Summertime Hotel Discounts

With summer coming on and auto touring plans being made, here are two more hotel chains with mature discounts, along with some updates on earlier travel topics covered here.

Red Lion Inns, a fine hotel chain with 54 owned or managed first-class properties in nine Western states, has a “prime time rate” of 20% off regular rates for those age 50 or over.

That’s down from the 25% discount the chain offered when it started the program a year ago. And Red Lion also offers 15% off in its dining rooms.

One of the newest in the chain is the $50-million Fess Parker Red Lion Resort Hotel in Santa Barbara. The actor (formerly TV’s Daniel Boone) and Santa Barbara developer is co-owner of the property with Red Lion Inns. The 360-room resort takes up 24 acres just across East Cabrillo Boulevard on Santa Barbara’s main beach.

For more information: Red Lion Inns, P.O. Box 1027, Vancouver, Wash. 98666; phone (800) 547-8010.

The senior discount on tours offered by Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays noted here earlier as due to end June 3 has been extended to run through the summer and fall until Dec. 18.

The discounts are for those age 60 and over for any of the tour operator’s many programs, ranging from four to 16 days and including eight categories of hotels. For information, check with any travel agent or call (800) 2-HAWAII.

For World War II veterans interested in taking another crack at Europe, here’s still another tour operator in addition to the several others that were mentioned here over the last few months.

Northstar Tours of Lakeville, Minn., has two tours: a 13-day “Invasion Tour of Europe,” Sept. 23 to Oct. 5, $2,395 from the West Coast, including places such as Normandy, Cologne, Paris, Malmedy, Remagen, St. Vith, Bastogne, Luxembourg, the Ardennes and others. The second is a “Victory Tour of Europe,” Oct. 9-22, a 14-day excursion that includes stops in Frankfurt, Nuremburg, Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps; Berchtesgaden, Vienna, Prague and Lidice in Czechoslovakia, and East and West Berlin, among others. Price: $2,795 from the West Coast. For more information: Northstar Tours, Box 810, Lakeville, Minn. 55044-0810; phone (800) 344-9898.

La Quinta Motor Inns is a fast-growing chain based in San Antonio, with almost 200 properties across 29 states, including 10 either open or soon to open in California. The rest are scattered mostly through the Southern states, with Texas having the biggest spread--including one in Nacogdoches, if you’re planning to visit there soon.

The chain offers a 15% discount for seniors--but to La Quinta, that’s anyone age 50 or over.

Since the chain owns and operates all the properties, that discount is year-round for all rooms at all inns, with only a few exceptions.

For more information: La Quinta Motor Inns, P.O. Box 32064, San Antonio, Tex. 78216; phone (800) 531-5900.

In last week’s column about exchange in home stays on the Seniors Abroad visit to Japan Oct. 5-26, the cost figure should have read $1,875. For more information, contact Seniors Abroad, 12533 Pacato Circle North, San Diego 92128.