Save Money with Daily Getaway Offers (2019)

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Every spring, the U.S. Travel Association operates a promotional event called "Daily Getaways". For each weekday during the promotional period, a different travel company provides one or more special offers. For example, one day may feature special offers from Avis, while another day feature special offers from Marriott.

The Daily Getaways promotion provides an opportunity to take advantage of some unique deals that are only available once per year.

Each offer only has limited availability, and even though not many people know about Daily Getaways, the better offers often sell out immediately.

The basics

If you are interested in any of these offers it is helpful to know some basics.

• You can view the upcoming offers ahead of time. The Daily Getaways website (dailygetaways.ustravel.org) provides a calendar where you can view the next few weeks of offers.
• Each offer has a fixed price and limited availability. If there is still availability, you can make purchase whatever is being made available at the listed price. If a particular offer is attractive, you can purchase more than one. The website codes as a travel purchase, so use a reward card that has a good travel category reward rate.

• Many of the available "certificates" have expiration dates. For example, the Avis "free rental day" certificates must be used within a year. Be careful when buying these certificates as you may not have an opportunity to use them before they expire.
• Each day's offers are available starting at 1pm Eastern Time. You need to be ready to click immediately at 1pm for the most popular offers. Other offers will still be available days later.
• Beware of "blackout dates". Most of the hotel packages are subject to "Blackout Dates". That's fair. It's seems fine to limit the use of the package over Christmas break or other super-peak travel times. The problem is that in many cases the blackout dates for the offer are not specified. You have no way of knowing whether you'll actually have a chance to make a booking when you want to. For example, if you had your heart set on staying at the Loews Santa Monica hotel, you might find that every weekend in the summer is blacked out.

Potentially great offers

The best offers are probably:

• May 15: Choice points. Offers range from 14,000 points for $80 to 55,000 points for $265 or .57 to .48 cents per point. Points are worth more than that. Along with booking hotels within the Choice program, you can use them to book vacation house rentals and many of the hotels in the Preferred Hotels and Resorts program. Guide to the Choice Privileges Program. Book Independent Luxury Hotels with Choice Points.
• May 27: Caesar-brand hotel packages. Most of these packages are very well priced. For example, you can get two nights at the Linq, two tickets to a show at any of the Caesar-owned hotels, two tickets to the high roller ferris wheel, and airport transportation for $350. The normal caveats about unspecified blackout dates and the expiration date apply.
• May 29: Hertz Points. The Hertz reward points you are buying don't have to be used within a year and don't have to be used on a single reservation. You can use these points to get a rental whenever normal prices are high. Expect them to sell out fast.
• May 30: Marriott Points. It is only a 20% discount, but there is no real disadvantage to buying these gift cards. They don't expire and almost everyone will wind up paying for a Marriott-program hotel sometime in the next few years. You might as well pay with a gift card and get 20% off whatever rate you were already able to get.
• June 3: Hyatt Points. Offers range from 24,000 points for $260 to 72,000 points for $775, or less than 1.1 cent per point. This is significantly less our normal value of 1.7 cent per point and much less than the normal purchase price.

Potentially good offers

Depending on your individual travel needs, some of the announced offers might be interesting. Here are some of the noteworthy items (listed by date):

• May 6: IHG points for .5 cents each. Offers range from 10,000 points for $50 to 100,000 points for $500. This is a little lower than the points are normally worth and lower than what you can usually buy them for. However, opportunities to purchase IHG points at this price (and sometimes even lower) come along several times per year. If you don't already have a large balance of IHG points, it is probably worth buying some at this price. But, we wouldn't have any regrets if we didn't jump on it. Guide to the IHG Rewards Club.
• May 7: Luxor hotel package. Most of these MGM packages are simply too expensive. They might save you some money if you wanted exactly the contents of the package and are travelling during an expensive weekend. But most of the time, you can get a better deal elsewhere. However, the Luxor package could conceivably be worth it. The $500 includes a $400 Luxor food credit and 2 tickets to the Blue Man Group (along with the 4 hotel nights). If you don't mind staying and eating at the Luxor, this makes for a very inexpensive trip to Vegas.
• May 10: A variety of Seaworld tickets. All of these are priced below retail, but expire in a year. If you know you need the tickets, you can save some money. If there is any chance you won't get a chance to use them, don't bother.
• May 14: Caesars-brand hotel packages. The less expensive packages are a good deal for most weekends, assuming you are definitely going to have a chance to use them before next July and you like staying at the corresponding hotel. These packages have unspecified blackout dates.
• May 16: Avis rental certificates. Certificates cost $30 and don't include taxes. $30 is less than the base rate on many rentals, and more than the base rate as others. So, you may be able to save money. Just make sure you can use them before they expire in a year.
• May 17: 2 nights at Loews hotels. You can stay 2 nights at some very nice Loews hotels for $275. This will often be considerably lower than the normal rate. However, like the other certificates, you only have a year to use it and it subject to unspecified blackout dates.
• May 22: Omni hotel nights. A variety of certificates are available, but each can only be used with a small set of listed hotels. If you know you will have an opportunity to stay at one of those hotels, these certificates will likely save you some money. But, the selection for each certificate is too limited to purchase otherwise. Be careful—these certificates expire at the end of the 2019. You don't have a full year to use them. Like some of the other certificates, they are subject to unspecified blackout dates.
• May 24: $1000 Orbitz promo code. $650 gets you $1,000 off a hotel reservation at Orbitz. However, once booked, you can't cancel the hotel, and it only works for a single transaction. You'll need to book a single expensive visit to make this certificate worthwhile.

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