Choice Hotels International has launched its widest reaching travel promotion yet. Now through April 30, 2010, when members of the company’s Choice Privileges rewards program complete just two separate qualifying stays, they’ll automatically earn enough bonus points for a free night at more than 1,500 hotels across the globe. To qualify, members must book at 800.4CHOICE or ChoiceHotels.com.

Choice Hotels International Spring 2010 Promotion good at the above brands

Choice Privileges members can participate at any Choice-brand hotel in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe.* Participating Choice brands include: Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion, Cambria Suites, MainStay Suites, Suburban Extended Stay, Econo Lodge and Rodeway Inn as well as the Ascend Collection membership program. Read More »

Cambria Suites, the all-suites brand from Choice Hotels, recently conducted a survey which shows that there is very little hotel guests won’t do to get a suite upgrade.

Cambria Suites Indianapolis Airport

Lying about being on a honeymoon and sweet-talking front-desk staff were at the top of a list of sneaky methods used by guests to con a hotel into giving them a suite upgrade.

Some were even willing to cut other travel expenses in order to upgrade to a suite. If they got an upgrade:-

• 46% said travel would be less stressful
• 23% said they’d feel like they died and went to heaven
• 20% would never want to leave their hotel suite

Of course travel would be less stressful and you’d never want to leave a suite in a nice romantic hotel, especially if said suite was ‘acquired’ in a free upgrade.

And once they get their wish and got inside the suite, the same survey also found that the top 10 amenities that guests expect in the suite are Read More »

Choice Hotels iPhone App

I am in a mixed marriage — I like to plan and he doesn’t. Depending on the trip, sometimes we do it my way. And sometimes we do it wrong.

Wrong means we don’t make hotel reservations in advance, hoping to find a deal, a hidden gem, an exciting and hopefully clean adventure.

More than once on the “wrong” trips, we’ve been caught cruising down the freeway in the dark, looking for the rescue lights of a Motel 6 or Comfort Inn on the side of the road.

If you do this kind of thing, then you know the next chapter. After 25, then 35, then 50 miles of dark freeway, suffering through low-blood sugar fights and the compelling need for a ladies room, you spy a hotel motel kind of scary lodging-type building on the horizon.

You tell yourself that horror movies in out-of-the way hotels are fiction, just silly make-believe. You check in, strip the bedspread off the bed and spend a twitchy night hoping you don’t feel bed bugs.

The worst part is that the next morning you drive two more miles down the road and find a cornucopia of real hotels — with ice machines, coffee makers and soap — from which to choose. If only there was a way to find these places when you’re on the go!

Thank you iPhone, now there is.

Choice Hotels, the lovely people behind reliable no-frills names like Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Econo Lodge and more, have a new, free iPhone app that lets you:

• Search hotels and make reservations
• View and change reservations
• Contact customer support
• Quickly locate hotels closest to your location
• GPS mapping from you to your hotel
• View photos of hotels

Needless to say, I immediately downloaded it to my iPhone. I’ll never have to stay at another Serial Killer Lodge again! Get your own at the Apple site App Store.

Image: iPhone App Store