traveldreaming

I've maintained top status with several chains (primarily SPG, as of late) for years - I travel frequently for business, leisure, and various promotion chasing escapes. I used Airbnb for a six week stay last year, where all hotels were basically ruled out either on cost or location. It was a perfect stay, but I still stuck to hotels for my (relatively infrequent) winter travel.

Then I visited LA recently and ran into the same problem - hotels are mostly either suboptimally located or way too expensive. We ended up in West Hollywood less than a block from Santa Monica for ~$50 a night less than the government rate would have been for a nice place downtown, not even counting parking. We were much better situated for a leisure trip, and while we didn't have a club lounge, we had all the space to ourselves complete with kitchen.

Anyway, I'm sold on Airbnb in certain situations, but it has also gotten me to do something I hadn't done in quite awhile: book a Priceline stay. On a trip to Denver next week, we'll spend two nights in an apartment in Five Points, then move to the Westin Downtown for three nights. There was no way I could rationalize staying in a chain for the whole trip, and even those last three nights were significantly cheaper via Priceline than I could have booked with anyone else downtown. Ten nights in April 2017 and no nights or points to show for it!


So my overall point is that it seems likely that I will be a bit more of a free agent in the future, despite being a pointshog for years. Has anyone else made the leap? Do you still try to maintain status somewhere? Are the charlie foxtrots bad enough or frequent enough to worry about?