Daily Getaways Recaps For May 19th & 20th, 2014: Wyndham and Hertz

I’m re-posting a chunk of last night’s post as a reminder on how Daily Getaways work and also to cover the Wyndham offer today.  Immediately following that you’ll find the Hertz offer for tomorrow.

In case you’re not familiar, Daily Getaways are daily deals sponsored by the US Travel Association.  Some are better than others, so you need to think about whether you can take full advantage of the offer before buying.

For the more popular offers, they will sell out quickly, which means being around right when they go on sale each day at 1:00 pm EDT.  Some offers will sell out in hours, some in minutes.  It’s also important to be patient.  If you click shortly after an offer becomes available and it shows sold out, keep trying.  Someone may have an offer in their shopping cart but change their mind or have their computer crash.  When that happens, their bad luck or change of heart can be your good fortune.

Finally, make sure you pay with an American Express card to save an additional 10%.  Any AMEX card will do.

Since my new daily newsletter format has my notification coming to subscribers between 7 and 10pm EDT, I’ll summarize today’s and tomorrow’s offer so you can plan ahead if reading in the evening.  Feel free to e-mail me or post questions in the comments section.  Good luck chasing the deals you’re looking for!

Monday, May 19th:

14,000 Wyndham Rewards points (1 night at a Super 8) for $84 

32,000 Wyndham Rewards points (2 nights at a Days Inn) for $192

75,000 Wyndham Rewards points (3 nights at Wingate by Windham) for $450

40,000 Wyndham Rewards points (2 nights at a Ramada) for $240

60,000 Wyndham Rewards points (2 nights at a Wyndham) for $360

Each of these deals works out to .054 cents per point (just over half a penny).  I’m not a big fan of the Wyndham brands, nor do I collect their points.  But, the question is can you get value out of their points?  Yes, I believe so.  Here’s 2 ways to do it:

1.  Redeeming for free rooms.  Here’s a couple random searches I did:

Wyndham Koloa Landing, HI.  50,000 points a night.  At .54 cents per point, that’s a $270 redemption.  Cheapest rates I found were over $400, with many nights at $700 or more.

Multiple Wyndham hotels in New Orleans were 30,000 points a night.  While I did find some dates with rates under $200, I also found a bunch over $200.  30,000 points is $162, so you might find value here.

Wyndham Grand Chicago Riverfront.  30,000 points a night ($162 at .54 cents a point), most nights I found were over $200.

For the most part, it’s going to be tough to find great value.  But if you have an upcoming stay that you can target these points for you can probably save some cash.

Airline transfers are a different story.  Mommy Points did a great job covering the Wyndham devaluation earlier this year.  Using the best conversion there of 30,000 points to 6,000 airline miles, that would cost you $162 to purchase those Wyndham Rewards points and convert them to airline miles, or a rate of 2.7 cents a piece.  While it’s theoretically possible to get more than 2.7 cents in value out of an airline mile, such as redeeming for international business class tickets, you can usually buy points directly from the airlines on sale for the same or less.  United runs sales at about 3 cents a piece from time to time, American sells for just over 2 cents and US Airways just shy of 2 cents a piece.

Bottom Line It For Me, Ed

Take advantage of this offer if you have a very specific use for Wyndham points coming up and you can confirm a positive return.  Don’t buy these speculatively and don’t buy them to transfer to airline miles.

 

Tuesday, May 20th: Hertz Gold Plus Rewards

There are 3 different offers:

5,500 points for 4.6 cents per point.

13,200 points for 3.2 cents per point.

16,500 points for 4.2 cents per point.

Pretty easy to see that buying 13,200 points for $475 ($427.50 with the AMEX 10% discount) is the best deal.

But, is a Hertz Gold Plus Reward point worth more than 3.2 cents? Let’s take a look at some of the break-even marks if you buy points:

2,750 points for a standard weekly rental (up to a premium car) needs to cost you more than $88 prior to taxes to equal 3.2 cents/point.

5,300 points for a 4-day one-way rental needs just $170, an absolute steal when you see what rental companies charge for one-way rentals.

8,250 points for a Prestige Collection vehicle needs a $264 rate to break even.

Bottom Line It For Me, Ed

I just wrote last week about Hertz’s recent devaluation. That certainly makes this less of a value now than it was last year. But, there’s still plenty of deals to be had here. I’d even consider buying points speculatively if you plan to use Hertz within the next year.

There are absolutely cheaper car rental companies out there. I’m most comfortable with Hertz for a number of reasons, including their consistency of customer service and quality of their fleet. I don think they’re great at either, but I do think they’re the most consistent in their industry and that’s important to me.

I’m likely not a buyer only because I have enough points for my next two family vacations.