Getting Serious About Hotel Status

I spent the last year getting far more serious about airline status. Early in the year I learned about routing rules, planning complex multi-city itineraries, and other tricks of the mileage earning trade. And now I have top-tier status to show for it.

So what's next?

Now I'm looking to do a better job with hotel earnings. At this moment, I have gold status from Marriott through a promo. It expires at the end of the year, seeing as I haven't even come close to staying 50 nights. I have piddly Hilton Honors Silver VIP, which wasn't so hard to come by.

As 2010 approaches, I'm going to try to earn some serious hotel status. The perks, as I see it, are as follows: room upgrades, complimentary meals, better earning potential (bonus points), nice redemption opportunities. Sure, the programs offer other perks. But those are the ones I want.

[A note: I don't think switching hotel chains is much of an option. I frequently stay in suburban areas where there aren't a ton of hotel choices. In my experience, I can usually rely on finding a Marriott or Hilton property, mostly because those are the largest chains. Priority Club is certainly an option, except the quirks of the places I tend to travel are such that there aren't many Holiday Inns (or other PC properties) around.]

Step one was to try and take my Marriott Gold status out for a spin, seeing if I can use it to status match elsewhere. I'd be willing to switch to Hyatt or Priority Club or even Starwood if I could get some status out of them. No luck. The problem is that most hotel chains are happy to status match, but they don't just want a copy of your Marriott Gold card... they want an account statement saying you actually stayed a bunch of nights. And I don't have that... I have 11 nights for the year at Marriott.

Step two was to see what Hilton could do for me. I called and spoke to an excellent customer service representative. She offered me "fast track" to Gold, a standard offer whereby four stays at any Hilton properties within the next 90 days will instantly earn Gold status for the year. Good deal, except I don't see myself easily accumulating four stays in that time. On the other, hand, I will be staying at a Hilton Garden Inn in Toronto for eight nights in November. So I asked, "Is that just four stays? Or is there a way of doing it on nights?"

"Lemme check," the very nice CSR said.

A few moments later, she was back. "Four stays or nine nights in 90 days," she said. "Perfect," I said.

So now I just need one more night at a Hilton property in the next 90 days. Shouldn't be hard.

I'm new to the hotel status game. Am I a moron? Am I missing some simple trick? Use the comments or drop me a line at josh@upgrd.com.