If cash is tight for a weekend away, a free night in a hotel can sound like a gift.
Bbut some 'free' beds may be easier to bag than others...
Wine and dine, then sleep for free
If you want a trip to the seaside both the Crown and Swan hotels in Southwold will settle your room bill if you eat in the restaurant.
With this deal you can stay any night from Sunday through to Friday. If you spend a total of £145 in the restaurant, which can include a meal for two, drinks and snacks, you’ll get a classic double room including breakfast worth nearly £200.
And if £145 seems a bit steep for eating out, think of it this way; if splashing out on a special bottle of wine over dinner guarantees you a free bed, you can be looking at under £75 each for an overnight stay plus dinner, breakfast and drinks.
Get 10,000 followers on Instagram
It’s a long way to go for an overnight stay, but Sydney’s 1888 boutique hotel www.1888hotel.com.au is offering a free night’s stay worth around £100 to Instagram users with 10,000 followers.
All you need to do is rack up the correct number of followers, ‘follow’ @8hotels and email them. Having checked Twitter, there’s plenty of people claiming to have bagged this deal already, so you’ll need to be quick as there’s a limit on the number of free rooms on offer.
Switch banks or energy suppliers
In my mission to find more ‘free night’ deals I stumbled across onenightfree.co.uk, which seemed to offer a free night's hotel stay for two people with no strings attached.
You might be forgiven for thinking you’ve struck gold here, as there’s even a logo flagging up the fact that there’s ‘no obligation to dine’. As most deals mean spending at least a few quid in the restaurant or bar I wondered what the catch was?
Further down at the bottom of the page was the deal breaker; as it claims if you’re ‘entitled to book’ one of these deals, you’ll receive ‘notification’ by post along with a unique voucher.
On contacting the company behind this offer I discovered it arranges customer incentives, that are used by insurers, energy suppliers and banks, as a reward for new customers.
While a free hotel room worth up to around £100 a night sounds great, it’s obviously only a good deal if you’ve switched companies for the right reasons.
Of course you can compare all the best deals on insurance, energy and bank accounts with lovemoney.co.uk!
Join the club
Shelling out a few quid for a ‘membership’ card which then means free hotel stays all year round can sound like a great deal.
Travel Offers will sell you a Privilege Pass for £39.95 a year, but while you can book a ‘free’ room, you’ll need to make a minimum ‘food spend’ while you’re there.
On calling up as a prospective customer I was told the average hotel room costs £35-£50 per person per night, but the minimum food spend can be between £30 and £60 per person. And that’s just food, it doesn't include your drinks.
So with this deal your food bill could actually outweigh the ‘value’ of your accommodation, and that's before you factor in the cost of your pass.
If you’re on a tight budget I reckon you could be better off booking a cheap and cheerful B&B for the night or even a Travelodge, and using some vouchers for chains like Pizza Express or Zizzi instead.
Write a hotel review
[SPOTLIGHT]Become an undercover ‘mystery shopper’ and your assignments can include staying in hotels for free. In return you’ll be expected to write a detailed review of your stay, which may cover issues like customer service, the dining experience and state of your room. In most cases you can take a friend or partner along too.
You can’t rely on this to get a weekend break on demand as assignments may be infrequent but it’s still a way to enjoy a free impromptu weekend away. Check out mystery shopping companies like Marketforce or ITS Incognito.
Shop at Tesco
You can swap your Tesco Clubcard points for up to three times their value when exchanging them for hotel vouchers for chains including Marriott, Britannia, Classic Lodges, Best Western and Barceló hotels.
Every £10 in tokens gets you £30 in vouchers, but the advice on the site is to call first to check availability. And with most of the ones I looked at you’ve got to stay a minimum of two nights over a weekend.
So while you could argue this isn’t technically a ‘free’ room as you’re paying in Tesco tokens, if you’re a regular shopper you’ll easily accumulate these with your shopping at no extra cost.
It's not just Clubcard though. You can exchange Nectar points for money off at Expedia, while everyone from American Express to Barclaycard have their own reward schemes, where points can be exchanged for free holidays.
For a run down of the best reward credit cards, check out The best reward credit cards.
Stay several nights
Lots of places offer the traditional ‘free’ night deal if you commit to booking several nights there. This means you’ll usually need to stay at least two nights before you can bag another one free, but with some deals you’ll need to say six nights before getting a seventh free of charge.
More on travel:
British Airways extends cheaper, hand-luggage-only fares
Unusual laws and customs to watch out for on holiday
The best websites for bargain holidays
How to avoid blowing your holiday budget
The best prepaid cards for spending abroad