Hotel Promotions For Q1 2012

There are a couple of decent hotel promotions running right now for stays through the first quarter of 2012. While not as lucrative as some of the free nights promotions we saw in the past few years, these offers are still relatively worthwhile if you have a couple of stays coming up in the next few months.

• Marriott Rewards is running a MegaMiles promotion right now, where you can earn up to 50,000 bonus miles for stays between January 1 and April 30, 2012. Book your reservation at any of the more than 3,500 participating hotels across all Marriott brands (including Ritz Carlton), and beginning with your second stay, earn 2,000 bonus miles per stay. This is on top of the usual base miles you already earn. Marriott Rewards members must have already chosen miles as their earning option and selected a participating airline prior to registering for this promotion. To maximize your earnings, you should hotel hop whenever there are multiple Marriott brands within one area. Since the bonus is given per stay, the more one-night stays you have, the greater your earnings. With the 50,000 bonus miles limit, you can have a maximum of 26 stays (with 25 of those earning bonus miles) during the promotion period. Register here.

• Hilton HHonors is running a More Points promotion right now, where you can earn 1,000 bonus HHonors points for every night you stay between January 1 and March 31, 2012. Plus, for every weekend stay, you can earn an additional 5,000 bonus points. A "weekend stay" is defined as at least two consecutive nights between Thursday and Sunday. There is no limit to the points you can earn during the promotion period. Click here for a list of non-participating hotels. You will only receive bonus points for the nights completed during the promotion period, so if part of your stay occurs before or after this period, those nights will not earn bonus points. Register here.

Depending on your stay and earning habits, either of these promotions can be rather lucrative. If you have long stays planned for the next few months, the Hilton HHonors More Points promotion would be a great way to earn an unlimited amount of bonus points. For example, a 10-night stay encompassing two weekends would earn 10,000 bonus points for the 10 nights, plus another 10,000 bonus points for the two weekends, resulting in a total of 20,000 bonus points on top of the usual base points earned. 

If you prefer to earn miles or have multiple short stays planned, it would be a better idea to take advantage of the Marriott MegaMiles promotion. This is a great way to earn some extra United Mileage Plus miles since they are one of the participating airlines as well.