Types Of Hotels
There tends to be 3 types of hotels that many people stay at, and are determined based on the reason for the travel. They are Wow (5-star) Hotels, Vacation (3.5-4 star) Hotels, and Budget (3 star and below) Hotels and Motels. This is about hotels and motels, so camping is excluded from the list.
WOW Hotel
When taking a vacation that will extend for 2 or more weeks, try to make sure that you have one hotel that you can walk away and say "WOW, that was great!". Try to ensure that you stay in the WOW hotel towards the end of your trip. If you don't you will be comparing all other hotels to a 5-star hotel, and may feel disappointed with the rest of the hotels on the remainder of the trip. This can leave some with a bad experience of the overall trip.
This is typically a 5-star hotels: Palace, Estate, Hall, or Exclusive Resort or luxury Hotels. Some nice WOW Hotels:
It will have all the amenities that such as a dinning room, spa, lounges, gardens, and everything will be over-priced and expensive. In some cases you may run into a celebrities that typically will be staying at these type of hotels.
- Price: $250-$500 a night.
Vacation Hotels
This is typically a 3.5/4 star hotel to stay a few days at and provides a chance to relax after a long day of site seeing. These hotels typically have everything one may be looking for: Concierge, restaurant, bar, exercise rooms, comfortable rooms, nice pool. These make for good last day hotel to just relax and do nothing before you have to go back to work or have a long flight the next day. These can be:
Extra Tip: Once should maintain reward cards and collect points for all these hotels.
- Price: $90-$250 a night
Budget Hotels / Motels
A budget hotel is used when staying overnight, want to go cheap, just need a beed to sleep in, or are planning on putting money into events during the trip rather than on where one stays. For additional security, select budget hotels that have internal hallways so the door to the room is inside the hotel. This can provide extra security since hotels lock all external doors during the night and typically have security cameras in the halls. Hotels/Motels where the door to the room is physically outside, provides anyone off the street to have access to the door to your room.
Try to target Hotel/Motels that are lowered valued hotels of a 4-star brand so you can get the hotel reward points. These include:
Extra Tip: Hotel owners in Europe buy into the Best Western name for marketing purposes only. These small independent hotels seem to always be a level up from any Best Westerns in the US. (There is a Best Western standard that is set by the company that HAS TO be met by all hotel owners if they want to claim to be a Best Western Hotel)
- Price: $50-$90 a night
Extra Tip: No matter what hotel you stay at, check if they have a Membership Rewards Program and sign up for it! If possible, link other cards (Visa, MC, Amex, Grocery stores, etc...) to the program. Benefits "can" include: Free stays, quick check-in and bypass the lines, free breakfast, free upgrades, special pricing, and additional help when a hotel manager isn't being helpful. If you plan to travel to Europe, you can use less reward points for nicer hotels in most European countries. So save the points for Europe if there is a trip being planned for that destination.
