel?
Pros/cons to being at a hotel?


I stay probably 60-75 nights/yr in a hotel.

Typically it is one night per week for work. Occasionally it is 2-3 night per week for work. Occasionally it is a long weekend away for pleasure. On rarer occasions we'll stay a week somewhere for vacation, but more often we rent a house if we are staying in one place for more than a long weekend (and sometimes even just for a long weekend). VRBO/Homeaway.com make it easy to rent homes for comparable price to a hotel room.

For the last couple of years I've been staying in mostly Hilton properties. This includes Hampton Inns, Hilton/Hilton Gardens, Homewood Suites, Embassy Suites, Conrad, and Waldorf Astoria properties. Most often I stay at a Homewood Suites. With corporate rates they are usually close to the same as a Hampton Inn, but have a sitting area and a small kitchen in every room. Previously I used to always stay in IHG properties, which is Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental, etc. Leveraging my stays within a particular chain really pays off with the frequency that I stay. Last year I spent 8 or 9 nights in a $600/night hotel room all on points. Weekend getaways are always free if we want to use points. I currently have over half a million points with Hilton and counting. That translates to thousands of dollars in hotel rooms.

Typically I look first for the chain/brand, then for convenience/location. Obviously there are some times I can't find a Hilton property, in which case I fall back to an IHG property. It's pretty rare that I have to go past those two to look. I prefer a place that I can walk to restaurants, bars, shops, etc. Obviously I want some place clean, with decently sized rooms (more of a challenge in places like NYC or Chicago), and somewhere that I can have peace and quiet. I've learned to ask for rooms on upper floors, and away from the elevator.

Pros to staying in a hotel are mainly accumulating points for free trips. I don't mind being in a hotel, but since I'm there so often it isn't something I look forward to either. The biggest cons are that I'm often without my wife and my dog (order of importance depends on the mood ), without my own TV/DVR, sometimes have a slower internet connection, and just generally because I enjoy being home.

 

I go for the same rate...I'm not truly picky.
I just need space, a TV, HVAC
and if you offer a service, do it right...not cheap. (otherwise, don't do it...just leaves a bad taste in my mouth)

And work decent web access into your place.
Should be professional.

 

My family loved traveling when I was younger, so I've stayed in a number of hotels, across a range of levels. The fanciest: probably the Hotel Vancouver, which is a Fairmont property. The least fancy: probably the Oregon 8 in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Not the Super 8--the Oregon 8. It was clean, though. The comfiest bed I've ever slept in: the Best Western in Sacramento had a phenomenally comfortable bed. We still talk about it as a family to this day, and we've all slept on Westin Heavenly beds since then (which are very good). The most interesting hotel: McMenamins has a number of really unique properties that compete with each other for the title. I like the Old St. Francis in Bend. I'd tell you one of my favorite hotels, but it's a SECRET, and I'm not telling anyone!

I like: a clean, comfortable bed. I don't mind Euro style rooms, where the bathroom is down the hall, so long as I have a sink. I like air conditioning. I don't care if there's no television, provided there is wifi. I prefer a good location. Euro style rooms often mean unique, interesting properties.

 

I'm still on my open-ended road trip, so am actually writing this from the BayShores Hotel, on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, California. An impeccably maintained 1950s beach hotel. About a hundred yards from the beach. Another fifty yards to the ocean's edge.
Bay Shores Peninsula Hotel in Newport Beach, CA | Newport Beach Hotels | Newport Beach, CA 92663

I stay in hotels fairly often partly because of my aversion to flying. That also means that most of my stays are at "roadside" properties rather than center city hotels. When I used to live in Boston it was about a 25 hour drive to my family in western Kansas, which meant at least two or three nights on the road. I planned my times to avoid rush hours in Chicago and Cleveland on I-80/90, or Columbus, Indy, St. Louis on I-84/80/71/70 and if that meant an extra night, that was OK. I followed a couple of regular routes, and generally stayed at the same suburban or rural properties on my trips.

For my kind of travel, I look for good, clean, comfortable rooms convenient to the freeway. I want good internet and a free breakfast with choices that aren't all just loads of carbs. I've stayed at expensive four and five-star urban hotels, with beautiful public areas, quality restaurants and bars, concierge, meeting rooms, gift shops, resort spa features, etc., that I wouldn't use, and the bed, the room experience itself was no better than a Hampton Inn. As a general rule, Hampton Inn's are hard to beat for consistent quality at a low to moderate price. Fairfield Inn is a good alternative, but there are fewer of them, especially out West.

Last week the Towne Place Suites (a Marriott property) in Dodge City, Kansas was outstanding. Two separate queen bed bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen with pans, dishes, etc., and a sitting area. $174.55 total, including taxes, and four good generous breakfasts. Wow!

I rely heavily on TripAdvisor, and read the actual reviews, not just the rankings. Out west there are a lot of well maintained Best Westerns, as well as non-chain properties of the old motor inn style, where you park at the door of your room, instead of a large parking lot. I like those. In the last week standouts were the Old Santa Fe Inn, Best Western Plus Wayfarer's Inn in Kingman, AZ, the Abbey Inn in Cedar City, Utah. Again, I rely on TripAdvisor as a guide.

My pet hotel peeves:
I'm short. I hate it when the adjustable shower head is 7 feet up in the air.
I hate it when I have to crawl around on the floor to get to an electrical outlet to plug in my phone or laptop charger. Behind the bedside table (sometimes even behind the bed) and then have to unplug either the alarm clock, house phone, or the bedside lamp to plug in. I like the lamps that have a power outlet built into the base.
I'd like hooks in the closet. I don't want to have to put jacket, jeans/shorts, and tee-shirt on a f***ing hanger.
Free "breakfasts" with no meat or eggs, just waffles, cereal, bagels, fruit, toast, carbs, carbs, carbs.

 

One thing I've discovered by staying at some older "motel" style properties is that some put in internet access before wi-fi became prevalent. Just plug a cat-5 cable into the wall, and its much faster than a wi-fi connection.