For those folks who are willing to go the chain hotels route when they're looking for something budget-friendly with air con and wifi included, France-based Accor hotels has partnered with SSI to let you collect hotel points through their program.
SSI runs a few other of these programs and I've used the ones for United and Jet Blue airlines without issue other than it can take 5-7 tries to qualify for a survey at times. System is set up to let you complete 4-5 surveys a day. The first batch of points will typically take 48-72 hours to post to an account and from there the points post almost instantly from SSI's end.
Accor's program is set up so that 2,000 points can be redeemed for a €40 stackable voucher and a lot of their budget category hotels (ie. the assorted Ibis types) will run in the €40-70 range in off peak times. And since Accor is pretty off the radar for most Americans, your fellow guests are going to largely be European and Aussie sorts.