I know the people who earn status by staying for months in a hotel at someone else's expense despise the lowly CC holders, but as someone who works for a living in a job that does not involve travel, I could not afford to spend 60-100+ nights a year in $250/night hotel. I am clearly not the target audience for hotel chains as an individual, but I would venture to guess that there are a lot more people like me out there than there are road warriors (especially as companies continue to restrict and minimize travel budgets).

I honestly almost never stayed in a big chain hotel until I stumbled across the wonderful world of CC status and bonuses. I do spend at least 20-25 nights a year on vacation, and do typically pay $200-300 a night when staying in a chain hotel, but the locations are varied and often in places where loyalty to a single chain is not possible. In the five years since I started collecting hotel CC's, I have gone from maybe 5% of my stays in big chains to about 85% in chains.

Hilton matched me from Hyatt Platinum to Hilton Diamond this year. While I will admit that it seemed like a stretch, the reality is that following this, I have booked about 15 nights this year in Hilton's on 3 different continents that I would almost certainly not have booked if not for the status. And none of these hotels were fully booked, so I am not cannibalizing the benefits for the others. I never even stayed in a Hilton hotel prior getting the CC.

I could almost always find a comparable hotel in any city for less money than the chain, so it is only the status and hope for some bonus points and/or upgrade that keeps me in the chain. If they take away the incentive, I will gladly cancel my CC and return to getting my hotels on Kayak/hotels.com/Agoda/etc. There are many very nice smaller hotels and boutiques out there that cost 25-50% less and are often in better locations, not to mention a plethora of Air BnB type apartments that are often an even better deal.