Sometimes Deals Aren’t So Great

The hubby and I subscribe to a Marriott Visa. Every year that we paid the fee, we got a free hotel room at a Class 5 or lower hotel. At the time the fee was significantly less than the cost of a Class 5 hotel, so we continued to renew.

We enjoyed free stays in Pittsburgh (one trip to see a free hockey game and one trip for a Steelers pre-season game) and a free stay in Cleveland (to see an Indians game). These were nice hotels in the city so we only had to pay (or not) for one parking lot and then walk to the stadiums (and around the city). So, we started looking to see where we would like to go this year (remember me asking for suggestions?). There is a pre-season Steelers game that looked promising, so I checked to see if there were rooms at the hotel we like to stay at.

Well… apparently Marriott re-classed their hotels. The hotel we’ve stayed at in Pittsburgh used to be a Class 5. It’s now a Class 6. In fact, there aren’t any Class 5 or lower hotels in Pittsburgh (or any other large city near us), unless we wanted to stay near the airport (which we don’t).

That Marriott Visa doesn’t look like such a good deal anymore, so after we use our free stay (wherever that may be), we’ll be canceling the card.

Kind of pissed me off, though. I really enjoyed staying in Pittsburgh. We liked to walk over to Peppi’s for their wonderful subs (my husband likes the Rothlisburger sub). It was the perfect weekend getaway. I’m going to miss those Pittsburgh weekend trips because I’m certainly not going to pay over $200/night for a hotel room. I do have my limits.

Still have a weekend trip to plan, though, and we have a trip to Racine, WI coming up. Seems my daughter has a footy tournament of some sort going on there on July 11th. I’ve never been to Racine. Should be fun. The 2 Marriott hotels in town are Class 4 or lower, so we could use our free room. We’ll see.

So… Have you ever been to Racine? I see they’re famous for their Kringles (I’m thinking of you, B.E. Sanderson!). I’ll definitely have to try one of those. I only know about the city because of the movie, “A League of Their Own.” I wonder if the stadium where the women’s baseball team played is still there. That would be neat to see.

Have a great weekend!

Stacy