Originally Posted by
beltway
As the different responses above demonstrate, this is completely YMMV. Some people will find it easy to use the cert, perhaps for a room costing well in excess of $75/night. Others find cat 4 certs hard to use without going out of their way.
I'm in the second camp. The cat 4 properties within reasonable driving distance of DC don't really do much for me--so much so that simply let my cert expire unused last year, and I'm not usually one to let a free night go to waste.
In short, there's no universal answer, so it's pointless to argue about whether the card is worth $75/year. It's like arguing about whether cilantro is tasty or whether blue is the best color. If the cat 4 cert is worth >$75 in your life, more power to you.
Agree - a blanket statement of the value is not the way to view it.
Whether the cert makes sense all depending on if you could effectively use it. We were lucky to be able to use our first anniversary's certs at HR in Hong Kong where the lowest rates were always above $200 + 10% service charge.
This year we have found them hard to use even we could use them in Dubai but both the Grand Hyatt (Cat 4) and the HR Dubai Creek Height (Cat 3) were in location that is not very good (they are pretty much very near to each other). OTOH the Hyatt Place actually is much easier to get to and much easier to return to the airport, plus it has breakfast so for us not being the top tier, the free breakfast actually works better and only costs 8K. So we are saving the certs and hope to use them in EU sometime in Apr or May as we MIGHT be in EU during that time frame. I would try not to let them expire though.