on the road to status: mattress run mar 30 - apr 1

a friend of mine from wisconsin was telling me over coffee last december about his usual summer ritual. during the spring/summer semesters, he goes back home to wisconsin to work. because it's not the most exciting place in the world, he takes weekly roadtrips to nearby chicago for the weekends. and because he consolidates all of his nights at hilton properties (he has a corporate discount with them too), he was bragging to me about his hilton hhonors diamond status. he hints at his room upgrades: "i usually get a suite with a jacuzzi," he said to me one time, sighing as if it were a burden to have.

and that's when i decided to make my own drive for status. i fly enough to know to consolidate my flight miles with asiana airlines, a star alliance partner. now every time i fly a star alliance partner, especially air canada, i don't have to worry about luggage fees, don't have to worry about trying to cram my luggage in the overhead bins, and i usually get to stock up with goodies from the lounge before flights. i used to not care about my hotel stays. until this year that is, after my friend made me realize that actually, i should probably be doing the same strategy with my hotels.

starwood preferred guest is the hotel program for westin, sheraton, four points, aloft, W etc. it's one of the smaller programs out there with just over 1,000 properties (compared with the intercontinental hotel group that has over 4500 properties over 100 countries, and where you can buy top tier for just 120$ a year). starwood's program has three tiers: preferred, gold, and platinum. the higher you go, the more benefits you get.

1) preferred: base level, no stays or nights required
2) gold: 10 stays or 25 nights per calendar year
3) platinum: 25 stays or 50 nights per calendar year

if i look at my travel patterns, i think i could easily get gold status in a year. if i am strategic enough, i may be able to get platinum. a stay is defined as the number of check ins. so if you stay fewer nights a year but take lots of road trips (which is my typical profile), it makes sense to qualify for status on stays. if you take long trips many times a year, it makes sense to qualify on nights. but just to make things difficult, check-ins at the same hotel on consecutive nights are all consolidated into a single stay. another caveat is that you have to book directly with the hotel website, and not via expedia or hotels.com. therefore, no chance for a best price guarantee with expedia.

and so this brings me to the idea of a mattress run, defined in the travel world as trying to earn as many qualifying stays or nights for as cheap as possible. it's the sister of the frequent flier's mileage run. a true mileage run/mattress run would look purely at price and opportunity cost in order to maximize the qualifying miles, stays, and nights in order to reach status. i like seattle. i know people in seattle. so i'm willing to pay a bit more to earn my qualifying stays and nights.

so this weekend is seattle. i checked in to the sheraton bellevue last night, and got a complimentary upgrade to the sheraton club level, which included the club lounge, free wifi, and breakfast. tonight, i drive back to my trusted seattle hotel, four points by sheraton seattle. two hotel stay credits this weekend, bringing my total for the year up to 4. and i do this again in a few weeks with the bf. i have a few free hotel nights which also count. rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. do this enough times and you'll be gold. do this once a month, and you'll be platinum.

let's see how this year turns out.