Originally Posted by
xooz
What about a scenario where you could book a day rate (e.g. Intl. arrival airport), and then connect later in the day and stay somewhere else that night? Just not sure how a day rate is handled by Bonvoy.
(1) The day stay/overnight situation is perfectly believable. How
does Bonvoy deal with day-rate room uses? I've never even considered that.
(2) So, the best options for the other scenario would be if you wound up on the Hawaiian flight that leaves AKL at 2355 and arrives in HNL at 1045. Technically your flight isn't scheduled before midnight, but I don't think it is too much of a strain to imagine getting a room for the "extra" night there due to the late departure (since you're probably not even leaving for the airport until after a theoretical late dinner). There's a similar HND-LAX flight. I may have some winners, though, out of Hong Kong:
-CX880 and CX872 depart just after midnight (0005 and 0045, respectively) and arrive at LAX at 2245 the day before. I wouldn't want to bank on being in the hotel room at midnight for either of those. There's also a midday flight bank, but I don't think that gets us to where we want to be.
-There's also an Air China flight and a United flight from Mainland China to SFO. Same general scenario.
Historically, I believe that Alaska did some Anchorage-Vladivostok flights (to say nothing of the old intermediate stops at ANC en route to Japan that were required due to a mix of airspace controls and 747 fuel capacities).
So, to achieve the scenario we're looking for...TBH I'd say that in order to be in two separate hotel rooms on midnight on the same day, you'd probably need a flight delay scenario. Advance notice of a delay out of AKL is probably your best bet (since a delay of 2-3 hours won't hose the scenario), probably closely chased by CX872 (which would be tight to get you to your hotel before midnight with a delay...but I could see the stars aligning properly for it). My guess is that if you pulled this off you'd probably be having a very strange conversation with someone at Marriott and showing them ticket stubs to get a manual override or something.
Of course, all of this goes right out the window if Marriott ever winds up with a property in American Samoa: They have two properties in Samoa and the flight time between the two is 35 minutes.