Week 2 of Daily Getaways for 2015
“Save Now. Getaway Later†is the catchphrase of the US Travel Association’s Daily Getaways. They’ve been offering their Daily Getaway travel deals and packages on weekdays, from March 23 through April 24, 2015. Here’s a quick glance at this coming week’s calendar and tomorrow’s offer.
Here’s a link to the main Daily Getaways page, and one with the calendar for the week –
The packages go on sale each day at 1pm EST. In years past, popular packages have sold out in what seemed like mere seconds. I’d get my laptop all set up and on the right page, credit card in hand, and click the link. It’d take a few times of refreshing before I’d get to quickly enter my payment details to purchase. One time I forgot to step out of a meeting, and 5 minutes later I went online to find I’d missed out entirely. However, less popular packages are often still available days after they go on sale. Here are the ones still available from last week –
Here’s a link to purchase.
Regardless, my advice is to be online and ready to purchase a few minutes before a package goes on sale, if it is one you want to purchase.
Tomorrow’s packages are for Best Western Rewards points.
Here’s a link to follow if interested in purchasing. The deal will be available starting at 1pm EST tomorrow March 30, 2015.
There are 835 packages available, at $55 per set of 10,000 Rewards points. There is a maximum of 5 that can be purchased per person.
If you were to purchase the maximum of 5 packages it would cost you $275 for 50,000 Best Western Rewards points. This price is down from the offering in 2014, which was $325.
To purchase Best Western Rewards points directly from their website it is at a rate of 1,000 points for $10, with a maximum of 20,000 points per transaction. So how good of a deal is this Daily Getaways points purchase?
Best Western Rewards redemption levels are as follows:
Level 1 – 8,000
Level 2 – 12,000
Level 3 – 16,000
Level 4 – 20,000
Level 5 – 24,000
Level 6 – 28,000
Level 7 – 32,000
Level 8 – 36,000
Unfortunately the website does not offer a list of properties by redemption level. It only allows you to search for redemptions by individual city.
Checking a handful of different cities and prices per night, I found that the majority only had properties in lower categories and prices under the $145 range per night so the savings were minimal at best if calculating out the cost for redeeming points. I did find exceptions in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and San Diego though.
In conclusion, it looks like this is a good opportunity only if you know what city you want to stay in and have confirmed that the cost for the Daily Getaways Best Western Rewards points is less than the rate you’d pay when simply booking the hotel online.
Also, it used to be that using any American Express card to purchase a Daily Getaways deal gave you 10% off any of the packages. Unfortunately Amex isn’t a sponsor this year so that is not an option.
Overall, the Daily Getaways packages for this week don’t look very enticing, but there are still some good options available.
As a reminder, availability of some offers is limited. If any of the packages interest you be ready to purchase right at 1pm EST on that day. Good luck!
