Best Western has devalued it’s loyalty program with no notice or warning. Previously the most expensive property would cost 36,000 points per night. Now the most expensive properties are pricing out at 70,000 points per night, almost double. There are also other tiers:
- 70,000 points per night
- 56,000 points per night
- 40,000 points per night
The F.A.Q still states that the maximum price ranges from 8,000 points to 36,000 points. In addition to these higher tier properties, it looks like properties have also gone in price. For example one FlyerTalk user booked a property for 24,000 points, but that same property is now costing 36,000 points per night. Obviously this is a hugely negative change and it’s awful that Best Western have made this change with no notice.
I have not yet received my free night certificate for two stays via email.
What the checkout date of your last stay? The T&Cs said it can take up to a few weeks to arrive. Mine took close to a week, but I think others have said on FlyerTalk that it took them even longer. BW may do this a “sweeps”, where they only process the free nights stays a couple times a month or whatever.
Have gift card redemptions changed also?
I wonder what the endgame is here. Are we going to start seeing 100k points/night become common for these programs? It is already laughable to think of non-churners organic point accumulation.
Who knew BW even had a loyalty program? Who was going out of their way to stay at one of their properties?
There are places where BW has the ONLY hotel with a loyalty program, including outside some US National Parks, and in some smaller towns in a number of foreign countries (for example, the rural western fjords of Norway are divided up between BW and Choice and indie hotels, but you can’t earn Choice US points if you stay at a Scandinavian Choice property, you can only redeem Choice US points there, while you can either earn or burn at BW hotels in Scandinavia).
So if those are the kinds of places you like to stay, it made sense to join the BW program and stay in their properties.
For people who ONLY like to stay in big cities with lots of hotels in other loyalty programs around, it probably didn’t make as much sense.
Agree with this. I never stayed in a BW until last year, when I started visiting a lot of national parks and other small towns across the country. Sometimes BW was the only reasonable option, and most of them are actually perfectly fine as a business or casual hotel. Certainly not fancy, but fine.
Also, they matched my Marriott Gold Status… to Best Western Diamond Elite, their highest tier. Which wasn’t worth a ton, but was nice anyway. Too bad the points aren’t worth as much anymore, but BWs are still pretty cheap and convenient in certain circumstances. I’d much rather stay in a BW than in one of the downmarket Radissons (Country Suites etc) or off-brand hotels you can find in small towns.
On the subject of national parks, I recently discovered the joy of camping in the back of a Jeep. saved a ton of money by not staying in overpriced park hotels and cooking my own meals. and you can car camp close to many sunrise and sunset spots saving on endless driving.
Boycott.
Rewards Programs are not savings programs. Earn and Burn.
Still, this makes what’s left of the Best Western Program of even less value – who knows when they’ll devalue again with zero notice. Tonight?