Originally Posted by
pinniped
I still go back to the fact that on any given night at a Marriott, the Platinums occupying the rooms are genuine frequent guests who stay 60, 70, 100, or more nights a year. A few have the credit card, a few are actually aware of and/or needed some rollover nights, a few are their company's meeting coordinator, and odds are that none have ever even heard of the idea of booking dummy meetings for EQN.
A few years back there was an employee sitting outside the CL at a major city FS checking eligibility prior to letting people into the CL. She had two lists, one showing G and Ps, the other showing people who had a rate allowing them into the CL. There were 120 rooms on the first list and 48 on the second. This was before United members had access. The hotel has about 1200 rooms, so approximately ten percent of the guests were G or P. While I do not want to name the hotel because the worker probably showed me something I should not have seen, it is a large hotel in one of the biggest US cities which is sometimes hard to find because it is not really at the address used. The hotel does give a second address on a different street to make it easier to find.