400+ nights a year…is Marriott the best option?
 

Sorry in advance if this is in the wrong forum, but my boyfriend basically spends 400 nights a year in a hotel and doesn’t pay attention to the awards or statuses.

You read that right: 400+ nights.

His company gives him flexibility in terms of choices as long as it’s a cheap-ish place they have a contract with so that they can get it for under $120 a night (at places that would be $100-250). Then when he needs to go elsewhere, he leaves his stuff at the first hotel and stays at the other one short term (so ends up earning double).

He was clueless about points /miles/rewards until he met me haha. So I want to help maximize his points so we can use them toward vacations together!

So I am wondering if anyone has advice about how best to split up his stays other than just following whoever has the best promotions? Like I had him register for the current Marriott promo for an extra qual night per night stayed so that will get him titanium in a couple months I believe. Not too concerned about his status but maximizing rewards is ideal!

So is there anything else in terms of rotating stays? He normally did Hilton before he met me and I’ve always been a Marriott girl.

Should he go for Hyatt or something else too?

Note it is all on a company account so no credit card bonuses or doubling up, but he has full autonomy to choose the hotel within reason.
And I have made sure to provide him with the list of Marriott and Hilton types that give half the points so he can avoid them 😂.

any other advice?

Yeah with that many nights I would do 2 programs, probably Marriott and Hyatt. I assume they let you stay checked into one while staying in another, how else do you get to more than 365? (You're not supposed to be able to get stays from 2 different properties simultaneously.

Get both the credit cards if he's allowed to expense on his own card, CC spend gives a significant bump in points total.

Yep, like he’ll be booked for 60 nights at a Hilton in one location then will have to go somewhere else for a couple nights but won’t check out or anything. Sometimes I think he has spent the couple nights at another Hilton and hasn’t had an issue yet, but I advised him to make it a different program just in case. He has no idea what I’m talking about though and thinks I’m crazy with the rewards stuff lol.
When he comes home to visit me or we travel together and I book it then his hotel just sits there and he gets the points and his company pays for it though.

Unfortunately none will be credit card spends as his company just books them and he never even sees a bill (but is able to add his number at the front desk). I have Hilton and Marriott cards for when we travel together.

I was thinking Hyatt too after this Marriott promotion. Just making sure I’m not missing anything!
Or if he should be having his hotel points saved as airline miles or something instead?

Hi bethyy, welcome to flyertalk and a great first question

First: Be aware that Marriott doesn't let you earn points/status on two hotel stays simultaneously, so he should never stay "home and away":
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...ame-night.html
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...-hotels-2.html

Broadly and TL;DR: Your boyfriend would be better earning points with the longer term stay at Marriott, and the "one night" stays could be with a different chain (or vice versa), so in fact you could do Hilton & Marriott

So, here are a few thoughts that occur from your post, for you to consider...

Getting benefits faster
1. There are typically Platinum fast track offers around, so he could get status even faster, not sure if that is active, but doesn't harm to ask
2. You can get a Marriott credit card as well, to get 15 nights (another 15 if you wanted to get a business card)... you don't need to pay to get these
To be honest though with his staying pattern it may not be worth the annual fee for the card and as you say, with the double nights promo it would take only a month to get to the top anyway (make sure that they post his stay/he pays his bill every week or two, to make sure they post regularly and so he gets his status points perks)

Lifetime status
I had a similar staying pattern early in my career, which meant I hit lifetime Platinum (as it was then, now Titanium) in my first five years of work (at the time it was about 1000 nights from memory, now its only 600 nights). Your boyfriend would find it fairly easy to hit that status in perhaps 3 years, which would (should.... it can be devalued of course) give you breakfast benefits and lounge access for life at Marriott chains.

Dollars, points and benefits
Spending about USD120/night isn't going to be a massive amount for Marriott, but they do have long term chains that offer only 5 points per dollar spent, rather than 10 at the full service chains, but as you say I suspect he can get a good deal if he can guarantee a room for hundreds of nights a year. Being Titanium (likely even Ambassador) means you will earn a lot of bonus points (75%) plus the regular promos even for many nice vacations. If he was to put half his rooms (say 200 nights at USD100/room, excluding some taxes) he would spend USD20k, just enough for Ambassador (the top status, more a title but you do get an email address that supposedly gives extra perks), and would have earned a minimum of 350,000points/year (that is just base spend plus the Titaninum bonus, in reality he would get welcome gifts for checking in and occasional promos). Depending on where you want to go that could take you all the way from 3 to 4 nights at one of the top properties (e.g. Maldives) as these are super expensive with points, and likely to get even more so, through to 35 nights in the cheapest properties globally. Two years could get you that dream holiday for a week (** be really aware that the upcoming devaluation means that the top properties are likely to get much more expensive, but a long weekend break in NYC or San Francisco should be well within reach).

But beware...
The only warning sign in your comment is your statement of "it's all on company account" -> This can prevent any and all points earning. If he pays on a company credit card, that is fine, he will earn points, if his stays are centrally billed he won't earn any points, so he should see if he can change that. This is the biggest risk to the entire plan:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...iscussion.html

Hyatt?
I can't really comment on Hyatt vs Marriott, as outside of the USA there aren't enough Hyatts for it to be worth my while exploring. I know the Marriott program is fairly dull and the market leader, but does reward those with a lot of nights, which meets his stay pattern. Be aware that the Marriott program is devaluing in about a month's time to go to price based redemptions, but most of the other chains have already done this sadly so it isn't a massive differentiator.

What would I do?
Personally I would put my long term hotel to Marriott to clock up the nights/points and not worry about it. The "nights away" I would put to one, or maybe even two, other chains, driven by promos/which hotel I prefer in the city being visited (In my case when I was earning Marriott lifetime at about 200-250nights/year I was Hilton Diamond via stays (no longer an option). I would also get a Marriott personal credit card for normal spend, to boost the points a little, and would target a certain holiday as a reward in say two years time to make it all seem worthwhile that he is away so often (I did a roadtrip in the USA so had a variety of points levels to use, whilst I lived in the UK.... though this was before I realised that sometimes it is better to use cash rather than points for some hotels). Marriott has a reasonable number of aspirational properties, or just a lot of other ones all over the world.

Happy planning

Be careful of marrying anyone who spends 400 nights a year in hotels but thinks hotel points and loyalty programs are crazy😜

Best advice I can give

Just be wary that some programs don't award night/stay credits if they're longer than a certain number of nights, so after 30 or 60 nights you may need to check out and check back in after leaving a gap. Not up to date on the latest programs or restrictions though.

Your boyfriend needs to exercise his extraterrestrial points option, since Earth's year is 365 days (and nights) long.

Have a happy life with E.T.

if hotel stays are booked by the company and directly billed to the company then NOTHING is being earned, So big difference if settled on say a corporate card or directly billed to the company. The latter is bad news.

Like others said. Multiple hotel programs definitely make sense since you generally can't get credit for overlapping stays.

With that many nights 3+ loyalty programs might make sense since you'll be able to get top tier status at Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton. This will allow him to book whatever is most convenient and makes the most sense logistically too. There's no need to be loyal to a single program since there's no real tangible benefit here.

I’d do 60+ (maybe 100) nights at Hyatts, get a credit card to give you Diamond with Hilton and stay there when it’s the best hotel in town and get Titanium on Marriott. As mentioned above, having top tier status in all the major programmes can be very useful and allows you to stay in the best hotel for you and to enjoy the best hotel on your holidays.

When you take a nice vacation together all covered by points, I’m betting he might buy in to the idea a bit more :)

Of course with that much travel, staying home and using the points for other things could be nice too!

Not always the case, I have worked at companies that had contract prices with billing direct, but i could earn the points, hotel and airline.

Find the best hotel for the budget for home base. Program is secondary.

These days points and status are not worth the misery of living in outdated beaten up courtyard or whatever may tempt you with "loyalty" perks.

365 days in a year right? What am I missing? Have you ever met this boyfriend? I’m so confused

It’s possible to have more than one hotel room booked at a time.

You stay at property “A” 31 days inJanuary. Jan 15-18 you need to go elsewhere so you book a room at property “B”. Total is 34 nights earned for January.