on the road to status: sfo/hnl edition. this ain't no starwood ...

when i was booking the hotels for this trip, i had initially wanted to book one of the hotels that i had previously stayed at and enjoyed in san francisco. unfortunately, they were both sold out. so we needed a different plan.

we planned on arriving late at night on friday, and so we booked a four points by sheraton at the airport in SFO. the plan was afterwards to move from the airport hotel to downtown SFO for the following morning.

the four points at the airport wasn't luxurious by any means. the lowest available price at the time for the date that i wanted was around $250. however, it was only a category 2 hotel at the time, or 3,000 starwood points. this gave an average return of $0.08/point. and at 1 starwood point / dollar spent, that gave me an average return of 8%. a few weeks later, they changed its hotel cateogry to a category 3 hotel, meaning that 7,000 points were needed to redeem. so i was glad that i redeemed at the right time.

when we first got in at the four points, we weren't impressed. its stairs were out of order, we got a room on a low floor (no upgrade), and the room was a bit worn. but in all reality, it was good enough for what we needed. it was clean, the bed was comfortable, and it was free. 

we were supposed to move to the downtown region on saturday, and i had found this hotel with decent reviews in a great location. it was roughly $100 but because i managed to score best price guarantees from expedia, it was only $50 a night. an amazing deal. we went in and this is what we found:

there are two feet from the bed to the cabinet with a tv hidden inside of it. there's a chair that you can sit on in the corner, which is useful if you want to play hide and seek. given its location, i'm sure that no one's vacuumed underneath the chair for decades.

there's four feet from the edge of the bed to the rusted heating pipes that are permanently turned on. the window overlooks a raised, rooftop parking lot. there are three feet from the tail of the bed to the washroom.

if you sit on the toilet, your knees are a centimeter away from hitting the wall. the sink is located outside the bathroom, and so brushing your teeth in the morning will invariably wake up the remaining sleeping party.

so the four points by the airport? amazing in comparison.

we met up with some friends for dinner and we were talking about the joys of this hotel. one of them, a bona fide road warrior who puts in 260,000 miles a year on board tin cans, had told me the three factors that go into a hotel room: price, location, cleanliness. one should only aim for two out of three in order to be happy, he told me.

and so this hotel was an amazing value at just $50 a night. and the location was amazing, being just a few blocks from the BART station which also links to the airport. the area was also safe. but the room itself was not the best for two people. and so, as my friend suggested, i should be thankful that i scored two out of the three criteria for a great hotel. and really, given that we really only came home to shower and sleep, the room did its job. so i'm going to take my friend's advice and make that conscious effort to evaluate the hotel using those three criteria. i'm going to tell myself that i love it.  

but gosh, this is certainly not a starwood hotel.