Thank you all - this is helpful to know. Essentially if your paying vs using points as payment it seems to make very little sense (at least to me) to try and obtain a hotel status (in the same way I have wondered about the point of airline status if only flying up front) I wonder if this knowledge has trickled down to many customers who do in fact pay standard rate vs pay with points at hotels within the STAR, Prive or Impresario programs. I found very little discussion on the Hilton forum as an example.