CIT85

70% busines and 30% leisure in SPG, plus 90% business and 10% leisure in Hilton. I don't have enough time to make Plat on leisure.

choptliva

100% leisure

3rdworldresident

Me too.

100% on my own dime.

travelswithmyself

There seem to be disproportionately more achieving Plat on their own dollar (sorry dimes don't go very far now :P).

Perhaps those 100% on business don't care to say so?

When I started the thread I expected it to be more like 70-80% business.

Keyser

flyertalkers seem to be a very different bunch from the average traveler....while i feel the norm would be for more people achieving plat status due to work, getting to 25 stays on your own dime seems very achievable....

Flews

Also, don't forget the recent enhancements favour the leisure traveller. I will get at least 25 night credits this year just from reward stays alone, 20 of them at a resort we visit as a family twice a year. These didn't count previously.

Cheers,

Keyser

that's true....while the majority of my stays are for work, by the end of this year i will have almost 40 night on leisure stays, thanks to the 3 rooms i booked for 8 nights for a family wedding earlier this year....

tlott

100% leisure.

I am price conscious, however. If I am traveling in an area with high hotel prices (some parts of Europe, etc), I not pay too much of a premium to stay in an Starwood property if there is a lower priced alternative of a similar caliber.

On the other hand, I try to book Starwood whenever possible in Asia, India, Middle East, etc. I have had some of the best value at properties in those regions (great c&p value, platinum recognition, etc).

cxn

For LTP, I would say the majority of my stays were business. That doesnt mean I didnt take weekends getaways or pay instead of using points to stay Platinum when business travel was at one point almost down to zero. Also, award stays/C&P didnt count and with some great hotels like the St. Regis NY were I was able to spend 5k points a night, they never counted towards my nights/stays.

This year, I could have earned Platinum with my personal stays/nights.

tbaumann3

I made Plat this year for the first time, with 85% personal and 15% business. I got engaged on a trip to Maui in January and my fiancee wanted to go to Europe for our honeymoon which we recently returned from. I knew that Platinum status would help us get some nicer rooms on our honeymoon.

I signed up for a Plat challenge and made it fairly easily by doing a mattress run at a Four Points airport location for 17 nights at a very low rate. I spent $1500 on the mattress run, but I earned 15k points due to the Q1 triple points promo, Gold bonus and make a green choice. I actually needed a room the last night, so only 16 nights were mattress run.

We spent 10 nights of our 14 night honeymoon at cat 4-6 SPG properties in Paris, Munich, Venice, and Rome. These rooms were booked as standard rooms using points. Plat status has been worth it as we received several nice upgrades on our honeymoon. The best upgrade was a canal-view room with a large balcony at the Hotel Danieli in Venice. In addition, we received free breakfast and internet everywhere we went. The breakfast would have cost us 50 Euros each per day and internet 15 Euros per day, savings of $1495.

Since these 10 award nights counted toward status and I had several other stays this year, I am now Plat 50 and have 10 suite nights in my account.

KSA_USA

when I travel then its for work. but because i own my business i can add few days to socialize with friends or to explore the area.

vrundmc

100% business. I should say though that I am younger and had no personal money to spend on leisure travel prior to obtaining my job .

My Starpoints help to get my back to SPG hotels for free nights where I do my personal spend.

BoeingGuy

144 nights with Starwood this year and 95% of that being business travel. I used to love staying in hotels until I started doing it every week and having the front desk staff see me more than my friends back home

TDCumm16

I guess I'm what you expected then... I get to plat 100% on business. A typical year ends up with probably 125 nights on business + another ~25-35 nights on leisure depending on vacations, weeekend getaways, etc. Those leisure nights do count towards status I guess, but the only reason I end up with those 25-35 leisure nights is because of the points, free weekends, etc I build up via the business travel hence I considered myself achieving status 100% through business.


I don't know if other business travellers are in this same boat, but I did not respond to this discussion despite seeing it here for months simply because I figured my story was pretty boring and like every other road warrior out there. Mon-Thur stays 40-45 weeks per year netting platinum status isn't much to write home about

airplanepeanuts

I had a bunch of interviews for a job and so I thought to apply for the challenge and added on a few extra stays to hit 18 nights by staying at airport props that were cheap

Since then (feb 2012) I have total 50 nights with a 90% suite upgrade rate..


SMD!!