2008 Hotel Strategy - Is there one for me?
 

I am not a frequent hotel visitor, the only regular stay is usually with Marriott for @ 5 nights/year.

However, I now find myself needing to book at least 14 nights between next week and October (ANC 2 nights, Seward AK 2 nights, Ann Arbor MI 2 nights, Kauai 7 nights and Sedona AZ 1 night)

I was hoping to plan my stays to maybe achieve a better status for 2009, but from my newbie reading of most program websites that plan does not seem possible.

Maybe I'm missing something that more experienced eyes can spot. :confused:

So far the only hotel status I have is w/Marriott (Silver - via the Sig Visa) and with that and my new Biz Visa my balance is 85Kish points and 20 nights for 2008. I do get a free room each year.

I plan to but have yet to get a SPG Amex and have 16K points left from brokerage promo.

I'm Hyatt Gold with 3 nights/2 stays in 2008 and just over 5K points. fwiw, I may do a mattress run soon cause I have an offer for a free room later this year if I do a 1 night stay in the next month.

Finally, I'm 1/2 way to Gold w/Priority Club having bought 10K points for 2 PointBreak award stays in 2008.

So is there a way to use my upcoming stays to max any status or should I just chase the promos to max points wherever I can and priceline the rest?

why not buy another 10k priority club points to bring u to gold? good pointbreaks are a bit thin on the ground for the summer, but this is to be expected for the high season. gold status means u receive a 10% bonus for each $ spent on a hotel stay, including expenses billed to ur room (such as meals, mini-bar and phone calls).

priority club is also running a promo to the end of august which gives 2k points for every second qualifying night. instead of 2k priority club points, u can choose 500 bonus miles for ur preferred ffp if u set ur preferences accordingly.

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/...p/q208/17.html

admittedly, this promo isn't very generous and, if u're paying for urself, then priceline or hotwire might work better for u (we tried hotwire for the first time earlier this month and were allocated a room in the hyatt regency montreal - excellent location, shame about the slow front desk service - for less than the cost of the cheapest nearby holiday inn).

ian. :)