You and I are in similar boats -- the exception being that I just don't do breakfast, public or private -- though I suspect we're more the exception. As I tell HGI agents when they ask if I'm sure I want the 750 points instead of breakfast "More time to sleep wins over breakfast every day of the week" (though I realize I'm getting the short end of the "maximizing benefits" stick on anything longer than a single day stay since it's 750/stay versus breakfast every day

But in the case of Hampton basically the entire competitive set does the comp continental breakfast so they can't (in normal times) just get rid of it; likewise I saw somewhere the cost of breakfast per occupied room night at Hampton a while back and it's almost absurdly low -- something like $3 and change -- nixing it all together would nave negligible impact on rates (probably none as the operators would just retain it as extra profit absent competitive pressure to lower), it's not going to turn into a meaningful points number, and it would increase the costs of providing breakfast overall because then you'd have to have someone who is actively policing access vs the free-for-all/breakfast host only has to worry about repetitively egregious cases (e.g. homeless folks, locals, etc.) so it could potentially drive all rates up.