Free parking at Harrah's casino? - New Orleans Forum ...

Hey everyone,
I'm about to leave to go to Southeast Asia for a long time, and in preparation I had to drive from San Diego to Washington DC. I decided to make a nice road trip out of it, and discovered that the IHG PointBreaks hotels were conveniently located in middle of nowhere locations right on my route!
I first drove from San Diego through the desert to Deming NM to stay at the HIE there. I got a very late start, and arrived around 4 am. The guy at the front desk was very nice about it, and even had me authorized to stay in until noon the next day so I could sleep past the check-in time of 12. I didn't make it up in time for the breakfast though. The city of Deming is kind of cute in an old west way, though there's not too much worth stopping for. Apparently there's a pretty good museum but I didn't have time to see it.
Next I drove to the HIE in Schulenburg TX. It was fun to drive in West Texas as the roads are very straight and empty, and the scenery is quite nice. I also arrived pretty late, around 2 am. However hurricane Harvey had just hit the area and the internet everywhere was down, so he said it was good I was using an award night because their credit card machines were unusable. The elevator also had a sign that said "use at your own discretion" because I guess they had lost electricity earlier. I also remember the tap water tasting very bad, both at the hotel and at restaurants. I don't know if this was due to the hurricane or if they just have bad water. If you ever stop near Schulenburg, there is basically nothing there unless you go to see the painted churches, which were closed while I was there. However beer is pretty cheap. I stayed there two nights, as I was originally planning a rest day during which I would visit Franklin BBQ in Austin, though I discovered it had burned down in a fire a few days before...
Next I drove to New Orleans. I went through flooded areas of Beaumont TX and learned that I should not trust Google to give me directions through such areas, as I ended up having to drive my tiny BMW through standing water among all the giant pickup trucks. Luckily nothing happened to the car but it's something I'm going to try to avoid doing in the future. However it was nice to see the Hervey response: there were a lot of soldiers helping out, and a lot of random people in huge pickup trucks were driving around looking for people to rescue. Somehow I made it through and was on my way through Louisiana.
New Orleans is where I kind of cheated on my PointBreaks trip. I had 3 free Ritz Carlton night certificates from the sign up bonus and decided to use them here, since I'll be in Asia without very good redemption options until they expire. The Ritz was very nice; they gave me a room on the 9th floor with a very nice view, and the location really can't be beat, right on the edge of the French quarter just a few minutes' walk from (and yet still far enough from) Bourbon st. They also gave me a complimentary pastry and coffee from the coffee cart in the lounge, which was surprisingly good (I used to work in luxury hotels and realized a lot of them have very bad pastries). They also have live jazz in their lounge which is free to watch for anyone, though you are welcome to drop a lot of money for their cocktails. The building is also quite beautiful. Pro tip for parking in NOLA: you can park for free at Harrah's if you gamble for 30 minutes per day. I just played penny slots and lost $2.50 over the course of 3 days, which sure beats the $45 per day parking rate at the Ritz Carlton.
In case you're interested, there was in fact a PointBreaks hotel kind of close to New Orleans, but it was across the lake and it would have been very inconvenient for having fun there.
For the next place I ideally wanted to stay at Staybridge Suites in Knoxville, but it was fully booked, so I went with the Holiday Inn Express in Milledgeville GA. This place was interesting because the door was locked at night and I had to get someone to ring me in. Again, I woke up too late for breakfast and completed my trip by driving to Washington DC. For what it's worth, Milledgeville might actually be worth a day trip if you're in the area; there are quite a lot of historical things to see. However it was labor day and everything was closed.
All of the HIE hotels were around $90-100 per night, and of course they all cost me 5000 points per night. The Ritz Carlton new orleans I believe was around $270 per night on the weekend and $190 on the weekdays. All the Holiday Inns were what you'd expect: clean, comfortable, nice place to crash for a night. However it seems after redeeming awards for nicer hotels I've become spoiled by nice toiletries, and I was kind of disappointed by the soap and shower gel. I'd say Milledgeville had the nicest Holliday Inn, with Deming being last. At Deming and Schulenburg, they thanked me for being a platinum member, but not at Milledgeville (not a big deal to be but just for the record). Also interesting to note is that my IHG profile states that I prefer high level floors, and in Deming and Milledgeville I got rooms on the top floor (though it was just the 4th).
Anyway it was a pretty awesome road trip and I got to explore places I would have never heard of if there were not PointBreaks hotels there!