Originally Posted by
JapanFlyerT
I just became platinum this year, and the breakfasts, lounge drinks and food have been something my wife and I have enjoyed a lot. I doubt we would have stayed in those Bonvoy hotels otherwise. With cash rates so low, the Japanese gov. subsity, and all kinds of point bonuses being thrown in, there have been a couple of properties it feels like I might have made money there. I think I earned 10,000 points on $100 spend at one place.
Super jealous. If I was working the kind of job I work right now but I lived over there in Japan, I would have worked remote from so many terrific properties there for as long as I could until hitting whatever cap there is on the go to travel reimbursements.
Also to weigh in on the actual thread topic, at this point I think most of my leisure stays paid with cash are hitting and exceeding 375 now, and even on point stays I often try to negotiate paid upgrades, for example just agreed to pay 45,000 JPY ++ per night for a 5 night award stay at RC Nikko to secure a Lake Chuzenji suite.
I don't travel for work. If I did, I am sure my average spend would be well below those numbers. But since it's all for leisure I generally just pay whatever I have to in order to stay where I want to stay. I try to leverage buying points to reduce the costs when possible, and fifth night free really helps with that when I do stay for that length of time, but in general if I want to stay at Suiran Kyoto in a suite and it's 160k JPY a night for a couple nights, then I'm just going to pay it if that's what it comes to. Obviously all within reason, since there are places I would obviously like to always stay but I don't feel they're actually worth the high rate they demand (Aman Tokyo), so maybe after staying there one time to experience it I go back to something more reasonable (Prince Gallery).