Originally Posted by
ATLawyer
Where in the Ts&Cs does it say that you cannot earn eligible stay credit for more than one hotel per night? I don't see it in there. I see 3 conditions for a stay: (1) provide your SPG number, (2) pay an eligible rate, and (3) "stay" in at least one of the rooms.
Oddly, the term "stay" is not defined, but I would strongly disagree with your contention that a person can only "stay" at one room per night.
I have on several occasions booked multiple rooms at multiple hotels in the same city for the same night. Usually I use one for hospitality and one to sleep in. There is nothing in the Ts&Cs which would prevent me from receiving credit for both rooms--I am not circumventing any program rules and have legit reasons for having each room.
So, to OP, (1) it's not against the Ts&Cs to have 2 rooms at different hotels in the same city on the same night and (2) I see nothing in the Ts&Cs which would prevent you from receiving credit for both.
This all comes down to what it meas to "stay" in a room. Does it mean to use it during that night? I can legitimately use lots of rooms in 1 night. Does it mean to sleep there during 1 night? Again, I can sleep in several different rooms/hotels in 1 night. Does it mean the place you are sleeping at midnight? What happens if I'm at a bar at midnight and not sleeping?
SPG has long had rules against credit for multiple hotels on the same night. At one point they used to have rules that prevented stay credit for consecutive nights in the same geography (hotel hopping).
The program was designed for rewarding credit for stays by the member, not just room bookings. This prevents gaming of the system by booking rooms to family/friends/coworkers and consolidating the credit to a singular account, like a company taking the credit for all their employee stays.
Yes, there will be exceptions, but I do believe the corner cases are rare enough that manual intervention is adequate recovery. What the OP ended up doing might qualify as an exception, but getting a CSR to see it that way could be a challenge. It is not in the spirit of the program even if there is no specific rule about it.