In 2001 and 2002, HH had promotions that awarded 50,000 bonus points for 4 stays. There were maybe a half-dozen different promo codes going, and they would sign you up for one right after the other.

I did 16 stays and earned about 250,000 HH points. I hotel-hopped all over Tampa a couple of times while on business, plus did a few of my own Hampton stays to finish off the promos. (It was an excuse to do a couple of weekend roadtrips to some interesting rural locations. ) Total revenue was about $2k, total cost out of my pocket was probably $300 or so for the personal Hampton stays.

This is the one time since the inception of Priceline where I've seen a hotel promo actually be more lucrative than Priceline - if you can fit it into your pattern of stays and if you actually want to go to Hawaii.

Now the 50k promos are gone and it costs 75% more HH points to go to Hawaii (up from 100k to 175k for 6 free nights). I would imagine that it would you 6x or 8x more revenue now to earn the 350k points you'd now need to do this trip.

[This message has been edited by pinniped (edited 07-21-2003).]