I love having top tier elite status with Hyatt and Priority Club/InterContinental, but looking back, my hotel decision making process was so much simpler back when I would just instinctively book Priority Club properties.
I have a very brief stay in San Diego later in the week, so figured picking a hotel would be easy enough. I originally booked the Holiday Inn Downtown, for a couple of reasons. First, it was $109/night, and it has a free airport shuttle. Also, staying at a Priority Club property would allow me to earn nights towards Priority Club’s “Sweet Dilemma” promotion and their “Crack the Case” promotion. Basically, I’m earning half a free night at any InterContinental in the world and another night towards unlocking my last couple of “latches” for the “Crack the Case” promotion, not to mentioned another night towards Royal Ambassador requalification. So it seemed like a no brainer.
At the same time, I’ve been doing my best lately to stay at hotels that I can write reviews about for the blog, and let’s face it, a 1970s looking Holiday Inn doesn’t fit the bill. So I considered staying at the Andaz San Diego. While it was a bit more expensive and there’s no free airport shuttle, I do get free breakfast and the hotel looks interesting enough. And frankly, I’m willing to pay the premium if it at least gives me a bit of content for the blog (see how much I care about you guys?;-)). There’s also a G2 bonus for 2,000 bonus points, and it also counts towards Hyatt’s “Great 10K” promotion. But then I read the reviews on FlyerTalk and TripAdvisor, and they were less than stellar. Given the $90 price premium, I decided against it. And I’ve already double qualified for Diamond with Hyatt, so I don’t need to stay at a Hyatt.
Then I decided on the Hotel Indigo, which I’ve heard great things about (and it gets great reviews on TripAdvisor). It actually looks quite nice, though it’s $40 more than the Holiday Inn and doesn’t have an airport shuttle. And I do have a relatively short stay, so what’s the point? I still haven’t ruled out the Hotel Indigo, but I’m still leaning towards the Holiday Inn.
Then I said “what the heck,” let’s see what else is out there. So I decided to hop onto American Express’ “Fine Hotels + Resorts®” website, and look up what their properties are in San Diego. The US Grant came up, which seems to be the best hotel in San Diego. Given that breakfast, a room upgrade, and a $100 food and beverage credit was included for the same price as the Andaz, I seriously considered it. After all, I could write a review of a non-chain hotel for once that actually gets stellar reviews, so why not? Then I went directly to the US Grant website, and found that their rate was about $80 lower than what American Express offered. Is an additional $80 worth a room upgrade, free breakfast, and a $100 food and beverage credit? I don’t know, so I decided against that…
So then I…
OK, I’ll stop there. See the problem, though? You’d think trying to maintain top tier status with two chains would almost guarantee I’d stay at one of them, but it has actually done the opposite. In the past, I would have instinctively booked the cheapest Holiday Inn to maintain my Priority Club/InterContinental status, and would have called it a day. Now I find myself actually exploring more options, which, if anything, is giving me a headache…
The worst part of all of this? I’m considering status matching to Starwood, and maintaining Platinum status with them as well. Now that would be a disaster. Though in this case if I were a Starwood Platinum, I would have gone with the Westin, which was only $99.
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