How to earn FREE hotel stay and FREE car rental

This might be not new to you, but it was my first time getting a FREE trip! Yes! Practically free! :D If you travel for business or leisure often and regularly, and have not been staying "loyal" to where you stay...then you might be missing out on something. What do I mean by that? For example, when you go traveling, do you tend to stay in Marriott-brand hotels - eg Marriott, Courtyard, Residence Inn etc ? Then you should get a Marriott reward card or be a member, accumulate your hotel/motel stay as points in which you can redeem later on. For this trip, we use hoobie's Priority Club Rewards since he has been staying in one of their hotels whenever he goes on business trips. More than 25,000 have been chalked up and we were delighted when we found one motel (at Utah) - Holiday Inn Express, that is redeemable at 10, 000 points per night.

We never enjoyed any freebies as Krisflyer frequent travelers because we were not so street-smart then. We never really took a good look at the airline and non-airline partners and earn miles across the partners. Seriously, I think hotel rewards might be easier to earn for free hotel stays. For example, try looking at Priority Club Rewards, they have a wide range of hotels. I think Hilton and Marriott brand has a wide array of hotels/motels and lodges/inns too. If you are already earning many points using your frequent flyer card (usually with air carrier), then continue doing that and even try to earn miles with hotel stays. If not, then get a hotel rewards card should be good enough to earn your next FREE stay! :D

In short, just be consistent and loyal and start...being smart.