Originally Posted by
joshua362
Miss those days and that was the real spirit of a PAW, not 1/70th of a room night. Your opinion will vary!
For that matter, I liked the days when the PAG was a box of stuff that was usually pre-placed in your room and that was kind of like Christmas morning every time, wondering what you were going to get. Then when they went to the little card where you could choose two food items and one drink, I had the same experience as you--many hotels went above and beyond and there were some truly spectacular PAGs that really made me feel my platinum status was valued. Then, around the time of the rumored "don't ever exceed minimum standards" memo, it seemed that the PAG truly became standardized and (frankly) boring.
Since it went to 500 points vs. the $10 F&B credit, I just automatically take the points. If I'm spending ten bucks at the hotel, I want to be earning points on them.
I suppose part of the problem is the seeming explosion in the platinum ranks due to things like rollover nights. Hotels that used to see only a few platinum check-ins per day now seem to be swamped with them. Am I the only person who's noticed over the past couple of years that whenever I'm waiting to check in it seems like the front desk clerks are thanking everyone for being a platinum member and asking what PAG they want?