Business travel: doesn't matter. Just give me high floor, away from elevator, right bed type, nonsmoking. A handful of times in my life, I've been given massive Presidential suites for solo travel. I've genuinely wished there was a way to find a family staying in the hotel and swap rooms with them.

Personal travel: it becomes very important, enough so that I'm likely to select a property or chain based on how much I think they will value my elite status when it comes to room assignments and other benefits.

We have this question often on FT: which would you rather have, an airline operational upgrade (long-haul) or an awesome hotel suite once you reach the destination? My non-answer answer is that it varies depending on how many of us are traveling and what kind of hotel stay it will be. A week at a beach resort for 4 of us traveling, we'll slum it in coach one night to get 7 nights in the suite. City stay for just me or even just my wife and I, then I'll take the airline upgrades...