Originally Posted by
jennbar
Thank you so much for this info!
It has been really amazing to help me evaluate what is going on.
Real quick, the reason for the conference price is because they were booked through the 3rd party very fast and therefore, in order to stay where the conference is, I had to go through Marriott. That was the main reason I wanted to try to get Gold because it would make the price worth the benefits. However, being that the Grand Hyatt is a block away and I can get it for around $250/night with the 3rd party travel planners, I believe that I will do so and stay with Hyatt.
That will give me points with Hyatt, and probably Diamond if I can do the challenge being a member, as I would be able to meet the required nights. I will inquire with them!
I'm a bit confused. Who are the 3rd party travel planners?
Corp travel dep't, travel agency? You'd get points if booking through them. If you're looking at something like Expedia, Hotwire, etc, as 3rd party travel planners you
don't get points for stays booked through them, so be really careful you're not booking something you won't get points for!
If there is a conference at the Marriott, call the Marriott 800# & give them your dates & the name of the conference & tell them to book you at the conference rate, not rack rate (or if the conference is using a housing bureau, book through them). The only way that wouldn't work is if it's close to the conference time & the conference released its room block to general inventory. I had a client earlier this year that was booking a property (non chain-affiliated) this year for a convention. The convention had negotiated a rate of $269 w/ the property. The client's secretary called the property directly & was quoted $559 by the property. I told her to cancel the $559 booking, call the convention housing bureau & book the $269 rate.
According to
peteropny, Hyatt won't do a Diamond status match for you so that's off the table. Are you going to be able to get 50 nights at Hyatt by end of year to actually get Diamond status? If so, then try to focus on Hyatt. If you won't get the 50 by year-end, then just stay at whichever is more convenient/has the best rates/promos through end of year (doing the gold challenge if you'll be at Marriott), & work on a game plan to get Gold w/ Marriott or Diamond w/ Hyatt for 2014.
Again, the credit card is relatively irrelevant to the discussion as both Hyatt & Marriott get you silver/platinum status. I think Marriott's credit card is better than Hyatt's in terms of what you get with it.
https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/mar...Q15-1t1-VQ16-c Note there is a 70K bonus point offering for Marriott too. The one thing that's true, whether you use a Hyatt or Visa card, is to put everything you can on it, not just hotel stays, to build up your points balance.
Cheers.