Daily Getaways Best Western Rewards $5.50 per 1,000 points sometimes a great deal

Best Western Rewards points for sale on Daily Getaways today May 21, 2019 is one of the best opportunities of the year to buy 10,000 points for $55, up to 50,000 Best Western points at the rate of $5.50 per 1,000 points. This is a significant discount on the normal rate of $10 per 1,000 points available to members when you are short of points for a reward stay.

The sale is at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern.

There are 835 sets of points for sale. Best Western Rewards members can buy a maximum 50,000 points for $275.

Still, whether this is a good deal is entirely dependent on where you will travel and the Best Western hotel reward rates on those dates. If you frequent Best Western hotels, then you are more likely to know some hotels where points are a good deal.

If you are not a regular Best Western Rewards points user, then there are several things to consider when prospecting this deal.

1. Best Western Rewards does not post tables or have fixed reward rates for hotels. Best Western Rewards uses seasonal reward rates and reward rate changes for any specific hotel can change month to month. Reward rates tend to be constant by the calendar month, so a hotel that is 20,000 points on June 10 is probably 20,000 points for any date in June, but might be 24,000 in July, 32,000 in August and 16,000 points in September.
2. Best Western Rewards standard night redemption choices include higher category rooms at some hotels.
3. My personal observation is hotel reward rates have been consistently higher in the past two years. I came across many more hotels in the 8,000 to 12,000 points level two years ago than I find in 2019 for hotels in the same cities. This is difficult to formally assess since hotel reward rates can change monthly and many of the Best Western hotels in Europe I stayed at over the past five years on good value reward nights rebranded, mostly going independent. I found Best Western good hotel deals in Amsterdam (specific hotel rebranded), Gdansk (rebranded), Krakow (Old Town great location), Prague (specific hotel rebranded), Rome (several hotels) and Vienna.
4. The past two years Best Western Rewards has offered a promotion for any hotel in North America at 10,000 points per night from November to January. The 2017 offer was better with a longer period Nov 1, 2017-Jan 31, 2018 and available every night. The 2018 offer was more restrictive at weeknights only from Nov 15, 2018-Jan 15, 2019. I redeeemed 5 reward nights during each of these two promotions for hotel stays in San Francisco, Key West, Miami and Anaheim, California directly across the street from the entrance to Disneyland. Each of these hotel nights averaged over $200 per night and were fantastic value for $55 in points, the cost to buy Best Western Rewards points today. However, no guarantee Best Western Rewards will offer this promotion again this year.

Yesterday I searched Best Western Rewards rates for free nights using points at dozens of hotels. On the whole, I found few hotels with compelling value for buying Best Western Rewards points, even at the $55 for 10,000 points rate.

In the past two years I have redeemed 180,000 points for 14 reward nights at Best Western hotels. Four of these reward nights were Krakow, Poland and Rome, Italy where each hotel reward night cost 20,000 points and each hotel room rate was $180 (Krakow), $188 (Rome), $188 (Rome), $164 (Rome FCO Airport). These 4 reward nights had a redemption value = $9.00 per 1,000 points. That is equivalent to about $175 savings buying 50,000 points for $275 compared to the room rate.

The real deals were the 10 nights I booked for 100,000 points during the past two Nov-Jan promotions. These ten nights for 10,000 points each were like $55 hotel nights at places with an average room rate of $210 per night. $21 per 1,000 points redemption value was a fantastic deal.

I’d be all in on this deal if I was certain Best Western Rewards would offer the 10,000 points for any hotel in North America promotion again this year. As it stands now, my searches of hotel reward rates for September, October, November, December 2019 and January 2020 turned up very few hotels in places I am considering travel where I found significant reward rate value to buy 50,000 Best Western Rewards points.