lauriellovestravel

Hi All,

Tried to post this as a question on another thread, but think it is too buried that way.

So,......I have earned all possible free Marriott points under the points promo. I am planning on switching to the airline quadruple miles promo now. I stay 4 nights/week in a hotel. I know you get the most bang for your buck with single night bookings under this scenario, however checking in and out of the same property is considered one booking for the purposes of this promo.

What about checking into the Res Inn for one night, checking out in the morning, going to work and checking into the Town Place Suites, right next door the next night, just alternating between the 2 hotels. That would rack up 9600 Southwest miles(points)/week. For me that is almost the price of my air each week...

Is this OK to do. Is there a rule against doing this? Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance.

MDtR-Chicago

You are missing how incredibly annoying it can be to do this over and over. It may or may not be a big impact to your style of travel but many of us are terrible in the morning and want to preserve every moment of time. The overhead of packing up, even just toiletries, is more than I typically want to voluntarily undertake.

All that said, if the bonus is good enough, even I will do it. The only "rule" I have is not after the first night, if there is an unfavorable timezone change. My clients deserve every ounce of sleep-supported coherent thought I can give them.

Another impact is environmental; it's an extra full room cleaning (change of sheets, towels, soap, etc.)

Also, one night stays are less profitable for the hotel, which could be a small local franchisee, if those economics are important to you.

djk7

If hotel chains didn't count 2 one night stays as being more valuable (to them) than one 2 night stay, there wouldn't be any need to do this.

Back to the OP, a lot of people post about doing this. There was a thread in the Hilton forum a while back about properties that were close to each other to facilitate switching. Many were identified that shared a parking lot, so no need to even move the car.

travel.flier

I've done this before between a HGI and Homewood Suites. It wasn't exactly a shared parking lot, but about 50 feet apart. I travel light, so it was just packing up toilitries. W/hilton, it made sense a lot because you could get top tier w/stays (i think 28), so effectively 28 nights to top tier. it's been awhile so my numbers may be off, but i only did it when i needed to hit top tier.

VickiSoCal

My understanding is that onee you have 2 stays in this promo you get quadruple miles for all stays. So once you have two why switch around?

hhoope01

Sounds like the OP may not need to switch hotels that much after all.

But to answer the OP, yes, as long as you are changing hotels, then you will have different "stays" as far as Marriott is concerned. I've switched between hotels that use the same property before. So you shouldn't have any issues except the need to pack/repack/check-in/check-out a few extra times.

lauriellovestravel

You get quadruple points for each STAY after the first stay. So if you stay four consecutive nights you get 2400 points after the first stay. If you switch hotels each night, you get 9600 points/ 4 night week. Adds up much faster this way........

I am commuting for a job right now so I pay all my air and hotel expenses out of my pocket, without reimbursement. This could go on for awhile.......so it really makes a difference to get those points every week.

treznor

Correct, so make a short one-night stay somewhere (such as the other hotel you were thinking about bouncing between) and then every stay after that can be a normal stay and it'll get 4x the points. The only way you'd get more points by bouncing around every night is the 500 points for Platinum status, and usually those don't count for a promo like this.

ETA: Nevermind, I didn't realize that WN's earnings were a set number of points per stay regardless of spend. In that case you would indeed get quadruple the points by bouncing around during the promo. Of course you'd also get quadruple the points by bouncing around every other time as well

MDtR-Chicago

Let us not confuse what is profitable for a hotel franchising company with what is profitable for the local franchisee.

That said, the franchisee would definitely rather earn a little less on your one night stay than nothing at all.

djk7

From the customer's point of view, the difference doesn't matter. If it matters to the franchise owners, then they need to pressure the chains to change so that "stays" are not more valuable to program members than "nights".

MDtR-Chicago

We're about half a step away from a political discussion, but what the heck...

Some people choose to care about that. Some understand how difficult it can be to turn a profit in a franchised business, especially when you are forced to accept any rules a franchising company can spit out - even without regard for how that might affect your ability to run your own company.

Now, personally, I don't care much in this case, because I understand the economics. The "cost" of a single hotel night is generally in the $25-$45 range at most properties. Plenty of profit left.

However, personally, I DO care in situations of the form "I need 10 transactions on my credit card for a bonus, so I went to the local 7-11 and charged a 50 cent pack of gum 10 times" that pop up so often on FT.

It's likely that store owner lost quite a bit on those transactions. What's the recourse? Not accept a credit card? It seems exploitative to take advantage of the store owner's lack of leverage/power in the credit card processing relationship. And we each have a choice if we will participate in that.

VickiSoCal

OK, so this is ONLY an issue for those earning Southwest points? noone else would care, right?

MDtR-Chicago

If you're earning cat 1-4 certs you might want to switch up, since that promotion is also stay-based.

iflyjetz

I've done that before to get 25 stays in a year for Starwood plat. They give plat for 25 stays/50 nights.
I did it when I was on the road and didn't care about having to move nightly; it was during the transition to Marriott.

nacho

You are not breaking any rules AFAIK. We did it too in the US during the Spring Megabonus to max. the cat 1-4 certs.