traveldreaming

I've maintained top status with several chains (primarily SPG, as of late) for years - I travel frequently for business, leisure, and various promotion chasing escapes. I used Airbnb for a six week stay last year, where all hotels were basically ruled out either on cost or location. It was a perfect stay, but I still stuck to hotels for my (relatively infrequent) winter travel.

Then I visited LA recently and ran into the same problem - hotels are mostly either suboptimally located or way too expensive. We ended up in West Hollywood less than a block from Santa Monica for ~$50 a night less than the government rate would have been for a nice place downtown, not even counting parking. We were much better situated for a leisure trip, and while we didn't have a club lounge, we had all the space to ourselves complete with kitchen.

Anyway, I'm sold on Airbnb in certain situations, but it has also gotten me to do something I hadn't done in quite awhile: book a Priceline stay. On a trip to Denver next week, we'll spend two nights in an apartment in Five Points, then move to the Westin Downtown for three nights. There was no way I could rationalize staying in a chain for the whole trip, and even those last three nights were significantly cheaper via Priceline than I could have booked with anyone else downtown. Ten nights in April 2017 and no nights or points to show for it!


So my overall point is that it seems likely that I will be a bit more of a free agent in the future, despite being a pointshog for years. Has anyone else made the leap? Do you still try to maintain status somewhere? Are the charlie foxtrots bad enough or frequent enough to worry about?

DeweyCheathem

In my decades of travel, I have found that it was ALWAYS a bad return on investment to spend extra simply in maintaining loyalty and status. To the degree that points/rewards and status was obtained over the course of my normal travel expenditures, I always took advantage of it, but I NEVER chased it, and never spent a substantial premium pursuing it. This is because these programs have always been free to devalue their programs over time, and all of these companies have done so, aggressively.

So I would ALWAYS take a priceline room for a significant cost savings over the same room purchased directly. The points you get for a room are rarely worth more than 10-15% of what you paid for that room. So why would you pay 50% more, just to get a 15% bennie in the form of points?

And of course, when one is not a slave to points from specific companies, one is free to get the best deal, and not be taken for granted by these companies.

rickg523

Got me thinking would be nice if Airbnb and HomeAway gave frequent bookers a break on the booking service fees.