Maximize points & miles from Large Event
 

Hello!

I'd greatly appreciate some advice on how to maximize point earnings from an event I'm organizing next year.

The event is a 30 day motor tour across the United States. It will require somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 rooms for a total of 30 nights in 23 different cities/towns.

I would imagine 4500 hotel nights have a very good point/milage earning potential if played right. I will administer all room bookings & payments. I will also make individual booking agreements with each hotel. Half of the cities we're staying at don't have the big hotels but chains like fourpoints, hampton inn & best western are present.

How would you approach this booking process, & what loyalty programs will have the best earning potential for this event?

What kind of budget / class of hotel / do you have in mind?

We want to stick to 3-4 star hotels, Hampton Inns, Courtyards, Holiday Inns in smaller towns, Hilton, Marriot, Crowne Plaza in larger Cities.

Chances are you will need to negotiate with each individual hotel for any meeting points. Remember that it cost the hotel money to give out points. I wouldn't expect the sky. Pick which hotels would work and start talking to them.

Earning potential depends on whether you want points or status. If everyone will be paying for their rooms individualy, you won't get any points. You'll only get them if the rooms are billed to a master account. You room block can still qualify as an "event" however, even if it's not master-billed. With qualifing events you will rack up elite status fastest in Priority Club, then Marriott or Hyatt. You'll need to check the T&C or speak to a sales manager to determine if an event that is not master-billed will count. It depends on the loyalty program and the individual property.

Not quite true. You can negotiate anything wth an individual hotel. If you want "event planner points" then negotiate that with everyone paying their own room. If you want a free room for yourself, or breakfast included for everyone then negotiate that.

Everything is negotiable but make sure and get EVERYTHING in writing. Verbal assurances have no meaning when the points fail to show up!

I have to disagree. While individual hotels have a significant amount of discretion to award points and stay credit in the form of bonuses, the meeting planner reward programs tend to have somewhat rigid requirements which cannot always be overruled by an individual property. In any event, I have never seen a hotel award points to a planner for a room block where the rooms were paid for individually unless it was a signing bonus. I suppose it's possible but it would be highly unusual.

I will be making the bookings by rooming list, and I will also pay for every room on one bill. I've read through the Hilton, IHG and Marriot event rewards but wasn't really thrilled with the benefits. They all seem to base points awarded to the event organizer upon amount of dollars spent. They also seem to have caps on how much you can earn per event, some as low as 50.000 points.

I am encouraged by what some of you are saying; that each hotel have got atleast some latitude on how many points they can award. The fact that I'm also paying for all rooms should give me a stronger bargaining position.

I should also be able to rack up some miles on the payments of these rooms. The total accommodation budget will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300.000. Only problem is that I don't qualify for US credit cards (atleast that I know of) I'm a Norwegian citizen but the event will be organized and paid by my fully owned Florida LLC. I've tried to obtain US credit cards through the LLC before but it has always stalled because I'm not a US Citizen. The only way I've been able to earn miles on spending have been through the Continental/Chase Personal & Business Debit cards. If you have a suggestion on other/better avenues of earning miles on these 4500 hotel stay purchases let me know!

As a matter of practice, the number of points you receive for planning an event is determined by the amount of money spent. So if you spend $10K at a property and the hotel chain awards 1 point per dollard, you will get 10K points. Since your "meetings" will revolve around sleeping rooms rather than meeting rooms, you will be dealing with a "sales manager" at each property. If you are booking significantly more than 10 rooms in a night, I would ask the sales manager if they would consider a "signing bonus." If not, ask if they can offer any "concessions," which typically come in the form of other freebies like room upgrades. The signing bonus is NOT a given, so I would book at a hotel chain that you think gives you the most points for your money and then you can hope for a signing bonus on top of that. I would encourage you to look at each program's planner reward website to see if they are running any specials. Hilton could be an attractive choice because they will award 1 point plus 1 airline mile per dollar.

As for credit cards, I think you may be on your own there.

Would you book all the rooms in your name? I'm not sure how exactly the Hilton etc. rewards work but if you booked every room in your name, would you not be elite after the first night?

Spending 300k in rooms should get 10X base points and the bonus points after you complete your first stay? I maybe wrong on this and maybe this is not how it works.

once you figure where you are going to stay I would get credit cards with each of the chains, marriot, spg, or hilton to maximize the bonuses

+1. A Hilton Surpass, where you earn 9 bonus points per dollar spent at Hilton could really add some kick to this regardless of whether you get individual room points.

When many rooms are booked together to be paid with a single payment it's called a Master Account. Master accounts earn the event planner points per dollar at rates that differ from those an individual person earns on an individual room.

Not always true. At Marriott the event planner gets 3/$ regardless of whether it's individual pay or master bill. The difference is when there is a master bill individuals cannot earn points for their rooms.

I sense an ethical problem in your setting out to maximize your own points from this endeavor. You should pick the properties that will be best suited for the overall purpose of your group and all its individual participants, not the hotel from which your personal gain is highest. if the participants pay some or all of their own expenses, you probably should disclose that as an event organizer, you earn some points. How do you plan to allocate the upgraded rooms and other freebies?