Hotel Status and New Master List of Hotel Reviews
No wonder my purse is always so heavy. I pulled the last three weeks of room keys out of a side pocket this morning and realized I’ve got a lot more catching up to do!
I don’t seem to be making any headway and I have another 3-4 stays in the next ten days. But fear not… expect at least two more hotel reviews this week as I continue to catch up (especially on all those Starwood stays!)
In the meantime, if you’d like to see what I’ve already reviewed (or my policy on hotel reviews), bookmark this new master list of hotel reviews. On it I’ll be categorizing the hotels I’ve reviewed (with updates as they come) and adding to the list as we go.
My hotels lately have been heavy on the Hyatt and Starwood side. I’ve got Hyatt Diamond status so I do a lot of my stays there. I’m also a Starwood Platinum and close to hitting my Lifetime Platinum status so I’ve been trying to toss most of my extra stays there so that I can cross that mark as early as possible in 2015.
I also travel to a lot of cities where there are no Hyatt OR Starwood properties within a 50 mile radius. As such, I have always maintained statuses with at minimum one of the Hilton, Marriott, or IHG programs. I decided last year to drop Hilton for Marriott but have not been able to get past Marriott Silver status due to their program solely being nights based (and my stays being mostly one-nighters). Meanwhile, somewhere along the way Hilton crept back in so I am suddenly two stays away from Hilton Gold.
Maintaining four hotel statuses is a lot of work… I need to dial my programs back down but I’m not willing to give up on Starwood this close to the mark and I really do love Hyatt. So I find myself again making the choice between Hilton and Marriott for next year.
Here is my current tally (as of last week). I’m way behind because I have had a lot of conference booked (and paid) rooms this year that have not counted for my status:
* Hilton Silver – requalified (and 2 nights away from Gold)
* Hyatt Diamond – 9 nights away from requalification
* Marriott Silver – requalified
* Starwood Platinum – 9 nights away from requalification (and 30 nights away from Lifetime)
It sounds like a lot of sleeping around in my future – but 20 nights should be a breeze in Q4 with my travel patterns. The hardest obstacle to that will be the 15 nights I’ll sleep on a cruise ship (two upcoming sailings) that will hinder that progress.
If you have any thoughts (on hotel status OR the new master list of hotel reviews in general), I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below.