Confused Stays vs Nights
 

Since the Ann Arbor DO, I have started to study up on and joined a few more programs. I joined the SPG program and read their website about what is required to obtain different tiers Gold or Platinum. They use wording which appears a bit ambiguous to myself.

Tier X is reached by:

"Reached by staying a total of 25 times (or 50 nights)" :confused:

Wouldn't 25 nights be considered 25 stays? or

How do hotels quantify a "Stay" vs a "Night"

The latter I am guessing is one 24 hour period...but a "STAY"?

Thanks in advance.

If you check in on Monday and check out on Thursday that is 3 nights and 1 stay.

When you check in & check-out, that is a "stay", regardless of how many nights you spend in the hotel.


If I check-in on Monday and check-out on Thursday at Sheraton ABC, that is ONE stay but THREE nights.

So to ideally get the 25 stays one would be better off checking in and out each day....provided you could get a descent rate.

Nights are the actual number of nights you spend at a hotel. As most hotels have check in times of 2-3PM and check-out times of 12PM, nights are not based on 24 hrs.

Stay is the entire time you spent consecutive nights at a hotel. It does not matter how many times you check in and out in between. If the nights are back to back at the same hotel, it is one stay.

So if you have 3 consecutive nights at Hotel X, you have 3 nights but only 1 stay. If you check in and out of Hotel X each night, you still have just 1 stay.

From the T&Cs
4B.2. An "Eligible Stay" is one or more consecutive nights at the same Participating Property, whether or not you checked-out and checked back in, during which you paid an Eligible Rate and presented your Preferred Guest number at registration. An "Eligible Night" is each night during an Eligible Stay. All stays are deemed to occur on the date of arrival; however, nights within a stay belong to the month in which they occur.

Couple of examples:

25 x 1 night stays would qualify on stays. (25 stays, 25 nights)
10 x 5 night stays would qualify on nights. (10 stays, 50 nights)

Hope I haven't confused you more.

Thanks that clarified it. Looks like I need to hunt down two hotels in same program close to each other and just ping pong nights.

Ding Ding

yes, except the upcoming ghey promo and the new SPG Amex card "benefit"s reward those who accumulate nights instead of stays

But it does not penalize hotel hopping. Nights count no matter how long the stay(s).

Not sure where you travel to frequently, but LAX is where I've been known to do this. There are three SPG properties right there at the airport and they're usually priced more or less the same.

To be realistic though, at least for me when I'm on the road for business the last thing I really feel like doing is dealing with check-in/check-out and extra expense report paperwork so I don't make a habit of this.

If you are somewhere where there is a single SPG property, sometimes you would be actually better off staying less at the property, e.g. turning one three-night stay into two one-night stays can be better, depending on the total number of nights and stays you expect to have in a given year.

Why are "stays" more valuable to SPG than "nights"?
 

I am confused as to why SPG seems to value stays over nights. The most recent promotion (SPG Getaway Free) is a great example. I would think since checking in and out and turning the rooms requires a lot of effort that it would be the opposite and nights would be more rewarded than stays. I imagine someone can reveal to me whatever it is that I am missing in the equation!

I think its cheaper for starwood to offer a stay based promotion

Example

traveling to Manhattan for 3 nights

Person A: stay the 3 nights at the Westin ( gets nothing)
Person B: stay each night at different hotel ( gets one free night)

Person B=Most Flayer Talkers :D
Person A=Most non Flyer Talkers

Some of my colleagues won't hotel hop for 2 or 3 night stays but will follow a 3 stay promo to get the free night so SPG might gain 8 or 9 nights out of them based off of this promo per FRN.