Best Western is running a free night promo through April 11, with additional point giveaway opportunities just for registering.

The offer is: Stay three times by April 11 and earn a free night voucher good at any Best Western in the U.S., Canada, or Carribean valid through June 30. (Registration is required prior to qualifying stays in order to count towards the promo.)

Then they have three additional ‘kickers’ on top:

• If you pay for three stays with a Best Western Rewards Mastercard, you’ll earn an additional 1000 bonus points.
  
• If your three stays are at two (or three) different ‘brand descriptors’ of Best Western, you receive an additional 6,500 bonus points.
  
• A daily prize drawing from among those who have registered, they are giving away between 6500 and 260,000 points each day, and also Lifetime Diamond Elite status.

What I love to see is programs that used to be a whole lot less active in the promotion space really ramping up. And Best Western has added these ‘Brand Descriptors’ to better communicate to consumers what to expect from their properties. I admit, I’m not really a Best Western kind of guy the way I usually think of their offerings, though I’ve certainly stayed at Best Westerns when my travels take me to the sorts of towns where they represent the high end.

Their new ‘descriptors’ are a quick way to differentiate their products, they have so many hotels and the experience does vary widely. Of course, internet searches help too and the typical photos off of Tripadvisor, but this is still a useful start. Here’s how they describe the different experiences:

BEST WESTERN hotels are midscale … are rated two- or three-diamond from AAA/CAA, and offer free high-speed Internet, often free breakfast and parking, free local calls less than 30 minutes, and a free-of-charge publicly-accessible computer with Internet access.

BEST WESTERN PLUS hotels .. are upper midscale hotels that offer ..updated furnishings, high-quality bedding, upgraded bath amenities and select sundry items.

BEST WESTERN PREMIER hotels … are upscale hotels that offer .. deluxe bath amenities, premium linens and towels, and typically 42-inch LCD or plasma televisions. BEST WESTERN PREMIER hotels also offer … on-site dining, a concierge and turn-down service.

We’ll see how valuable this is to me the next time I’m in Tucson, Joplin, or Fayetteville North Carolina. But any time they want to promote themselves with free nights, I’m game, especially when the free nights are valid anywhere. And especially when the rest of the industry is seeing enough of an upturn in business that they’ve been less generous with their promos compared to last year.

Still, I wish you had the ability to earn more than one night under the promo, and also wish that the redemption period was longer. Baby steps, I suppose.