9/15/2022 - Hotel Membership

Hello, and welcome back.

So as you can tell by the title, we're going to talk about hotel membership. Now you might be thinking one of two things:

1) "Why would I do this", or

2) "Duh!"

Now, I say both of these two things because I have said BOTH to myself. This is one of those things I wish I would have taken advantage of earlier, but didn't even think about it, and also didn't know anything about it. I guess I thought it would cost me money, or there would be no way I would be able to earn enough to even benefit. Well, you'd be surprised.

We've been traveling consistently (and a lot) for competition sports for about 5 or 6 years now. I JUST signed up for hotel memberships about 2 years ago. That's 3-4 years I've missed out on opportunities to earn rewards and, you guessed it, SAVE MONEY!

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One thing I have learned is that most competitions or conventions we attend (even companies that my daughter is an Apprentice with), tend to use the same hotel chain. For example; Tremaine Dance typically uses Marriotts. Currently, we attend 3-6 Tremaine's a season! One of those stays is a national competition and convention. That's sometimes 6+ days in a hotel!

The second thing I've learned is, that if the hotel tends to stick with a single hotel chain, they most often will have a block discounted rate for attending their event. We LOVE our discounts!

I don't know about other studios, but I know that the studios we have been at in the past, or our current studio, The Dance Force NWA, tend to stick to the same general competition/convention chains for multiple seasons. We may attend different competitions, but most stick within the same mother company.

The good thing about joining hotel memberships is it's FREE!!!! I've joined hotel memberships at any and every hotel I've stayed at. Sure I have the main ones I tend to stay at more, but I don't want to miss out on the opportunities to earn those points. When you earn points, you can earn things like free nights, late checkouts (which is handy when your dancer doesn't finish until later in the day and you don't want to sit in a convention hallway for hours), special prices, meal tickets, and more! We typically earn enough points during one season to cover one or two of our stays for the next season.

Truthfully the hotel chain that I think has the best member benefits is Marriott. This is pretty lucky because I would say about two-thirds of the events we attend every season are hosted at a Marriott. Our second most commonly stayed at the hotel is Wynhamm, which, to be honest, I don't feel has the best member benefits. I feel like it takes forever to actually earn something that is worth the money. Nevertheless, I still signed up for it and one day, ill get a free night.

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I do know that some families choose to only stay at one Hotel chain, to rack up those points. That is totally a good option to take advantage of. I, on the other hand, prefer to stay at the host hotel when attending an event. I do this for a few reasons.

1. I prefer to be closer to the event so we don't have to worry about pack-mule-ing her luggage back and forth. Her dance back is HEAVY!

2. I want her to be able to run right up to the room if she needs anything, if there is an emergency, or if she just needs a quick break.

3. Even though she's 15, I feel safer knowing I can just pop downstairs to check on her, run something down to her if she forgot it and it just eases this momma's mind.

4. Makes meal times easier! I covered this in my previous blog

5. Host discounts! As I mentioned before, oftentimes the host will have a room block with a discounted price, which is sometimes better than a member rate.

Well, I think this is a good stopping point. Tune in next time for some more good, helpful tips, on how we divide and conquer, and a few extra special topics sprinkled in here and there!

-Rothrock Mom