Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
It's a single night. Just use it for one of the nights at the highest category hotel that you will stay in all year.
It has no value (actually, negative value) if you make a special trip just to use it. I'll usually make a couple of trips to a category 5 or 6 property every year, so the cert saves me 20k or 25k pts.
It has nothing to do with how nice the property is. Often, higher category hotels are just regular hotels in expensive places like SF or NYC.
For me I view it the exact opposite for a few reasons.
1) I’m willing to add on a 2nd or 3rd night in points or cash.
2) I will make either a small family vacation or a couple’s getaway out of it.
3) I chose within the US because even adding 1-2 additional nights it’s still not worth an international trip.
Not sure why anyone would even reference SF as the city is littered with crime and feces. As for NYC I feel the hotels are actually fairly reasonable in price and Category except for PHNYC which I wrote off years ago when their quality went way down. Right up the street is the new Thompson which is a Cat 6, amazing location and lovely service.
We take about 2 quality vacations per year, using this would likely be one of them, or a 3rd for likely a couple’s getaway. Which is why somewhere like Alila Encinitas is great as we have family in SoCal to leave the kids with an hour or so away. We do other vacations but I wouldn’t consider them quality as we usually stay at a Cat 1 HH.
I definitely don’t just choose a property based on its Category, it’s ADR or single factor. I research on here, on Hyatt.com reviews, and multiple other factors.