Happy,

Each of your responses gets more interesting and helpful.

It would be fascinating to see how you calculated your October trip. I did quite a bit of figuring and the 35% off + 5th night free seemed like a good offer.

You can see the calculations here.

Hotel stay comparisons

I think something people often forget in their calculations is that spending money also earns money, through points.

So in my sheet in the Hotels tab, you will see 5 nights in Westin SF, I have used 40,000 pts. I'm valuing pts at $0.03 each. Several calculations indicate this is a good number. So the cost for those nights is $240 / night. There is no C+P at SF Westin these nights. Best cash is $238.46 / night. So the points seem like a good deal. But, don't forget that I will earn 206[rate]x5[SPG amex+plat] points per night if I pay all cash, so $30.90/night, so real cost is $207.54/night. In this case I still go with points because a slight variation in points value would make these equal. If I were only staying 1 - 4 nights so it would be $300 / night in points, than I would definitely go with the cash or some other option.

For the Hawaii option, I calculate it out at $201.34 net cost per night, including all taxes, resort fees. If I also guess we spend $750 in resort food, maybe high, though we do like room service, then we save an additional $240. Plus we get 4 more nights free at that resort. [This has all already been booked]. Plus we may get a free bump in room because of Platinum, though I understand this is high season and may not get it. Can always try the $100 to service person option.

How much are you spending? What hotel? How long?

Thanks for the feedback.