A big part of travel plan is hotel booking. 

For travelers without worries on budgets, please ignore this article. 

Plan ahead of time

Having enough preparation time provides more flexibility. It's always challenging to book at the last minute for popular destinations. If all the hotels are sold out, there's no way to find a good deal or even a place to stay.

Another aspect of preparation is diversifying your payment methods. Relying solely on cash will greatly limit your options. To be most flexible, you need to have ample access to all payment methods for hotels: cash, points, and free-night certificates. Points and free nights are specific to hotel chains rather than independent hotels, so you should also have them for each hotel chain you plan to use.

With diverse payment methods, even when cash prices are high, if the hotel belongs to a hotel chain, you will still have an alternative way of booking with points (if that option offers a decent price). So planning ahead involves selecting the right credit cards and accruing points properly from your daily expenses and targeted offers.

For example, Marriott, Hyatt, and IHG all offer co-branded credit cards with an annual fee of roughly $100. In return, you will receive a free-night certificate valid at any hotels below a certain point cost level. When used properly, the equivalent cash value for the same night can easily be doubled. Taking Marriott as an example, its free-night redemption is limited to hotels with nightly point rates of 35k points or below, which is roughly equivalent to a $250 cash value.

How to choose hotels

Here is my usual practice for selecting hotels when making travel plans in unfamiliar places:

First, I figure out the distribution of chain hotels. There is an awardmapper website that lists chain hotels on a map (although it may be a little outdated).

Usually, my first priority is Hyatt hotels, preferably Hyatt Place or House with breakfast included, with a low category (Cat 1, 2). If there is one Hyatt that meets these criteria, I can almost guarantee there are no better deals available. Hyatt is a transfer partner of Chase and Bilt, if you don't have enough Hyatt points. 

If Hyatt is not available, then you need to have a rough understanding of all the brands in other hotel chains. If you travel enough, you will soon realize what each brand looks like and how much they are worth. The hotel groups are adept at controlling the quality within each brand. Floor plans, amenities, and even the scent of the hotel lobby are so similar for hotels within a brand. You may even have a déjà vu feeling when entering a hotel brand in two different places. For most travelers reading up to this point, I believe they do not care about the luxury experience or concierge services that top-tier hotels provide. In practice, they primarily care about the real amenity, which is free breakfast. Please refer to this page for the policy on free breakfast. So when comparing which hotel to choose, do consider the breakfast policy in the total cost in terms of money or points.

Hotel brands are targeting different level of services and different chains are not equal. Here is a chart from Hotel appraisers, which I think mostly reflecting the truth.

When to use which payment method

If cash price is high and required points are high: 

    use free-night

else if cash price is lower than points value: 

    use cash

else: 

    use points

Also need to consider the balance of your points when making decisions

The key is how to compare cash and point value. I will discuss in a separate blog.

Cash deals

For most occasions, do not book directly on websites. Usually, they are expensive because they need to give you points as a reward program and credit nights for your elite status. If you are traveling for leisure, there is no value in gaining points by paying much more than the value of these negligible points.

Third-party booking with hotel names hidden is a good channel. For example, Hotwire Hot Rate deals and Priceline Express deals. They will only display the region, amenities, reviews, and the number of stars for the hotel, and the exact hotel name will only appear after you pay (of course, no refund). The interesting thing is it is super easy to guess which hotel it is based on the revealed information. There is also a website like https://roomrevealer.com/ if you are not able to guess. Hotel names are hidden because most hotel chains have a best-rate guarantee (BRG) policy, which, if you find a cheaper price on a third party, they will match the price and give you additional discounts. If hotel names are not revealed before booking, you can't compare prices with hotels to claim BRG benefits. It is a win-win to book through an express deal if you are paying for yourself.

Another deal, like I introduced before, is finding a cheaper third-party price and claiming BRG. I have succeeded several times. The problem is you need to find a lower price and hopefully when they review the prices, the third-party price does not increase. Google Map lists hotel prices for all channels, which is an easy way to compare hotel prices. But be sure that all the conditions (refund date) are comparable when using BRG.