Originally Posted by Starwood Lurker
Not sure I understand this...you're staying in one city for 21 days, but make a one-nighter to another one without checking out of the first? Why would you do that? If you checked out during your 21 one-nighter and checked in somewhere else, when you returned to your 21 night destination, you would have completed three stays instead of two. Doesn't make much sense to me anyway.
Here's exactly what I did. Like I said, it was Marriotts - not SPG - but the situation does make sense.
I received an assignment to downtown San Antonio for an undetermined number of weeks. I was given the direction to use hotels, not corporate apartments, because the gig could get canceled at any time. I knew there was a Residence Inn near downtown so I called them directly and explained the situation. They offered me a rate scale that varied by length of stay up to 1 month. I liked what they offered and moved in to my room with a crapload of luggage on my first day in S.A. The gig lasted a couple of months, and I paid them monthly to keep the transactions processed as "normal" hotel stays. I think this was more for their accounting and perhaps local tax law, but it also worked for my own company's accounting and - oh yeah - the rewards points posted normally as regular stays.
During that time in S.A., we'd do short trips to Dallas and Chicago for meetings. I'd pack a small bag - leaving most of my stuff in S.A. - and fly out for a night, usually staying at another Marriott while still checked in to the R.I.
Anyway, I didn't think it was an unusual thing to do. Everything posted normally. My motivations for staying in the first hotel had nothing to do with points - it was about convenience, as well as the rate scale I was offered for my stays by the property. (At the time, I actually knew very little about hotel points. It was several years ago...)
I never had to convince some "member account integrity" group that I wasn't doing something unusual - that would have been a quick way to ensure that I permanently checked
out of all of their hotels. I could maybe understand the hotel wanting to confirm that my credit card hadn't been stolen, but other than that you'd think they would enjoy the extra business.