I try to factor in the costs of the extras on the chain hotels against booking somewhere cheaper.

Usually you do get hotels much cheaper if you go off the chain and are only a leisure traveller like me - only roughly 40 nights but all on business.

If you do pay on your own it is hard to pay 250 dollar against 100 for a bed where you can sleep just to get perhaps some upgrades. I just booked two nights in london for nearly double the price becuase the HI have a promo running and I need two more for qualifying for the 10K bonus. This is done because i will be able to make a value of them on a later stay in new york.

I do factor in the costs of the points I am getting off price but still ...

inconvinience is the next. I do fly BA / AA but the problem is that they do not have the inter.european flights I need. I can go through London for a HAM-CDG trip but I would use 6times the time and triple the price - it is too much to pay for such a trip.

There comes a time when status is nice - but my time is valuable as well.