I always maintain diamond on my own dime. As a matter of fact, I think over my entire diamond life (over 10 years) I may have done 1 stay on my company's dime. Some years it may mean doing 20 mattress runs and often I start early in the year so I'm not running around in the fall when I know how many real stays I'll have.

It was only last year that I actually made it on nights via my vacations.

You have to do the math and see how much you're paying for the upgrades and perks. For me, it's always less expensive to do mattress runs and get the nice upgrades on vacation than to pay for them out of pocket, particularly if you factor in the cost of the RCs.