pinniped

I've done this type of "hop" a few times over the years at various chains. Usually related to a short-term promotion (e.g., Carlson 50,000 points for 1 night) as opposed to status.

When we've done it, we've just explained exactly what we were doing and why. We've never been asked to change rooms. It's really simple, actually...we just make it clear that for our needs, we want to close out Night 1 and check-in Night 2 exactly as we've booked it. It's one of those cases where you do want to look over your final bill very closely, but I don't get a sense that it's the most unusual thing in the world for the front desk to see.

I can also see this happening a lot on Fridays and Mondays - people who want to close out a business stay separate from a personal one. Maybe same guest on the folio, maybe the spouse, depending on who needs the points/status.

Filthy Monkey

I'm not suggesting that they do away with the 'stay' option; I'm suggesting they do away with the 'Nights' option and count each night as a 'Stay'. It would make life much easier if each night counted towards status. Two stays of one night and one stay of four nights would count as six stays, not three. Why are individual nights more valuable than multiple nights when, in reality, multiple nights actually cost a hotel less money per night for the same return? I think it's a stupid rule and Diamond qualification should be based solely on 30 nights in a hotel, whether 'stays' or 'nights'.

Filthy Monkey

I dropped back to silver last year and was given a '7 stays in 3 months' challenge...

RogerD408

So you do want to do away with the stay rule AND reduce the number of nights? While I don't disagree with the result (lower qualification requirements) I do seriously disagree with the possibility of it happening.

I also belong to Marriott and they only use nights. It's very simple (although high) but the only time you run into an issue is when they are doing a promo that is stay based and not nights or if you are staying on points that don't count at all. Am I less loyal if I'm burning points?

missamo80

Plus an extra 2000 points per stay if you credit points + fixed miles to Virgin Atlantic. Last year I transferred over 40,000 VA points (15,000 of which were from the 4th quarter promotion), for a total of 80,000 HHonors points, from hotel hopping between properties.

Neil

shawntobi

30 nights is far different from 30 stays.(most of us end up with 30 stays and 45-50nights) Many cities make it difficult to Hotel hop, not in the US but other locations. If they just lowered it to 30 nights, it would make able to qualify for even more top status ie maybe 3 instead of 2. I prefer the stays method, as it lowers the bar for my type of travel and increases the points.

I dont know alot of people who do this, I only hop when easy and alone! I am actually waiting for the 4 tier system..... Like Global Services ect, based on spend and travel.... Gold is everywhere, Diamond is very common.....nothing beyond Diamond seems odd, what about your top 2-3%? OFF topic, I know.

Yes, I hop when I need to, but its mostly about promotions and other chains. IE get my HH stay for 1 night and move the next to a different chain if better promo.

cordelli

Diamond is currently based on 60 nights.

You really believe the hotel will see any benefit in cutting that in half?

You believe that a hotel will make more money by having somebody stay there for 30 nights instead of requiring them to stay sixty nights?

That's like saying an airline that offers qualifications based on segments or miles should just give everybody a minimum of 1,500 miles no matter how long the flight is and get rid of the segment qualification.

There is a huge difference between stays and nights, and the hotel industry has maximized their program to handle people who want to get it one way or the other.

pinniped

What you're advocating is effectively that HH adopt the Marriott system. Nights only, no concept of stays for elite qualifying purposes.

I don't see how any traveler stands to gain from that. Zero percent chance that they'd set the statuses to 20 nights and 30 nights - that'd be far lower than any of their competition. If anything, this year's move shows that they want to tighten up on the statuses a little bit.

Marriott Gold requires approximately 33-34 paid nights, with Platinum in the mid- to high-50's. (Assuming normal MR Visa use at the hotels but no manufactured spending elsewhere.) I can't see HH suddenly going a lot lower than that.

Yes, both programs have pure CC paths to status, but that's a different conversation.

kmandrew

I like it just the way it is. For those of us who mostly drive I feel hotel hopping is a breeze plus we get the Virgin Atlantic bonus. If I am still qualifying for Diamond I'll switch every night if the hotels are close to "get er done"; later in the year not so much.

kenbo

Removing the nights-based option to qualify for status would also reduce the number of options for us (customers) to gain status. Even if it did happen, the likely scenario is that the number of stays required to achieve status would increase.

Time traveller

I can see people hotel-hopping when traveling alone, but with a family with kids, that is quite a feat!

Howste

They have more people to carry luggage though...

sdsearch

The hotel costs are irrelevant. It the Hilton HHonors system that sets the rules on nights vs stays, and they don't run any hotels. The run the HHonors program. Someone else (generally franchisees) runs the hotels themselves.

But you're forgetting that most people are not FTers, and most people don't hotel hop. It's only a very tiny fraction of the people who are in hotel programs that have a stay component who actually hotel hop signficantly to take advatnage of it. Most people I know (outside of FT, and even enough inside it) just curse it, but refuse to hotel hop.


The reason hotel programs have "stays" as a separate measurement is because they're trying to limit the bonus points and elite status they hand out. And they're able to do that because so small a portion of people hotel hop.

You obviously are not looking at it from their perspective. If they want 30 stays or 60 nights (those are approximate numbers for Hilton HHonors Diamond, but it's close enough to make the point), why, if they got rid of nights, wouldn't they make it 60 stays??? The only reason it's way less stays than night is because they know most people aren't willing to hotel hop, and thus they can give away less status to those people who do 3-night stays than they could if it was 30 nights.

Why don't you go to Marriott? There's no stay option there for qualifying for status, and guess what, it's a rather high number of nights! (15 Nights for Silver, 50 Nights for Gold, 75 Night for Platinum. And yet those levels are roughly comparable to HHonors Silver, Gold, and Diamond.) No program that does things by nights only uses the lower "stay" number; they only use the higher "nights" number.

So the fallacy in your thinking is that if they got rid of the difference between stays an nights they'd use the lower number (30). No, they'd use the higher number (60). And then those who stay 1 night at a time (whether by design, or just due to their travel patterns) would be disadvantged. The only people who would not be worse off (but they still wouldn't be better off) would be those people who already always qualify on nights, not stays. And nobody at all would better off. (Except those people who complain about hotel hoppers, I guess, would have nothing to complain about any more, and they might feel better.)

So be careful what you wish for; if Hilton does away with stays, they'll keep the nights requirement at the high number it is right now. (They won't get rid of nights and keep stays but redefine stays as what is now called nights; that would really make no sense at all. If they count every night the same as a stay, they'll call a night, because that everyone understands, while lots of people don't understand what is meant by a "stay".)

RoyalFlush

Houston Galleria:
Embassy and HGI are across from Homewood. Doubletree within two blocks of that. Hilton is within a mile and Hampton is inside Loop 610 within a mile of that.

Downtown (George R. Brown Convention Center/Toyota Center)
Embassy is across street from Hilton Americas. Doubletree within shuttle distance.

PIThawk

Columbus, OH
ES and HGI are directly adjacent to each other, as we found out the hard way. Had reservations for the ES for a wedding, but when we tried to check in, we informed that several government inspectors had overstayed their reservations, and they were walking next door, where the stay and and breakfast would be free.