Hotels.com vs. Westin

[kristenrice]

I'm looking to book a room for this Friday night at the Westin in Itasca, IL. I see that hotels.com offers 3% while the Westin site only offers 1%.

After looking at both sites, I see that the base price for the room is the same on both, but the total price is about $10 cheaper at hotels.com. Why would that be? It seems too good to be true that it is triple the cashback AND $10 cheaper.

Is there any reason to choose one over the other? I would like to book the room by tomorrow so any advice would be great.

[kristenrice]

Well, I chose to book through the Westin.com site, just to be safe.

The hotel was beautiful! It was just an overnight trip with me and my DD's, ages 5 and 7. My sister works in St. Charles, IL although her "home" is here in Michigan. Her husband and daughter (age 2) still live in the house here and my sister has an apartment in St. Charles. (They haven't been able to sell the house since her job relocation). So, since my sister works about 30 minutes away, I brought my niece along to so she could get some much-needed face time with her mommy.

We arrived around 1:30 and they had a room ready for us. The agent at check in asked if I wanted a king bed (as I'd requested) or 2 doubles (seeing the three girls with me). I told her a king was fine and I also requested a rollaway if they had one available. She said no problem and then asked us which floor we'd like, high or low. I asked for a lower floor and she put us on the 6th! I guess that is low since I think there were about 14!

The room was huge! 400 sq ft! It made the 32" TV look small though. We walked in, put our luggage down, and I'd realized I'd left my cell phone in the car. So, we took each other by the hand and started out the door. We passed housekeeping AT THE DOORSTEP, when they arrived with our rollaway! They nearly beat us to the room and I had only just requested one. I was impressed.

We swam in the pool for about 30 minutes. Although it was indoors, the water was cold. The windows weren't even steaming up! The hot tub, OTOH, was scalding hot. Since we couldn't find a happy medium, and DN's teeth were chattering, we made it a brief swim.

The beds....OMG!! They aren't kidding when they call them "Heavenly"! Even the little rollaway was like lying on a cloud! DD5 slept on that while DD7 and I shared the king bed. (DNiece stayed with her mom!)

We spent Friday evening at Woodfield Mall with my sister. I had to get my Disney fix! We started with dinner at Rainforest Cafe....first time for my sister and niece. Then, off to the Doorway to Dreams store to take a little DVC walk-thru. I don't own at BLT, but those 1BR's look nice. I still think the studio is too small for our family, though. After that....duh...the Disney Store! I added some money to my DDs' gift cards (DD7 has Hercules and DD5 has Princess and the Frog) for our upcoming trip to HHI. I could have gone crazy in that store (which is why DH was glad when our store closed) but I restrained myself and didn't buy a thing.

Then, it was back to the hotel for some sleep time. I can't believe that we were all asleep by 11pm (10pm local). I am always awake until at least midnight, if not later. I tell you, it must be the beds! We ordered room service as a special treat in the morning. The kids shared an order of pancakes and I had the best omelet I've ever had! 3 egg whites, chicken sausage, cheddar cheese, baby spinach and tomatoes! YUMMY!

We packed up and headed off to St. Charles to get my DNiece and take her back with us to Michigan. It was a great weekend! I was so proud of my girls who have some "behavioral problems". They were so helpful and we only had 2 minor incidences of defiance. They obeyed and didn't fight at all the entire time. It was bliss!

But, now I am back home and back to reality. I have to work tomorrow and Monday and, of course, we are now under a Winter Storm Warning. I'm not looking forward to driving around for 28 hours over the next two days....

[~Kathie]

Sounds like you had a great time and nice your niece got to spend time with her Mommy.

[pbhall13]

thanks for the heads up on this. I will be taking my oldest dd to a dance convention next weekend, boston waterfront location, and decided to check the prices thru sunshine (didn't realize there was a link). found a price on westin.com a bit lower than the convention price I paid!! Looking forward to trying out those heavenly beds!!!!
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Glad you had a nice trip!!

[mollyeilis]

Good to know!

I wanted to answer positively for hotels.com, as I have had good credits in the past, but I was about to make two MORE TTs with them when you posted.

I've just, 5 minutes ago, gotten some faith back, as one different credit is now pending. 3 out of 4 recent stays have trouble tickets out, but the one makes me happiER with them...


Westin Heavenly Beds are the BEST.