Links and Info for Major Hotel & Motel Chains
Other Travel Links
Travel and Reservation Tips
Finding Your Way
Love NYC, But Please Don't Make Me Drive There!!
Accomodations Search Engine
Links and Info for Major Hotels & Motel Chains:
- Choice Hotels
Choice hotels include; Quality Inn, Comfort Inn, Clarion Hotels, Econolodge, Sleep Inn, Rodeway Inn, and Mainstay Suites. You can save 10% when you book on-line. They also offer HotDeals and Great Net Rates through Alamo
- Hilton Hotels
The Hilton family of hotels include; Hilton, Conrad International Hotels, Doubletree Suites, Embassy Suites , Harrison Conference Centers, Homewood Suites, Hampton Inn, Red Lion Hotels & Inns, Hampton Inns & Suites, and the Hilton Garden Inns. On their website you will find a a section with special offers and value rates. You can sign up to have the Hilton value rates e-mailed to you each week.
- Radisson Hotels
Radisson Hotels has a Hot Deals program and you can sign up to have the rates e-mailed to you.
- Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn's website includes links to other Bass Properties which are; Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, Bass Hotels and Resorts, and Inter-Continental Hotels and Resorts. You can sign up to receive weekly e-mails of their Holideals. These are selected Holiday Inns that offer special rates on Tuesday for the following weekend
- Howard Johnson
The Howard Johnson Hotels and Inns website. They are offering a program valid through 2/28/01 that allows you to save 15% off regular rates when you pay with your VISA card. Just request plan code LPAX when making your reservation
- Marriot
From the Marriott website you can make reservations at many hotels...Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites, Renaissance Hotels & Resorts, Courtyard at Marriott, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn, Marriott Conference Centers, Executive Apartments, ExecuStay, TownePlace Suites, SpringHill Suites and Vacation Club (villa rentals). Also, you will find links to their partner hotels...The Ritz-Carlton Hotels & Resorts and Ramada International. The website offers a Route Planner which will give you door to door or city to city driving directions, as well as showing you hotel locations along the way.
- Best Western
BestWestern's website also offers a Trip Planner showing hotels along the route, as well as a way to sign up for e-mail promotions.
- Travelodge
Travelodge website offering a popular vacation section that helps you find places to go depending on your interests. Of course, they offer you destinations where their hotels are located.
- Sheraton Hotels
Sheraton Hotels are part of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, which also includes; Westin Hotels & Resorts, Four Points Shearton, St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, The Luxury Collection and W Hotels. Starwood Vacations offers customized vacations that include luxury resort accommodations, discounted coach and first class airline tickets, rental cars, sightseeing tours, theme park passes and more. The website offers Hot Rates which are discounted rates only available by booking on the Internet. They offer up to 10% off weekdays and 20% off weekends at selected hotels around the world.
- Country Inns & Suites
The Country Inns & Suites by Carlson website is temporarily closed for maintenance but they offer a toll-free number to call in the meantime. 1-800-456-4000. Only recently becoming aware of this chain of motels, I stayed in one in NJ during 1999 and found it to offer the feeling of a country inn with motel type rates.
- Exended Stay America
This is a fairly new chain of extended stay motels, although you are free to book them on a nightly basis, so I'll try to give you some extra information on them. There are three versions of this motel depending on your needs and price range, although all of them offer fully equipped kitchens at rates that compare to regular motel rooms in the same areas. On the high end is Studio Plus, then Extended Stay America, and at the lowest end is Crossland Economy Studios. They are able to offer such good rates by limiting their overhead. You won't find 24 hour front desk clerks here, although they offer a way to check in late. If you're staying for an extended period, they offer weekly housekeeping, although they say nightly housekeeping is available...not sure if there would be an extra charge for that. The motels are usually located slightly off the main drag of motels, restaurants, etc. that you see when coming off the interstate. Often they are located in corporate parks since their primary customers are people on assignment to the companies in those areas.
Just recently, I reserved a room for my daughter and a friend in a Studio Plus located in Mt. Laurel, NJ. (Read that as I used her as a guinea pig to check them out) She reported back that the accommodations were very clean, and only 1/4 mile away from the main area of motels. She found the location to be very nice as it was quieter, and without the neon lights you can normally see from your motel window. The kitchens were equipped with all that you needed in the way of dishes and cookware, and included coffee packets and microwave popcorn, which was a pleasant surprise as they advertise that another cost saving measure is to limit ammenities...and they did so in the bathroom...no little bottles of shampoo, so make sure to pack your own! They were booked in a Queen Studio which consisted of a Queen bed, recliner, desk and chair, dressers, table and chairs for dining and the full kitchen. All of the locations offer 24 hour guest laundry facilities, as well. I was able to reserve this mini-suite for her at the rate of $64 a night, compared to the cheapest motel rate I found at a local Courtyard by Marriott for $67 a night. Combine that with the ability to do some of your meals "at home" and it's quite a deal!
The website says it offers online reservations, but although you can use it to find locations and descriptions, I've always gotten an error when actually trying to make the reservation online. They do offer a toll free number for reservations.
- Red Roof
Super 8
Two "no frills" motel chains, the Red Roof and the Super8 have no frills websites, as well, but often offer special Internet Rates
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Other Travel Links
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Mapquest
Maps, driving directions, live traffic reports, yellow & white pages, travel guide for locating rated restaurants, rated hotels and travel deals, and city guides. They are now offering travel message boards, as well.
- Fodors
An online version of the popular travel books, with the added features of message boards, rants & raves of hotels and restaurants by other travelers, a travel lounge, travel tips and various hosted forums. They offer descriptions and links to various online reservation websites for hotels, airline tickets, rental cars, vacations and cruises
- Arthur Frommer's
Another online version of a well-known travel guide, Frommers offers travel information for well-known cities around the world. Also, they have a daily newsletter with various articles that you can view online or choose to have e-mailed to you. There are links for booking all aspects of a vacation
- USA Lodging
An online reservation system that allows you to check availability and find information on various hotels around the U.S. They have a database of over 60,000 motels and hotels.
- Quickbook
1-800 Hotel
Quikbook and 1-800 Hotel both offer discounted rates on hotels in major metropolitan areas. They claim to often have access to booked up hotels. I've never checked them on that, but although they claim to have discounted rates, I've often found I can do better on my own. Check around.
- Travelweb
Another website to search for hotel and airline reservations. They offer weekly Click-It weekends, weekly deals offered by various hotels. These are often good deals at hotels that are not filling up for the upcoming weekend. You can sign up to have the weekly offers e-mailed to you.
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Travel and Reservation Tips
Most of the chain hotels and motels offer some type of frequent visitor club which allows you to build up points for free stays at that chain in the future. It normally does not cost anything to join these clubs, but read the fine print, some are much better than others. Some of them allow you to combine points from hotel stays and airline miles, or can be linked to long distance telephone companies such as AT&T, where you will earn points for dollars spent on your phone bill.
While many travel websites claim to offer discounted rates, you can often do better on your own. Many of the chain motels offer discounts or special Internet rates for online booking through their website. If you prefer to call for reservations, keep in mind that it might be less expensive to call the chain's 800 number, but you may be spending more for your hotel stay that way. It's not uncommon for a particular motel or hotel to be offering a special rate that the central reservations office is not aware of. In that regard, if you find a place where you really want to stay and the price online seems just a little too high, call the hotel/motel directly. Occasionally, you can find an unadvertised deal, depending on the occupancy rate. That often happens closer to the time of arrival if they want to fill rooms.
If you're traveling out of season, the hotel/motel will likely have empty rooms...usually the higher priced rooms...and if you ask politely at check-in you can, sometimes, get a complimentary upgrade or late check out. I've been upgraded to a suite in NYC and a higher end room in a DisneyWorld Resort Hotel. Don't be afraid to ask!
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Finding Your Way
Here are a couple of websites, not previously included in the above websites, to help you find your way around the country. All route planners have their pros and cons, so it's sometimes advantageous to try out your route on all of them to see what they come up with.
http://www.freetrip.com/
http://cartalk.cars.com/Info/trip.html
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Love NYC, But Please Don't Make Me Drive There!!
Okay...my husband and I are wimps...we have NO desire to drive in NYC, but love to visit. If you're coming from another part of the country, you may decide that driving in NYC is not something you want to deal with either. In addition to the traffic concerns, the parking rates in NYC are astronomical, and you probably won't use your car once you get there, anyway...instead using the subways, buses and taxis to get around. If you'd rather park your car in NJ or upstate NY and take the train in, here are a couple of websites that will help you decide the best way in for you.
From New Jersey:
http://www.njtransit.state.nj.us/mainterm.htm
http://www.nj.com/njtransit/path.html
From upstate New York (Metro-North) and Long Island:
http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/index.html
This website also includes information concerning subway/bus routes in the city itself, and tolls and traffic advisories on the various bridges and tunnels into the city, if you choose to drive.
For anyone coming in from the north, I can personally attest to the safety of leaving your car overnight in the Beacon station along the Hudson River. We've done it for years without incident.
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