I’ve always been annoyed by the process of finding hotels at per diem rates in DC. I’ve only had to do it a few times, as I started out as a local hire (where you get no per diem) and I bought a house in DC in conjunction with long-term training. While waiting to close on the house, we needed to find a per-diem hotel that allowed pets, which significantly narrowed the field (I highly recommend staying at a Kimpton hotel if traveling with pets). Now, I’m heading back for a three-day training at FSI and I wanted a place to stay. While all the major chains allow you to choose the Government/Military rate after you’ve settled on a property, if their rate is unavailable or higher than per diem, you have to go all the way back to the search results. It would be easy enough for all the hotel chains to simply put the option on the search page, but instead all built “special” search pages which I’ve collected here:

• Hilton
• Marriott
• Choice Hotels
• Intercontinental Hotels
• Best Western

Wyndham offers the discount as well, but not in the DC area so I’m not including them. I prefer Hilton and Marriott, mostly on the strength of their rewards programs. You can always check FedRooms.com or the list of Hotels at Per Diem, but neither is inclusive and both sites will return all hotels that offer the rate – whether the rate is available for your specified travel dates or not. Kind of defeats the purpose, no? 

This spring brought moans to the halls of FSI…no more business class on PCS flights over 14 hours. Yes, a great gnashing of teeth…but frankly it makes sense: business class from LAX to New Delhi costs $4800/ticket and the contract fare is ~$900. Throw in a rest stop and they’re still saving over $3800 per ticket. But spread along with the moaning was a falsehood: no upgrades are possible. That’s wrong. There are several ways to upgrade part or all of your trip, and I’ll get into them below. Hang on…this is going to be a long post. Read more on this Article!