Originally Posted by
wharvey
What this does for me is just guarantees that I will use Priceline for more and more stays.
For example, I am at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Warwick, RI this week. On their site, each night would be $115. I got it on priceline.com (and pretty much knew it would be this hotel) for $34 a night. Tell me why I would not drive to priceline? Especially given the major devaluation of points that is going on during this economic crisis.
Just makes no sense.
Same boat here. Mine was $125 for a mid-week multi-night stay at the Homewood Chapel Hill, vs. $55 for PL where I was awarded the same property. I am going to have to do a couple of Hilton mattress runs for Diamond, and it's such a low bar that I'd be stupid not to do it. [Amazingly, I'm using my PL savings from multi-night stays earlier in the year to fund it, and I'm still ahead of the game.]
Most places I visit for work are smaller cities where the price has inflated over the last 4-5 years from $80+tax up to $119+tax. At this point, after 1/1, I'm going to be inclined (if there is no Hyatt) to bid up to $65/3.5* and $50/3* across the board.
Will I unilaterally give up Hilton? No.
Will I drop from Diamond to Gold? Most likely.
Will I drop from Diamond to Silver? Maybe, but depends on work travel patterns.
Will I move spending from AMEX Hilton to AMEX SPG? Already done.