Oh. I definitely wouldn't do a 500 mile round trip for a mattress run. The ones that I have done thus far have been when I was passing through a city with Cat 1 Hyatt Places. Thus, it's not driving too much out of my way. 2500 pts and $50 cash and out the door. However, I would do a mattress run if the price was $80-90 or less if need be and I have some of those Cat 2 Hyatt Places in my area.

But don't forget that when you don't have status you can also stay at a better property or a different location and still buy breakfast.

I've already taken that into account. For the place I go most often, it still pays for me to maintain.

If that changes, I'll look at it again.

Thanks for the feedback regarding flyover land and mattress runs. I'll interpret the comment that "500 miles is waaaay too far" as a contradiction of the statement "25 stays or 50 nights is not actually hard for anybody".

On a related question, how many people actually move from one property to another multiple times in an area? I have two stays of six days each coming up, and I expect to be moderately busy in both places. In this situation, is it common to move from one property to another each day? (I won't do it on these two stays because I'm using my last two DSUs from last year.)

Some people do it for both longer and shorter stays, particularly if the properties are still conveniently located, or at least not too inconvenient.

In your case, since you don't have much access to Hyatts, well, you could get 12 stays out of these two trips :)

Oh, and it wasn't me who said it was easy for everyone :) Particularly those outside the US, and even, as you note, in the US.

I know it wasn't you, Mary; I didn't mean to imply it was.

I would be really tempted to get 12 stays out of the upcoming two trips, but I like the thought of using those remaining DSUs. In a similar situation next year, I might do some hotel hopping.

I think there's a broad spectrum on that. There are some who would go back and forth every night. Some would never do it. I might consider it in December if I needed stays to requalify (but did not when I could have last year in HKG just because it's too much of a hassle).

Here.

1) I do, and I would, whenever I'm on my own and have the chance.

2) If one is Diamond already (during a challenge?) after a couple of return/rotations, there's a good chance that such loyalty might elicit an extra upgrade from a familiar/empathetic front desk person, especially if they're alerted early in the sequence as to what's going on.

3) There's nothing in travel nowadays quite like Hyatt Diamond, if there ever was.

Not in this order.

I rarely stay at the same hotel more than one night unless I'm on vacation with others because I get bored in the same spot. Most of my trips are 5-7 nights and I'll likely stay in a similar amount of hotels. You get more points (diamond amenity) and more variety. #shrug I generally live out of my rimowa and packing up takes a min or so when I leave. Not too big of a deal. My next trip will probably be: HRSF, HRsFO, Napa, HRSC, Emoryville.. As an example.

One other quick one: having one night stays makes canceling them and relocating super quick and easy bs cutting a longer stay short. iE I want to stay in the city .. Reservation canceled and rebooked. Most of my bookings have noon, 3pm or 24 hour cancelation windows

The MLife properties in Vegas also make mattress running rather easy. The Excalibur, specifically.

Excalibur and Luxor actually. Unless there is a big event they are both cheap during the week so you can hop back and forth.

Of course, if you're already in Vegas and contemplating mattress runs while staying somewhere much nicer, you could just skip the mattress runs and stay at one of the nicer mlife properties like the Bellagio...

This is true. I normally travel 4+ weeks a year on business (previously 8) and 2-3 weeks leisure. But many locations do not have Hyatts. And most of my stays are 2-3 nights, excepting leisure stays which are often a week. So I've never actually earned Hyatt Dia or SPG Plat even if I tried. (Thankfully Hyatt has offered the "fast track").

If 25 stays were easy you would see loads of SPG Plats. You don't. Because that normally means at least 25 separate trips, with SPG hotels at every location. Same logic for Hyatt.

Umm, most people get 2-3 weeks vacation, so that doesn't even come close to 25 nights, much less 25 stays. And many of us prefer to spend an entire week at a single location rather than checkin/checkout every night.

So you may not need to be a "road warrior" in the classic sense (traveling every week) but you basically need a couple of trips every months, with Hyatts in every location, or perhaps a retiree who stays in cheapo Hyatt House type properties.

Personally I am in the program to redeem for Andaz and Park Hyatt, not out-of-the-way suburban dumps.

Where did I say anything about "most" or "easy"? I just said you don't have to be a corporate road warrior to hit 25 stays. Do you somehow dispute that???

Personally, I take lots of long weekends and one or two longer trips per year, plus some amount of business travel. Will wind up with approx. 50 stays this year, split among Hyatt and Hilton, plus a couple Marriott and "other."

I do move from property to property when I am not busy - I suggest you strategically choose the date when you move. For example, in my case, I am a consultant and I usually work at client location from Monday to Thursday. Sometimes I stay at that location during weekend rather than fly back. What I usually do is that I arrive at a hotel on Sunday, then I stay at that hotel until Thursday, then I switch everyday until Sunday again.

A good point. When I think about this is makes me wonder if hotels are going to end up going the way domestic airlines are and add a revenue component. In addition to your example, is someone who gets Diamond on stays spending $2700 at Hyatt Places (or less withC&P) worth more to Hyatt than someone who spends $10-$20K on a few stays at a Park Hyatt but doesn't meet the 25 stays for Diamond? Not hoping that changes, but it has got to be on some of the hotels radars with it being so widely publicized.