Daily Getaways Breakdown For Tuesday, June 10th: Best Western

Today’s Daily Getaway deal is 10,000 Best Western Rewards for $58.50.

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.

Feel free to e-mail me or post questions in the comments section.  Good luck chasing the deals you’re looking for!

10,000 Best Western Rewards points for $58.50 (with 10% discount for paying with an AMEX card)

Full disclosure.  I made this decision when Daily Getaways rolled around this year that I would blog about every deal being offered.  I figured I would learn a few things about programs I might not be an expert on and just because I didn’t find a program interesting didn’t mean you, the reader, thought it was not worth your time as well.

There have been some good deals so far and some bad ones.  The bad ones are harder to write about than the good ones but this one might be the hardest, since I know nothing about the Best Western Rewards program.

Nada.  Zilch.  Zip.

But, in the interest of further disclosure, Best Western was the first program I ever had elite status in.

That card is probably 20 years old.  Heck, it hasn’t even been the Gold Crown Club for 6 years or so.

Searching the Best Western website wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.  The way I found redemption rates was to search for regular rates at a specific property.  Once the rates display, I found a pull-down menu where I could select Best Western Rewards points as my search method.

Buying points from Daily Getaways would get you this room for $210, so not much of a deal.  But, I did find dates where this property was as much as $400 a night, a much better deal.

But, none of my other property searches yielded a very favorable award redemption rate.  I tried California, the Bahamas and Paris, 3 places people like to redeem points.  There were a few spots in California where some savings could be had. The Bahamas was cheaper to pay for the room.  And, the property I searched in Paris had no award night availability on a dozen different dates I searched.

The website was very responsive, but every time I did a new search I needed to change from paid nights to award nights again.  I found it a bit annoying.

Bottom Line It For Me, Ed

I have no functional experience with the Best Western program any longer.  20 years is a long time.  I couldn’t find any solid evidence of outsize value from this Daily Getaway deal.  I wouldn’t buy these points speculatively.  That is, if you don’t have ironclad plans for a Best Western coming up, take a pass.  You’ll probably know whether I’m right or wrong when we figure out if the deal sells out today.  Until then, might be better to focus on other deals.