Frequent Miler on the Air - The year of the mattress run | Ep81 | 1-16-21

Episode Date: January 16, 2021

00:47 Giant Mailbag: Marriott's elite benefits guarantee is back https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-spg-elite-benefits-guarantee/ 9:59 What crazy thing.....did First Tech do this week? https://frequentmiler.com/first-tech-federal-credit-union-referral-offer-get-100-for-both-parties/ 13:46 Mattress Running the Numbers: Double points with Choice Privileges https://frequentmiler.com/choice-privileges-promo-earn-2x-bonus-points-on-stays-through-2-28-21/ 18:13 Main Event: The year of the mattress run https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-launches-easy-elite-status-for-2021-and-cheaper-saver-awards/ https://frequentmiler.com/shortcuts-to-marriott-platinum-elite-status/ 47:00 How does Marriott's promo compare to Hyatt's? 50:00 If you were to mattress run either Marriott or Hyatt for elite status, which would it be? https://frequentmiler.com/which-marriott-elite-benefits-apply/ https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-bonvoy-complete-guide/ https://frequentmiler.com/hyatt-launching-excellent-new-promo-3x-4x-points-plus-double-elite-nights-but-in-an-unexpected-way/ 1:13:49 Why aren't we talking about Hilton or IHG? 1:16:20 Post Roast https://frequentmiler.com/the-year-of-the-mattress-run-top-tier-status-in-6-programs-in-48-nights/ 1:19:36 Question of the Week: Does it make sense for a big spender to keep the old Marriott card or should they upgrade to the Ritz? Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment! Join our email list at FrequentMiler.com/Subscribe Music credit: Annie Yoder

frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event the year of the mattress run what's this going to be all about do you have any idea mattress well you know we have a regular segment called mattress running the numbers but today we're going to talk even more about mattress running than usual right but we're not going to leave out the mattress running topic. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We still have that. Mattress running numbers. We'll still do that segment. Let's not get crazy, but we're going to do extra mattress running today. We are. We are. First, of course, it's giant mailbag time. So I'm getting out my giant

mailbag. Glad to see it. Glad to see it. I love this thing. All right. Pulling out the mail from the giant mail bag what do we have today all right mail today comes from ac nyc ac nyc i don't think that spells something i you know i'm well it's there's a space in between ac and NYC. It's probably AC from NYC, you're thinking? Something like that, yeah. Okay.

Or maybe it's someone who likes Atlantic City and New York City. Oh, possibly. Maybe they travel, take the train between the two, the Greyhound or something like that. There's all kinds of possibilities. Lots of possibilities. All right. AC says.

Yeah. Before I read this, a little background. This week, Marririott among other things one of the things they did is they brought back elite benefit guarantees that's been something that has made their program stand apart from others for many years now they're i think the only one i can think of that some of the elite benefits that they guarantee, they'll actually, if they're not provided to you, they'll actually pay you in cash or points or both, depending on various situations. And you got a hundred bucks out of that one time, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's part of the background. So I updated the post about the elite Benefit Guarantees, reposted it.

And in there, I talked about two occasions I had where I could have used the Elite Benefit Guarantees. One, the welcome gift. Platinum welcome gift is supposed to be offered when you check in. It wasn't. I'd even asked at check-in, isn't there supposed to be a platinum welcome gift? And they were like, oh, here's this. But what they gave me was what they gave to all guests, like a mug or something, a travel mug type thing like that. And anyway, so I found out later that there was actual real welcome gifts. So I asked them about this $100 guarantee thing. And they were like, oh, yeah, well, we could do that. And they said something like, do you mind if we this $100 guarantee thing. And they were like, Oh, yeah, well,

we could do that. And they said something like, Do you mind if we take $100 off your bill? I was like, Okay, that's fine. And good. So that was that. The other time, there was another time I got walked, which, which means you go, you know, you're going to check into the hotel, but they don't actually have room for you, even though you have a confirmed reservation and they put you up somewhere else. There, depending on the brand that you get walked, you are due a lot. I think at the time it was something like 90,000 points and 100 or $150. I don't remember the exact amount, but it was a lot, like a huge windfall I could have gotten, right? I'm not going to lie.

There's a few times where I've been about to arrive really late at night and I intentionally didn't reach out to the property to let them know I'm still coming, just hoping, hoping that I'd get there. Walk me, walk me for 90,000 points. Right, right. It hasn't happened. Now in that case, I got walked a few days ahead of time by over email and I requested, they, they wanted to put me up at a, at a pretty crappy property nearby. So I looked up reviews and everything and I requested a top reviewed property instead. They put us up there. I loved it. It's like one of my favorite hotels I've ever stayed at.

And so I actually emailed them and said, don't worry about the elite benefit thing. Anyway, so that's background. And I put that all in the post. So now here's ACNYC. AC. Are you so cheap you actually shook them down for $100 because someone failed to offer you an arrival gift? Really? Really, Greg? I'm lifetime titanium, plus top level of a number of other programs. And if they don't recognize my status or offer a gift, I let it go.

This is why people hate bloggers. They all come across as wanting something for nothing. Fine to post news and reviews, but please refrain from how you weaseled your way to paycheck sorry to pay back for something as minor as not offering an arrival gift or amazon not meeting their delivery promise i have no idea where that one came from um that is just petty you it goes on here i've got to do wow wow ac still i ac is still, I see AC. AC is really digging. AC was really digging my post.

You remind me of my sister-in-law. Oh no. You're right there. If you remind you of my sister-in-law, that's a problem. No, right. Practically every time she goes to a restaurant, something isn't right.

And she ends up sending food back. In her case, it is a pathetic attempt to get the restaurant to comp her food. Now, I'm kind of wondering if his sister-in-law is listening to this because that'd be kind of interesting if she knows who ACNYC is. Anyway, you remind me of that. As a true road warrior for 35 years, true is all caps. AC is a true road warrior. AC is the the real deal clearly um i don't lose any sleep over not getting a rival gift an upgrade not being available i've been upgraded hundreds of times but fully understand hotels holding those back to sell etc smdh do you know what smdh stands for

i think it has something to do with shaking of the head yeah i had to look that up because i know smh is shaking my head and um it's uh it's just being more emphatic about it the d is like a uh you know a big wall that stops water from coming down right right that's that's what i expected he was just trying to add a little enthusiasm there right. So there you go. That's, that's, that's our reader feedback of the week. It's nice. You can't please them all all the time. What can you do? You know, and I, I don't know. I mean, there's part of me that's read things before I've read reviews or things that I thought people complained about petty things. So I understand the perspective for sure. Like I've been there where I've read something and said, that wasn't a big deal. You couldn't let that go. You

had to write that up or something when I've read a post somewhere before. But on the flip side, here in this case, I don't even think you were saying, oh, the hotel was terrible. They failed to meet the benefit guarantee. You were just saying, well, this is the guarantee. I mean, the whole purpose behind these programs is to encourage you to make irrational decisions. And the irrational decision is to continue staying with that same chain rather than looking elsewhere for what else you have. And so in order to do that, they hang a little carrot there. And this is one of those carrots that they say, OK, we guarantee this. And if not, this is what we'll give you.

And I don't imagine. I wasn't there. But I can't imagine Greg standing at the front desk like, where's my $100? I didn't get my welcome gift. It was more so just like, oh, well, you know, I know the welcome gift is guaranteed, right? I mean, and it is. What's the point in having it? Like, what's the point in having elite status if you're not going to enjoy the benefits that come with it?

And if nobody's going to call them on the elite benefit guarantees, there's no point in having them at all. I mean, it doesn't differentiate Marriott from the other brands. And it's one of the few things where Marriott's program, you could point to Marriott's program and say, it actually has a leg up over other programs because it has this. And so, but you wouldn't say that if you were like,

well, I'm never going to use it. Right, right. It's like saying, I'm not going to take breakfast. I can buy breakfast. I don't need to take the hotel's free breakfast. Wouldn't it be akin to saying, you know, like with Hyatt, like, oh, I got charged parking on this bill, even though I'm globalist. I'm not going to say anything because that's too petty.

Wouldn't it be similar to that? I parked the car, you know. I got the parking benefit. Somebody's got to pay, right? Might as well be me. I don't know. It would be ridiculous. So, I mean, ACNYC, totally uh it's fine to have that opinion uh you know and and

there's definitely ways of approaching those things that are obnoxious i don't think agreed that was the case in this case and i don't think it's wrong to ask for what you're supposedly guaranteed yeah i mean that's they guarantee the benefit because they want to make sure that they offer it and if they don't they want to know that they didn't so that they can fix that and do it next time. And so that's, you know, the whole purpose of having it. So yeah, I think you were fine. I'm not angry at you, Greg.

AC might be. Sorry, AC, but I'm not angry at you, Greg. I will, you know, yeah, I don't know whether AC probably knows that you're a blogger and so doesn't really care about your opinion. No, I'm sure. I'm sure not. I'm sure not. I don't know where the Amazon delivery thing came from at all

because I don't think I've had that. That was so out of the blue. I haven't even done it. Forget about writing about it. I don't know where that came from. Maybe his sister-in-law does that too. Yeah, maybe. Fair enough.

I remind him of his sister-in-law, as he said. You do. That might have been the explanation. All right. So that's reader feedback for the week. Let's move on to a crazy thing. So what crazy thing did First Tech Credit Union do this week? Right.

A regular on the show, First. First time for First Tech, I think. First Tech has a nice, easy referral bonus. You refer someone, they open an account, and you each get $100, I think it is, right? Yep, yep. The person you refer has to deposit $250 is what it is, and then both sides get $100.

So pretty simple. And so we posted about it and use my referral link. And whenever someone meets the requirements and, and earns the a hundred, their a hundred dollars, I also get an email saying congratulations. So I've gotten a few of those and let me read you what the congratulations email says. It's, it says you and your friend have earned a hundred dollar reward, Natalie and helped a nonprofit in your area. Well, congratulations, Natalie. Thank you. Thank you.

At this point on this show, you've been called an elderly guy, an evil blogger, and now Natalie. And a sister-in-law. A sister-in-law also, yes. The evil sister-in-law whose name may be Natalie. We don't know. It could be for all we know, yeah. I know there's at least one Natalie out there listening right now is like, do I know an AC?

Yeah. Anyway, since we're talking about this topic of the First Tech thing is there is one little gotcha with the whole referral thing, which is somehow even though people are using a friend referral link, a lot of the credits aren't posting automatically. And so when people contact First Tech to say, to ask about their $100, they're told, oh, just let us know the full name and email address of the person who referred you. And of course, none of the readers know what email address I used with First Tech. So I've asked people to email me when that happens and then I'll reply with the correct email address and they get paid and everything. But something to know, if you've done this thing and you haven't gotten your $100, contact First Tech and get that process started. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually reached out to First Tech and proactively, the first,

I shouldn't say proactively, I waited for a while and the bonus didn't post. And then I emailed First Tech with the name and email address of the person who referred me. I had another friend who referred me and I got his name and email address. And I sent that in on the first email to First Tech in order to kind of, you know, skip one step of them asking me for the name and email. And then they wrote back and said, you know, we'll investigate. And a couple of days later they said, okay, yeah, you'll both get your hundred dollars in the next couple of weeks. And, you know, then of course we did within the next couple of weeks. So, so if you're missing that bonus worth reaching out to first tech, this isn't like, you know, a lot of bank bonuses require direct deposit. Maybe you didn't do a real direct

deposit in that case. you're not going to reach out to the bank and be like, Hey, I made my fake direct deposit. Where's my bonus, right? You're not going to do it. But in this case, you didn't have to do any direct deposit. Just you had to put 250 bucks in the account. So please do reach out to first tech, make sure you get your hundred dollars. Cause it's an easy bonus, super easy bonus. And for whatever reason, their system seems to be broken because it seems like for many people or some people, it's just not showing up that they got referred. So, and they're good about taking care of it. Yes. Yeah. They have been really good. Yeah. All right. So it's time for our next segment, which is mattress running the numbers.

What exciting mattress run opportunity are we going to discuss today? You're going to love this one. You're going to love this one because I know that you've been talking about taking a road trip, and there is nothing more synonymous with road trip than double choice privileges points. Double points. Double points. Now, I know they're offering double points, and I have to admit, I'm not even sure what they're offering double points for. Is there a minimum stay?

Is it just one night? I don't even know. I haven't even really looked at this. I think it's just for one night. But the, okay. So Stephen wrote this one up and he pointed out that, I think he was being kind of nice to them the way he wrote it. He said, he said, basically it's, it's probably not as good as those.

They often run this promo where you get 8,000 points for two nights or two stays. Two stays usually. For two stays. Okay. And so he said, you know, if you're only planning one stay one night, then this is obviously better because you're getting something more than you would otherwise.

And then he also pointed out that if you're doing an extremely expensive stay, then this could work out better. But those are the scenarios. And you have to stay by like, I think it was like February 27th or something like that. I don't know. Chances of you doing a very long, expensive choice privileges day, or just a one night stay where you care about the extra a hundred points or whatever.

Yeah. Probably pretty slim. Yeah. This, this I think we can just go ahead and vote on this one. Two thumbs down. Or as many thumbs down as we can. Yeah, you would not.

I'm tempted to call someone else to put their thumb down. There would be no circumstances in which you'd go out of your way. This would not drive your traffic towards, drive your stays towards choice. Definitely. So not worth it. It would not force your choice to choice. Now it's that I you know, I like choice privileges points, they can be good. Yes, be useful, but just not exciting.

And it's worth noting that that normal promotion that they run, it's usually 8000 points after two stays. That's 8000 total points. So it's not 8000 points in addition to the points you'd earn from your stay. The normal promotion is just filling in the gap to get you to 8,000 points over two stays. So that's why this is a little bit better if you have an expensive stay. But again, I mean, I think it would have to be a really expensive stay though. Yeah. And you're not,

you're not choosing choice because of the double points probably choosing choice. Cause that's what's there, right? Exactly. All right. So, so two thumbs down on the promo not going to make us mattress run so then let's wait just before we move on to that i i weren't you were you surprised like i was surprised that you know they will come out with a promo during this time that's worse than their usual promo no not really no i mean what's choice gonna do i mean come on what are they gonna really do to get anybody excited about staying at a you know comfort in right now there's just you know

i think they think they're just waving the white flag they're like okay we know you're only staying here if you got to and that's nothing against choice privileges like i said i like their points and some of their properties can be fine it's just just that in the current environment, what are you going to do? Offer quintuple elite credits or something, and then maybe you'll get... Maybe choice diamond or something. That you could already match to in two or three clicks of the mouse.

They're not going to do that. They're not going to give you way more than the 8,000 points they normally do. Why not? They should. I get what you're saying. It's probably, probably someone has like a job responsibility of like coming out with their promo every quarter

and what they were told, but don't actually give anyone anything. Well, you know, why not? Because the properties are so cheap. Like how much more can they possibly give you? You can stay at a place, you need a minimum $40 a night in order to earn points. So if you can stay at a place you need a minimum 40 a night in order to earn points so if you'd stay two 40 nights you're putting 80 in and normally they give you

8 000 points how many more points than that do you want them to give you as a rebate i mean like they're like going to be paying you to stay in their property still do at least that promo again yeah yeah i don't get it all right all right so enough of mattress running let's talk about mattress running it's definitely let's double down and so everybody's excited been poo-pooing mattress running with choice uh so we're going to talk instead about mattress running with a couple of other people or a couple of other chains because we've talked a lot about mattress running with hyatt we sure have so sure have. Lots of exciting stuff there. But this week, Marriott kind of hopped in and they were like, all right, hang on, guys.

You're not the only ones that can get people mattress running. At least maybe not. I don't know. What do you think? So tell us what's going on. Yeah, sure. So Marriott, they not only reestablished their elite benefit guarantees, but they came out with news about three overlapping promotions that they're doing. One, I'm calling the 50% elite night credit

rollover. And that is really a duplicate of what they did last year, which is whatever status you have from 2020, let's say you had platinum status in 2020, they're giving you half, again, the elite credits, half of what it would take to get to platinum status. So it doesn't really matter whether you earn platinum status with nights or with credit card spend or some other way. As long as you had it, they're going to give you 25 nights this year towards your next elite earnings. And now, now let me clarify something about that with you because the way you said it is like close to the way I understood it, but maybe not exactly.

So they're going to give you, I think now correct me if I'm wrong and I'd love to be wrong here. They're going to give you half of the number of nights required to achieve the level of status that you would have earned based on your 2020 activity. So let me give you a, for instance, for instance, I had titanium status last year based on my 2019 activity and that got extended. So I had titanium status last year based on my 2019 activity and that got extended so i had titanium status last year and that got extended through this year am i going to get half the number of nights for titanium i only stayed 62 nights last year oh so my impression i guess we'll find out soon but my impression is yeah that it would be based on your titanium status see and i the way it was worded my impression was that it was going to be half of whatever your 2020 activity was.

And I say stayed 60. I didn't stay 62 nights, but I earned 62 elite nights between credit cards and whatever stay activity I had and promoted, whatever it was that got me to 62. So the half that they gave me for the previous year. So I was assuming that they were only going to give me 25 nights of elite credit because I only had 62 elite nights last year. So that's only enough for normally platinum status. But maybe I'm wrong. So maybe it'll be the extended status. One way or another, they're going to give you half of something.

I will bet you a couple of global upgrade certificates that you're going to get half of the 75. So you're going to get 38 nights. That's what I think is going to happen. And part of my reasoning for that is the way they did it last year, it didn't matter if you had zero stays the year before. If you had a credit card or something that got you to a level of elite status, your 50% match was based on whatever status

you had and i think they're going to do that again and probably right the fact that they rolled over status i don't think sort of changes that you know that sort of helps you and that'd be awesome that'd be awesome because then because then if you had let's say if you had the business credit card a business and a personal marriott card that's 30 nights and so if you had platinum status last year you're going to get 25 nights you're going to already have platinum status like without stepping foot in a hotel this year with the two credit cards and half of last night's and if you had titanium last year you're going to be like at 67 or 68 68 nights and if you and then you could take your 50 night choice benefit of five nights and now you're at 73 and you could stay two nights and you're done two nights two

nights and you're in titanium again i mean probably you probably have a bunch of certificates that are gonna be expiring so use two of them have to and you're done you've got titanium again so so they're making it really easy is the point here to have elite status with mariotta especially if you had it yeah this part so we yes there's three different things we're going to talk about so this one the 50 elite knight credit rollover makes it super easy for those who already had high level status uh to keep that status or to even get higher status than they had before, which is great. The next one, double points and delete nights for stays of two nights or longer. Now, this is only during a certain period of time

from about mid-February to near the end of April. So you will have to register. The registration links aren't out at the time we're doing the show but once the registration links are out you make sure you register you stay at least one night of your stay has to be a paid night and you'll earn not only double points but double elite nights so again you're trying to get to whatever level status you're getting to. You know, everybody's, almost everybody's going to be starting from some baseline, right? Because if you have a credit card, you've got 15 nights. If you have a, both a consumer and a business one,

you have 30 nights. That's what your starting point is. And any rollover, any of this like 50% rollover, that's adds to your starting point. Now there's some gap maybe between where you want to be and where you are. If you, if you, if you book your stays during this time period within the rules of this promo, you could do half as many nights to get to whatever your goal is. So that's, that's really cool. And that's, um, you know, a little bit reminiscent of, of what Hyatt's doing right now. Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting that they told us that as long as you have one paid night, that it will count. So some readers asked, well, how do you even do that? How do you mix a paid night with an award reservation? And I think

probably the first thought for the people who tried to think it out was, well, maybe I make a paid reservation and award reservation back to back and the hotel can tie them together somehow. And maybe they can, but we republished an old post this week from 2015 that Julian, the old devil's advocate wrote that is still true today. You can still customize if you, if you put in dates and you put in a stay of 10 nights or fewer on the Marriott website, you can customize and mix and match between nights that are paid with cash and nights that are paid with points. So you see that post and there'll be a link in the description for the show to that post. And it'll show you exactly how you can do that. So it's all under one booking. So you know, you have a paid night

in your reservation and you choose whichever night is the cheapest night to pay for. Right. And as long as you have at least five nights that are booked with points, not with cash or certificates points, um, then one of those five will be free. And so, you know, just thanks to how Marriott usually does things. So I think of sort of an ideal situation because I have lots of free night certificates. You know, if I wanted to earn a lot of more nights, I'd want to book a 10 night stay where five of them are with points, one cash and four certificates, something along those lines. Can you do that? Can you mix the certificates in with the points online? I think so.

Yeah, I don't know. I haven't tried, actually. I haven't tried yet. I guess I should have tried before I discussed this option. Sounds like it's not a bad idea. It seems like it ought to be possible. And that would be nice if it is, because then you could get double credit for those certificate nights.

And that's a good thing from a number of perspectives, because obviously, A, it'll make it easier to get to elite status this year like we said kind of reminiscent of what hyatt's doing not necessarily quite as exciting for a lot of people but still certainly a really useful thing and then also in addition to that if you're aiming for lifetime marriott status those double nights i think count towards lifetime status right yes yes they do so get you to lifetime status even faster right right you know that's a nice little side benefit too because i in my situation i know i've had enough years of you know gold or platinum that to have lifetime platinum but i don't have nearly enough nights i mean like i'm still lifetime silver at

this point i don't even have enough for gold yet forget So I'm way away. So I'm taking all of these easy, free elite nights that they're giving and, you know, like taking that to the bank. I'm happy for, for those things. So yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm, I'm getting very, very close to lifetime platinum. So that's kind of neat because, uh, in future years when it's much harder to achieve, I don't have to worry about it at all. Now, I won't get a choice benefit, but I still will get the normal platinum benefits if I don't do 50 nights. night with with uh award nights in the same stay that idea that that would work is based on email communications with marriott that we had right and that's where the pr person did go talk to somebody to find out if it was what was the right answer and he came back with what he said was the right answer i don't think we'll really know for sure if that works until someone tests it right and unfortunately i mean that's just the way it is um i can't think of any way to

verify ahead of time that that'll work i don't think so because even if we were to verify i mean because you well no i don't think there is a way because ordinarily with marriott awards days count as elite nights so normally you would earn them you don't need there is a way because ordinarily with Marriott, award stays count as elite nights. So normally you would earn them. You don't need a paid night. Normally you earn elite nights on any awards day or certificate. So we were told that in order to trigger the double elite nights, at least one night needs to be paid. Now, there's certainly a chance that that's wrong and award stays will earn the double elite credit even without a paid night, or there's a chance that it's right and at least one night needs to be paid, or there's a chance that award nights

won't earn double elite credit at all. You know, we're going off of the information. There's a chance that you won't get any doubling because you didn't have two paid nights. Right, right. That would be a real shame. So hopefully none of that's true. I mean, I do think there's a good chance that they're right,

but just a little caution there. Good point there. All right, so they're giving you the 50% elite rollover, so to speak, that you mentioned at the beginning. Right. And they're giving double elite credit on stays of two nights or more. I think it's from February 16th to April 27th, but check that link in the description to check out the post

and double verify the dates and make sure that whenever we have a registration link, you register because you'll have to register in order to get the double right. Now, are you ready for the best part of all the best? I'm excited. The best part of all is that they've lowered the dollar requirement to reach top level ambassador elite status. Oh, that's awesome. I've been wanting ambassador elite status. So this year, I can finally spend my way towards it. So in most years you you have to earn a hundred nights plus you have to spend twenty thousand dollars at marriott's um this year you have to earn a hundred nights which we've already talked about is much easier this year much easier yeah and fourteen thousand dollars only only fourteen grand only

fourteen grand yeah wow that was generous of you you shouldn't have marriott this year? Only 14 grand, yeah. Wow, that was generous of you. You shouldn't have, Marriott. Right, right. All the way down to 14. I mean, we're going to get the riffraff in there at 14 grand. I don't know, Marriott. That's, you know, 14 grand in the middle of a pandemic? Are they out of their minds?

They are. They couldn't have dropped that a little bit more. They lowered it by 30%. 30%, that sounds huge. Huge, Marriott. Wow. Going to have a whole quick rush of new ambassadors this year. Not at all.

I don't get what they're thinking there. They should have at least cut it in half. But even then, I wouldn't bother trying to do it because that's the tremendous amount of spend. If you're a business person that travels frequently on business, bother trying to do it because that's the tremendous amount of spend. But, um, you know, and if you're a business person that travels frequently on business, it's not as crazy as it sounds because like at 14 grand, you're talking, you know, you have to do a hundred nights. So it's an average of about 140 bucks a night, assuming all of your nights are paid and they're business nights and, you know, a hundred nights a year on the road for a real

road warrior. Like, I don't know, AC ac nyc or someone like that it's not unreasonable to think that you would spend that when your employer is paying for it so it's not like out of bounds ordinarily and even the 20 grand sounds crazy but not so crazy for someone who's traveling for business law but this year nobody's gonna be traveling for business for quite a while still. I mean, like that hasn't recovered. There's no sign. That's exactly how I see it. Yeah. So you're talking about who's going to spend 14 grand out of pocket at Marriott this year? I mean, nobody. Right. Right. Luckily, you know, the extra benefits you get at that level aren't so exciting that, you know, you're going to feel like you missed out when you get titanium and not ambassador. And I would tell you what those extra benefits are, except that 20K requirement,

like stop me from ever even paying attention to it. So I don't, I didn't memorize it. Who cares what's on that list? I spent 20 grand. You guys are out of your minds. Yeah. Just don't even bother looking at that one. There's no sense in knowing what you're missing, right? When you don't know what your ignorance is bliss. I don't want to know what there is. Let's just say you don't really get anything. You do get a concierge, your own private like concierge who's probably not any use anyway.

Ignorance is bliss. All right. So, so yeah, so ambassador, they cut it, but not going to do any, do anything to move the needle for anybody. So the other two parts though, the other two parts are kind of interesting. So now should anybody be mattress running Marriott elite status and, and who should be considering booking a mattress run and how many nights, I mean, how do we figure this

out? Who should be doing it and why? Yeah. Um, so know, I think it's going to depend on what their starting point is. So, you know, if you had gold status or higher that gets that half again credit, then I think you are in the running because you can also, even if you don't have them now, you could pick up both a consumer and a business Marriott credit card for 30 more nights. So gold status last year gets you 13 nights, 30 nights from just having these credit cards that are kind of worthwhile because you get a free night each year anyway from those.

That gets you so close to platinum status um that i think that most people who travel a moderate amount ought to at least consider that especially since to close that last gap it's possible to do half as many nights because of that double night promo right right roughly anyway so if you had the gold status last year, even if you didn't have any of the credit cards yet, you're going to get 13 elite nights this year. And then if you were to get a business and consumer credit card, which is possible, then you'd be at 43. So you're seven nights short, but because of the doubling, you really only need four nights because those four nights doubled or, well, yes, this would

be four nights doubled, give you the eight nights to bridge the gap and get you there. So for four nights, it's probably worth mattress running if you think there's a chance that you're going to travel next year. Now, I say that if you are definitely going to spend four nights in hotels between February 16th and April 27th. Of course, it makes sense to choose Marriott then. But what we're talking about here is mattress running. If you have no intention to stay in a hotel during the promotion dates, should you still look for a reservation where you can check in and not bother staying?

And I think the answer for those people is almost a resounding yes because even if you don't use those benefits this year remember the elite status is good all the way through next year and until what like march 1st i think 2023 yeah i think so i can't end up through with the end of february i think so i think is what it is so yeah uh and um the the other the other, that they announced, I don't think we talked about yet is, is that the saver level award pricing is for a you, what, 4,500 points a night. And so even without the doubling, you could book five nights of that for the price of four. What is that? 18,000 points for five nights. That's really cheap. And then if we can work in the whole doubling thing, which we talked about earlier,

is a little bit risky, but probably would work. Then you're talking about, you know, maybe outlaying, let's say 70 bucks for the one paid night, plus a handful of points to get a lot of, a lot of nights. Yeah. I mean like maybe 70 bucks and 18,000 points would get you there and then some, it'd get you over. Yeah. I mean, that would get you what? 12 nights. So if all you needed was eight, you could do one paid night, three, um, of these 4,500 nights, you know, something like that. Right. So that'd be a 12, 13,500 points and 70 bucks. I mean, at that point, yeah, you definitely want to do it. Cause I mean,

you get free breakfast one or two times or lounge access one or two times and that pays for itself. Right. And, and keep in mind if, if you do have to get a new Marriott card in order to make this work, you're going to get a lot of signup bonus points. So this number of points will be like nothing to you because you're going to get like 75,000 or more points from each card that you sign up for. Another thing to keep in mind, if you already have the two cards, you probably already have free night certificates as well. And when you spend

those, you earn elite night credits. So all kinds of ways to bridge that little gap. And so I think it's definitely worth diverting some of your stays that way if you have real stays and it's worth considering a just a throwaway mattress run if you don't think you'll have enough real stays all year to do to complete it there you go so if you had gold status or higher last year you should definitely go for platinum this year almost no question about that now what about titanium yeah you know what or maybe we should start with what about somebody who had no status last year maybe we should start with that person like so if you had no status last year yeah and is it worth doing i mean you're going to be like best case scenario then you can get a business and a consumer card and have 30 elite nights from the jump. Right. And so then you would be 20 nights short of the 50,

but because of the doubling, you would only need 10 nights during the promo window. Right. Doing 10 nights. Well, all right. So I would say, so personally,

my, my opinion about that would be only if it's a real stay. I wouldn't do a mattress run throwaway stay of that long. If you really like could use a stay, then the appeal of, of engineering it so that you earn platinum status could be absolutely worth it. Otherwise I can't, I can't see doing that much as a throwaway. Now, you know, maybe you'll have enough stays all year to, to make that work. But at that point, it's no different from any year, you know, any year, if you decide you want to go for platinum stats with Marriott, you could get

the two credit cards, start with 30, you've got 20 more to go. So the the key is here where where it all is exciting is when you have this 50 kind of roll over from last year because you had some kind of status last year plus the doubling plus the elite night doubling plus the um credit card nights all add up to give you a huge boost so which let me let me let me toss in a quick hypothetical. Well, you finish your thought and then I want to toss you. Oh, well, I was going to move on to comparing to.

OK, so I thought maybe you were. So before you do quick hypothetical here, let's say you're starting from scratch. You got your 30 elite nights from getting a business and a consumer card. So you're 10 nights short. Let's hypothetically say

that after the promotion launches, we discover magically that even award nights get doubled you don't need any paid nights at all award nights get doubled would it be worth then in that case if that's the case then 10 nights of category one stays because the fifth night is free 10 nights of category one stays will cost you 36 000 points would it be worth spending 36 000 points on a match i know you just said you wouldn't do a mattress run for 10 nights but if it was just 36 000 points for platinum status would you do that hmm 30 yeah i i think that would probably be

that would probably be worth it yeah so which then of course begs the question of like well what if if you only need one paid stay in there why not throw that in yeah yeah yeah and i don't know i mean it just gets kind of interesting potentially so it does yeah because it's not a lot of points that we're talking about now relatively low numbers of marriott points although we should point out that unlike hyatt which has category ones like all over the place in the u.s marriott does not have a lot of them not a lot there's 41 in the united states so i looked that up in this launch so there's 41 in the united states and there's a lot of states that don't have any category ones right they tend to be

in like clumps like texas has a bunch of them you know, a lot of States don't have any, so it kind of depends where you live as to whether, uh, it's sort of feasible to do that. But for some people, yeah. All right. I know, I know you want to compare to I, and I want to get there too, but my other question is, is there anybody that should consider mattress running for titanium status? If you had titanium last year and you got the 30 nights from credit cards, then the answer is an obvious yes. Cause you're getting 38 nights plus your 30, 68, you're most of the way there. What if you had like one credit, you don't have a business. You only have the consumer credit card. Right. And you had, you know, titanium status cause it got extended or something,

you know, you had it and earned it in 2019. So you're gonna get your 38 nights on top of the 15. So you're what, at 48, 53. Now you're like 20 nights, 20 something nights short of titanium. Does it make sense for somebody like that to mattress run titanium status? I mean, cause I, you know what? I just did the math quickly.

Let me back that up. So 38 free nights, if you had titanium titanium status plus the 15 from the credit card. That's 53, right? So that would put you 22 shy of titanium except your 50-night choice benefit. You could choose five elite nights. That really brings you to 58. So you'd be 17 nights short of titanium, which you could do with what? Eight, nine?

Nine nights doubled. Or let's say you do eight nights doubled and later you use your free night certificate to get that extra. Right, because you got the credit card, right? So that's an interesting question because the difference in value of, so the difference of value from gold to platinum is huge, right?

As far as like what you get. All of a sudden, you know, at gold, you're getting hardly anything. At platinum, all of a sudden, you're getting lounge access, free breakfast. You're getting 4 p.m. late checkout. You're getting the ability to upgrade to suites. You're getting, if you do it by night, you're getting the choice benefits where you can pick suite night awards or five more nights get you towards titanium. The difference between platinum and titanium is not as extreme unless you need those differences or unless you spend a lot of money at Marriott's. And so one of the differences is you go from having a 50% bonus on points

earned to a 75% bonus. And if you spend a lot at Marriott hotels, that would be big. Of course, if you tend to spend a lot, you probably don't need to mattress run. You probably going to be spending enough that you're, you're going to be good.

If the other thing, like there's some just sort of weird miscellaneous things. So you can upgrade to a suite at a Ritz-Carlton property, whereas a platinum cannot. Weird. Right. You can get into the club at the St. Pancras Renaissance in London, because it's not considered a lounge, it's like something else,

and they reserve that to titanium and above. You can match to United Silver Elite status. And so if that's valuable to you, that could be really good. All those things, to some people, would be worth zero and others could be worth a lot. I can't answer that. I've always felt like

every year that I've gotten titanium, I've always felt like it wasn't something I would have gone way out of my way to get, but I was, I was happy to get it, you know? So it's it just kind of depends, depends on how you value that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I think it does. I think it's interesting because it might make sense, like you said, if you value those things. And then also you have the fact that if in the future,

at some point they stop extending well first of all if they continue extending elite status then it's good to have higher status and get yourself another free extension to a high level like gas i don't necessarily know that'll happen but and then eventually when they stop extending elite status forever in the past marriott was good about offering soft landings where if you had titanium status but you didn't requalify they would just give you platinum status even if you didn't have enough nights for platinum so that was originally why I went after titanium in the first place hoping to keep status for a few years because I would you know hopefully get my soft landing

the platinum I didn't anticipate that it would keep getting extended and easy to re-qualify. So, I mean, there's some piece of it there too. It depends on how you're going to play the game. I have a vague memory that they may have stopped doing that soft landing. We were all wondering what would happen with the merger with SPG and it's been a while to figure that out. So I'm not exactly sure whether they dropped that as a policy.

It was never written down as a thing like you get. It was just something they always did. But that being said, even if they had stopped it, I do think there's a good chance if they don't roll over elite status next year, I could definitely see them saying, oh, we need to at least do a soft landing and just drop people one level just because of the whole pandemic situation. Right. So I think for at least one year, you probably get, you know,

by getting titanium this year, there's a good chance, definitely not guaranteed, that it would mean, even without doing more stays next year, having multiple years of platinum are better yeah right right so all right so maybe worth mattress running platinum not a not a shoe and it's not a lock like it is with platinum but if you're starting from zero you're starting yeah starting from

starting from zero like you're not going to probably mattress run titanium uh if you're starting from zero though you might still go after platinum status titanium status is more questionable all right so we talked a lot about marriott there and marriott of course was interesting because i didn't expect them i don't know why but i didn't really expect them to compete well with what hyatt's doing i guess the reason why is because what hyatt's doing has been so crazy that i didn't think marriott could compete, but they got kind of interesting here. So now how do they compare with Hyatt? And if you have to choose, mattress running Marriott

or mattress running Hyatt, which are you going to choose and why? Well, let me say the sort of big picture that Marriott seems to be clearly encouraging their existing elites to keep chugging away. Because as we said, it's the people who have existing status that gets halved again, you know, this year that are making out the best starting with the most. And, and that's really where the big part, I think of the Marriott whole situation is, I mean, they have other good stuff in there, but that's the biggest,

but only if you it's only big, if you, if you had gold or more last year. And, and it's bigger, the more status you had. So Hyatt, meanwhile, their promotion doesn't, I don't, I can't think of anything that really like, it doesn't help to have had status already that there's their promotion is like, we need new elites. Come on, if you've never been to Ohio before in your life, that's fine. Because what we did is we have the elite requirements and we doubled the number of elite nights you're going to earn on stays.

And we're also giving you either bonus points for paid stays or bonus rebated points for awards days. So they're making stays like sort of cheaper after rebate, if you will, and making it super easy to get to top tier status. So I find that just kind of fascinating from a sort of, you know, how they took a different tact at it. And, and I think, so I think that, that for people starting from scratch, one of the reasons I was hesitant about saying, yeah, mattress from Marriott is that I think for people starting from scratch, it's a lot more exciting to go the Hyatt way.

Right. Right. I, yeah, I agree with you. If you had no status before, I would totally agree that Hyatt seems like the much better play right now. I mean, I hesitate to say that a little bit because Hyatt's footprint is so much smaller. But you're right, it does seem like it's aimed at bringing new people in the door. If you were a globalist before, then I guess you're looking at it saying, well, I might as well go after globalist again, but you don't get any benefit. You don't get any leg up on anybody else. So yeah, that is a really interesting difference in dynamic between the two of them. And you know, the Hyatt promotion has been incredible. It's been better and I'm not surprised about this, but it's been better than they sort of build it in the sense that the Knights got doubled faster than they originally said they would. And the,

the milestone benefits and everything else it's just happening faster, better and more efficiently than they build it as, as happening. So, and you know, that's kind of Hyatt's shtick, right? They, you know, surprise and delight a little bit and do a little bit better than what you would expect most of the time, it seems. And I don't necessarily know that Marriott always strives for the same. So it's an interesting difference there too. So if you had to choose between the two, if you're like, all right, I'm only going to invest so much money or points in elite status.

I think I'm interested in mattress running one of them because I have this pile of points and I know I'm going to do some travel next year. Which one would you mattress run out of the two? What level and who should mattress run one or the other? Which one's more compelling? Yeah. So I think we should talk about before sort of just jumping to the answer. The real answer is nuanced because both programs have

pros and cons. And Hyatt, I'm just going to lump it all in one pro, which is their top tier elite status is just better. It's just way better than Marriott's. So as far as getting really solid perks, and we could list them, but I don't think we need to right here. It's just, you get a lot more as a top tier Hyatt globalist than you do as a Marriott platinum or titanium, right? Right.

Hands down. Right. But as you, as you sort of mentioned before, Marriott's are everywhere you want to go. And so, you know, if it doesn't do you much good to get royal treatment for staying at a Hyatt, if you're not going to be staying at a Hyatt. And so,

if your travel patterns aren't going to bring you somewhere where there's a Hyatt property, then obviously that's not worthwhile. So, you know, maybe spending, just for an example, maybe spending 15 nights at Marriott hotels where you get either free breakfast or lounge access and 4 p.m. checkout, maybe that's better than spending five nights at Hyatt's where you would get a free hot breakfast, free parking,

a waived resort fees, you know, on and on. So that's totally up to, you know, the eye of the traveler. And, you know,

on the flip side, it might be the other way around that five nights at Hyatt might be more valuable to you than 15 at Maria with elite status. You know, when you look at the benefits that five nights at Hyatt might be more valuable to you than 15 at Marriott with elite status. You know, when you look at the benefits that you get with Hyatt, it's possible that those five nights would outweigh the 15 nights of whatever it is. Yeah. It kind of depends where you're going to stay. I think those, like the suite upgrades with Hyatt are confirmed at the time of reservation.

Unlike Marriott where it's all, it's up in the air until right before your stay as to whether you're going to get it. And at properties, like I once did one at the Park Hyatt in Paris. And so, you know, confirmed an upgrade to a suite ahead of time and free 100 euros of room service breakfast every morning. Wow. You can eat like a king, I imagine. Oh my God. Because there were three of us in the suite because our son was with us and they would roll in this cart and just load up the table. the whole table is full of food and there was like a side cart thingy that still had extra food in it and and uh you know then they had to roll you out on the way out well you know it's super it was super useful as you know being a parent of for me it was

young fairly young child at the time to be able to uh you know put a bunch of the extras into ziploc bags so you have snacks all day uh you know when you need them so yeah yeah uh because as a parent you know sometimes you get really hungry so right right right it takes a lot of energy chasing around after those kids right you got to refuel at some point anyway um anyway you're right uh sometimes you get unbelievable value from the hyatt and sometimes you get unbelievably poor value from marriott's top status because you there there are hotels that don't provide uh the benefits that you're supposed to get like they don't get give you free breakfast even though they're supposed to because of their brand. Like,

so with Marriott, you need a chart saying, Oh, this brand gives you a free breakfast. This one gives you whatever. Um, and, but there's some that would meet the requirements for free breakfast,

just an example, but they're also on, on a, a list of exception hotels that are buried in the terms and conditions that say, no, it's a free breakfast. We give you a thousand points. Um, of exception hotels that are buried in the terms and conditions that say no instead of free breakfast we give you a thousand points um the other thing that happens is you go on a weekend and a lot of marriott's have their their lounge closed on weekends and so you know you're expecting

to get snacks in the afternoon and all that stuff now the lounge is closed um hopefully it's not one that also is an exception because if, if it's not an exception, then you at least get free breakfast in the restaurant, but some of them lounges closed and you get some points and those kinds of things happen and, and, um, not infrequently. So, uh, even though it can be extremely valuable, it can also be extremely frustrating because they have too many exceptions. It sure can. And the nice thing is that you don't need to be on your own and trying to figure it out

because we have a guide to Marriott Elite Benefits. I think if you go to frequentmiler.com and type in which Marriott Elite Benefits apply, you'll find it. Or if you go to our Marriott Bonvoy Complete Guide, you'll find information in there. So we have a nice handy chart that you can search and figure out based on which brand you're staying at. And you can see the exceptions. So there's a super easy reference chart. And I say super easy in the sense that Greg did a great job putting together a really easy to use chart, but it's not at all intuitive. And we're talking about exceptions and weird oddities with

lounges closed. But even on a more simple, basic high level, like you get free breakfast at most places, but you don't at Ritz. Okay, Ritz is really ritzy. But you also don't get free breakfast exactly at courtyards, you get like a credit, and it's per person. And the one time I stayed at a courtyard, my wife was still in the room getting ready. they said oh no she has to be standing here in order to get this $10 credit I was like what are you talking about I mean so you know so it's it's frustrating I think is the right word you said yeah um if you know how to play the game and you're good at playing the game the Marriott Elite status can certainly be good I don't mean to say it's not I mean both Greg and I have it both have titanium status right so obviously we found it to be worthwhile, but that's because we're pretty good game players,

you know? So, and even being a good game player, my wife wasn't standing next to me at the desk at the courtyard, so I couldn't get the $10 credit for her. So, so even, even people who are good at it though, struggle a little bit sometimes. So, so Marriott's hit or miss. Almost every time I stay at a Marriott beforehand, I Google the name of the property and Platinum Elite and see what people have written about what they got as Platinums. And that way you at least know what to expect. And you never have to do that with a Hyatt. You might do it because you're excited and interested in finding out, but it's not because you're like oh am i gonna get break no you're gonna get breakfast right you are gonna get

breakfast what the reason you do it is you find out but am i gonna get room service breakfast exactly exactly yeah it's a totally different ball game which marriott will tell if you ask about room service breakfast with marriott at the desk desk, they'll say, sure. Sure, you can get that. We'll charge it to your room. Just pay for it. You can get whatever you want. That's right. That is, in fact, 100% what happened to me at the Perry Lane Hotel in Savannah.

Because they told me at the desk that I asked if the free breakfast, if we could be able to eat it outside in the morning. And they said, no. And I was like, okay, could we have the breakfast in our room? Sure. You can charge it to your room. Did they at least tell you that, that you could charge it to the room? Yeah. Yeah. They didn't pretend that that was a benefit. Yeah. Well, that much is good. That much is good. But yeah.

So it's a different ball game and you know, it, like you said, I think it just depends on where you're going to be. And, and, and, you know, we made Hyatt sound pretty good. But on the flip side, you know, when Greg said, it depends, are there Hyatt's where you want to go? Really, the question is, are there nice Hyatt's where you want to go? Because if there's Hyatt places or Hyatt houses, doesn't really matter. Global status isn't going to do you a whole heck of a lot to get your free parking, I guess, on an award stay, if that Hyatt place or Hyatt house normally charges, which is probably not the case to begin with. Which is actually good.

And if that's your travel style, staying at Hyatt Houses or Residence Inn or those kinds of things, having elite status isn't going to make much difference for you anyway, and you probably shouldn't be mattress running. Exactly, exactly, exactly. You should be ignoring everything

we've been talking about. So that's right. What are you doing? Listening to the show? You got something better you could do. Come on. Go do it. You really just spent an hour listening to us talking about mattress running.

We're talking about residence in here. You guys got to rethink your priorities. Right. Right. So anyway, or start, start staying at really nice properties because you have hotel points that you can stay uh for free so do that so here's my question are you mattress running for either

of these promotions i have to so with with maria you know i i am titanium i'm expecting 38 nights to roll over i have both business and and consumer. So I'm starting within a few nights of titanium again because of all of that. And I've got 19, I think, free night certificate type things that expire August 1st, I only have to spend a few of those, nevermind doubling. I only have to use a few of those to get to titanium and then all the rest do nothing but get inch me closer to lifetime, which I'll get in the next couple of years anyway. So long story short, there's absolutely no reason for me to match this run. There's no reason for me to go out of my way to book a stay uh during that window where they're doubled would do you know it's just just no use um hyatt um hyatt i i previously i'd said i had i'd been saying i I know I'm going to have so many stays that I'm not worried about it. Now, as things keep changing, I'm like, oh, maybe I need to do a little.

So as things stand right now, I always have something booked. And then, you know, as you've seen, I've been canceling every month. Right now, I do have a six six night stay book during the promotional window so it's actually at a resort where we'll get uh quadruple points because i'm a high credit card holder it's a paid stay um and i will earn uh it's a six night stay so i will earn either 12 elite Knights cause the doubling or, um, eight because I booked a third night free rate and Hyatt is supposedly not supposed to give you elite Knights for the third night on third night free rates.

And so I'll find out if that's the case here. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is the case. I think we had a reader who had written in because they didn't get it on those so i think yeah i mean with with the mirabel bogos the buy one get ones uh it was kind of all over the board some people got full credit some people got half credit um one person got half credit and and messaged hyatt concierge on facebook they said which i didn't even know there was a facebook

one but um where i'm always doing twitter uh and they said they they applied the elite nights for them so i might try that just for fun and see what happens after you're gonna be that guy again nyc is not impressed right now he heard that he's gonna ask for the extra credit for the nights he didn't even pay for. You didn't even pay for them and you're going to ask for elite status. Oh boy, I'm in trouble. Oh my goodness.

I'm not in law again. Oh yeah, you are. How about you? What are you going to do mattress run wise? I mean, I know what you do with it. Right. I already did Hyatt and Hyatt, I'm even like thinking to myself,

is it worth mattress running now for more sweet night awards? Like I've been considering it because I think every 10 nights now i could take two more sweet night awards right right right or not sweet night awards rather sweet upgrades because upgrades are good or one more yeah i should double check it's one more should should double check it before i said it uh so it may be because so you're looking at right now if you you do five nights, you're going to get 10, right? So for if you're able to do five category one nights, let's say cost you 25,000 points. And then if you're a credit card holder, you get 25% back. If you're not a credit card holder, you get 15%

back, assuming that you registered by yesterday in order to get the promotion, because you did need to register by January 15th. So if you've been listening for the last hour and you're like, oh yeah, I'm going to get on this Hyatt thing. And you didn't already register spoiler alert, except the opposite of a spoiler alert, just spoiling your day too late. Hopefully you registered already for it. But anyway, so 15% back, if you're not a credit card holder. So you're looking at, you know, at a 20, 21,000 points out of pocket net for each suite award. If it, even if it's only one that you get after that 10 nights, which I think maybe you're right in hindsight, I think maybe it is

just one. So you're talking 20, 21,000 points for another suite upgrade award. I mean, it depends on how long you're going to use it for, but that can certainly be worth it, right? It could be, but my philosophy of those things is that, um, value the more of them that you get because they have expiration dates on them. And so, you know, the first one you get, yeah, that's probably worth 40,000 points or something, right? Because you're very, very likely to use that second one, you know, less, and the next one less, and so on and so on. So it's up to you how sure you are that you're going to get to it not that sure yet but i get until the end of february so i'm not going to count it out at this point you know i don't i don't think i'm going to match but i'm not going

to count it out man yeah and there's there's there's a non-zero chance that uh something better than a zero percent chance that they'll get extended to longer validity. But we just don't know. It'll be a while before that happens. And, and I have a trip to Hawaii tentatively booked, but no hotel booked yet for late this spring.

And I don't think it's probably going to happen, but if it does, I'll be happy to use one of my sweet night at awards there. And I'll also pick up a few nights. Now they won't be be doubled but i'll pick up a few nights so there's definitely part of me that's like well maybe it's worth spending another 10 000 on two category one nights right now that double to four because then if i pick up another six later on boom i'm at another sweet that's actually a really good point is uh wow yeah i hadn't thought about that so looking forward to your likely plans for how many elite nights you're going to earn for the rest of the year you could then say okay i'm

gonna i think i am gonna do that so it's worth it's worth doing some number of nights to hit a every 10 point threshold that maybe this is this by the way, for those listening who have no idea what we're talking about, what we're talking about is like at 60 nights, um, you get some of the best choice benefits with, with, I'm sorry, milestone benefits with Hyatt. You, you, um, but every 10 nights after that, up to a hundred, up to a hundred nights, you get the choice of either, I think it's 10,000 points, 10,000 points. Yep. Or a, a suite upgrade certificate. Right. Right. So,

so I've already have 60 nights for anybody who's like not been following along. I already have 60 nights cause I did a 30 night mattress run that checked out at the beginning of January and that doubled because the promotion was already going. So I got 60 elite nights already this year, you know, from checking out early January, I got my 60 nights for this year. So I got high globalist status and all of the choice benefits this year. You only need 30 nights for globalist status, but to get the choice benefits or not choice, rather, we keep saying that to get the milestone benefits you need still to, to hit the night requirement. So 40 nights, 50 nights,

60 nights or various benefits. So I've already got all those, but now I could for every 10 nights this year, get another sweet upgrade award. So I'm definitely considering a couple of category one mattress run nights if it will work in, and I don't have a category one Hyatt anywhere near me. So it's going to have to be a situation where I'm going to be passing one on the road, so to speak, and able to, to mattress run it. So I don't even know if that's possible yet, but it's definitely a thought. Marriott, I'm definitely going to do at least two, two nights stays.

And the reason for that is because I've got that promotion where I need two days in order to get 22,500 points. So that's a targeted promotion that you may have in your account. If you pull up the Marriott app and you hit account and promotions, you may have that different people have different versions. So it may not be as good, but mine Tuesdays gets me 22,500 points. I was already planning on mattress running that at 50 bucks a night, and I just didn't do it before.

Now I'm like, okay, I got to get that one done because I'll get the 22,500 points plus the doubled nights. That'll get me a little bit closer to both lifetime status and to, to re-qualifying at titanium this year. So I'm going to at least have those four. Right. More I do. I don't know. Well, you'll get it. So you'll have to do two stays of two nights each, right? Exactly. In order to qualify that. So that's eight nights once it's doubled. Exactly. Exactly. So eight nights once it's doubled, plus the half, if I get the 38 from last year, it's 46.

And then credit cards, there'll be a titanium status again. So that would be, I think, a no-brainer for me because I'm going to get such a rebate on the points all sale that I was already going to stay at least one night. I think it'll work. Actually, I didn't do the math. Now that I think about it, I'm like, maybe I shouldn't be mattress running two nights a day. All right, you can think about that offline.

I'll think about it. I'll think about that later on. One thing, I do want to send a huge kudos to the Hyatt rep who originally informed us about all the promos and has been great about answering questions. Particularly we've proven, we're proven right about our, our, the outcomes of our conversations with her when, when this deal was originally slated to end January 4th.

We went back and forth with her on email about whether a stay with a checkout in early January, a stay that starts in December, checkout in January, whether or not you would earn double Elite Night credits. And it was very unclear for a lot of reasons, but she initially told us no. But then when we kind of pushed back a little bit, she went and asked the actual operations team, like, how does this actually work? And found out the answer was, in fact, yes. And so we published that information. Then all kinds of Hyatt reps told everybody in the world that the answer was no, including a Hyatt rep on Flyer Talk told everyone the answer was no.

I went back to our Hyatt rep that we were talking with. She made sure that everyone was informed on the Hyatt team about the correct thing. They changed the terms and conditions. I made sure it was changed on Flyer Talk, et cetera. And your situation is proof that, that the answer was correct all along. Right. She was correct all along. It was doubled. For sure. And then just last week, again, similar kind of thing happened where a reader was told that they wouldn't get a concierge, which is one of the 60 night milestone

benefits. If they had earned the nights from being doubled rather than from actually staying 60 nights. And that didn't sound right to us. And so you know, we went to her and, and initially, she said the same thing that the reader was told. And we pushed back and said, Are you sure about that? That doesn't quite make sense with everything else. And so she took the time yet again, to go back and double check and make sure and confirm, and then came back and said, Oh, no, you will get the concierge. And sure enough, I did get my concierge assigned this week. So did the reader who had reached out. So she's been excellent. You're totally right about answering questions and checking for the information when we push back. So it's been terrific. It's been a pleasure. And let me say that this is kind of funny, because as much as Marriott is in some

ways mimicking the promos with the double elite nights, we have a very similar situation that has happened with Marriott and time will tell whether Marriott is as correct as our Hyatt rep is. But the situation was this thing with whether every night of the stay needs to be a paid night, or if you can mix paid nights with award nights. Initially, they thought, no, that wouldn't work to mix them. But he went back to somebody, found out, oh, the answer is yes, it should work if you mix them. We don't know. I'm not as confident here.

No, I'm less confident. I'm less confident. I'm a little bit more confident than usual because it wasn't just an off the cuff email back answer. It was clearly one that had gotten double checked with somebody, but I don't know. I don't yet have the same level of faith that that double checking was correct. Whereas I was pretty darn sure that our Hyatt rep knew what she was talking about. Yeah. Not only that, the Hyatt situation confirmed what we thought based on our knowledge of the Hyatt program. And so that's why we pushed back. It didn't make sense for it not to double. And

in the Marriott case, it's the opposite. It kind of like I'd be, you know, without him having said that it would work and, and, you know, going and checking and saying that it would work. I would not have guessed that, that, that a mixed stay would work. So we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. I got my fingers crossed.

It'd be great in order to know that we have the, you know, that one correct also. And it'll be good to know one way or another once it happens. I'm kind of hoping that the terms and conditions when the promo comes out officially will actually just address it directly. And if so, then it'd be great because if it, if it, for some reason doesn't double, we could point people, you know, point Marriott back at the terms and conditions and they'll fix it as they've

done on similar things in the past. The nice thing is that these programs are indulging our questions and our nerdiness over this. That's right. They're indulging us when we ask, when we say, wait, will this work? Will that work? If I stand on my head and pat my tummy

and rub my shoulder, is it going to give me any extra nights? They're getting back to us and answering the questions. And I got to say, I appreciate that because it's nice to have a direct line of communication with folks who can find those answers. Because so often if you call and speak to a regular rep, it is a coin flip as to whether

or not what they tell you is going to be correct. And I can't, can't emphasize, we talk about this all the time. Like readers are told the wrong thing all the time by customer service reps. It's a hundred percent that they'll say it with confidence. Oh yes. Whatever they say, but yeah. 50 50 as to whether or not it's as good as flipping a coin as to whether it's right. That's absolutely true. Okay. So why are we not talking about Hilton and IHG in these conversations?

Oh, that's a great question. My good. I almost totally forgot about those guys. So, and probably everybody else in the world has too. So why are we not? Because they're not doing anything. So IHG, are they doing anything? Are they dropping? Maybe they cut elite status requirements.

I guess everybody's doing that, but no promotion that I can think of. And Hilton has the status match where you can status match from another chain and you can then get hilton gold status initially and and upgrade that to diamond status by staying nine nights within 90 days um but nine nights for hilton diamond says like would you mattress run nine nights for not even close and especially so in hilton's case um the hilton aspire card gives you diamond status and it is such a valuable card to have in a hold that if you're interested in top

tier hilton status that has to be because you stay at hilton's often and if you do you need the hilton aspire card and so that yeah i mean i don't even that's just a no-brainer and i feel like the hilton aspire card is a no-brainer so yeah i mean i feel like diamond status like you said if you have any interest then you're gonna get the aspire card but even on the gold end so the hilton status match you can match status from some other program to hilton and get gold status and you need five nights and 90 days to keep hilton gold status. That's not even worth it because if you want Hilton gold, all you need is a $95 Hilton surpass card. So exactly like,

and you're not going to get five nights for cheaper than $95. Just pay the 95 bucks, get the, you know, and have the card. Right. So even if, even if Hilton was offering double,

triple, quadruple elite nights, I can't see a mattress run. It being mattress run worthy because there's such easy ways of getting there instead. It's just weird. There's no reason to stay at a hill. Now, when they offer those huge quadruple point promos, now that's good. They're very rewarding.

IHG, the problem is not only that they have no promos going on that we care about but that um they're elite status we don't care about it doesn't give you much so there's just really no reason to go for it so no that's why that's why we're focusing so much on marriott and hyatt both of them have elite programs that are both valuable and you can't get easily by just holding a credit card. So yeah, there you go. So, you know, we've taken quite a long time to go through our main event. So I'm thinking we cut the post-roast in half. I just post-roast you and we move on. What do you think? Actually, I think that's pretty good because I didn't have a post-roast for you. So I agree.

Let's do it. Wow. Did not expect that result. All right. Well, so actually, today's post-roast of yours comes from a reader named John. This was the year of the Mattress Run post. Your post all about mattress running this year. And John says, and this was in the comments,

you know this, he says, I think your analysis of Marriott may not be completely correct. You really only need 70 elite knights for titanium because once you pass 50 knights and become platinum, you should get a Marriott choice award allowing you to get an additional five elite knights. True, totally true. John was right. I saw that and I said, you know what, John is totally right. You definitely do need fewer nights than what I had in the post. If you were to take those five

elite nights, didn't even cross my mind when I was doing the post because I ordinarily wouldn't consider using the choice benefit of 50 nights on five elite nights. Now I say that, and we talked earlier about why you might want to do that. So it totally makes sense. John's feedback was perfect, spot on. It might make sense for people. Ordinarily, I would think you want to take the sweet night awards when you hit 50 nights, except that we know that the sweet night awards are hard to use.

They don't always clear. And now that everybody and, you know, ACNYC sister-in-law has five suite night upgrades that have been extended and earned like five more or 10 more or 29 more or whatever. Everybody's got so many of these things that you're, I feel like your chance of those things clearing is diminishing exponentially. It could be. And also if you really wanted them, if your goal was, was titanium, you could get them at, at the 75 night level. So, um, I think that totally makes sense when you're going for titanium and it's a stretch to get there. I think you should take the five elite nights at 50. Totally agree. Totally. And you know, that makes me wonder in retrospect, if I had taken the five elite night credits as my choice benefit for last year

if i had chosen it in january would those five nights have counted for last year or would they have counted for this year um they would count it for last year it doesn't yeah it doesn't there there's the only reason to pick them in january is if you didn't if you're one to five nights short of the elite status you would hope to get okay that's good otherwise it's well i guess it gives you five more nights lifetime which we had a reader last week who reported that they specifically were taking them in order to get five nights closer to life so maybe yeah maybe okay so that's post-roast i got roasted by a reader. Thank you, John. You're right. It was a good roast. So I'll take that. That was a great piece of feedback.

And, you know, it's nice when readers come up with stuff like that. I say, oh, you know, that's a great point. Right. Just like I sort of, you know, roasted myself in the beginning of the show with ACNYC's very helpful comment as well. Right, right. Okay. So then that brings us to the question of the week, and I'm gonna toss the glasses back on for the YouTube folks in order to read the question of the week. So question of the week here is for those listening on, on podcast, Nick is looking very studious now with his glasses on. Very studious studying hard here. So our question this week comes from Katie via email.

And Katie said, hi there. Really enjoy your site and podcast. You guys seem knowledgeable about the Marriott program. So I thought I'd ask you this one. My parents spend $150,000 per year on their old Marriott Rewards Visa. They earn titanium status through this. I think the Ritz might be a better card

for them with the benefits, but can they still earn this level of status through spend think the Ritz might be a better card for them with the benefits, but can they still earn this level of status through spend on the Ritz card? They aren't interested in a business card because they are co-owners. So I assume co-owners of the card itself or whatever. So thank you for your time. So, all right, they spent 150,000 a year on the old Marriott rewards visa. They get titanium status based on their spend. Should they upgrade that to the Ritz card? That's the question. Let's talk a little bit about the old

Chase Marriott card that most people listening probably don't have anymore because Chase offered all kinds of incentives to upgrade to the what is now the Bonvoy something or other card. That card earned one point per dollar for most spend

and for every $3,000 I think it was you got one elite knight credit so $150,000 of spend on that card means you get 150,000 points and you get 50 Elite Knight credits by having the card. I think they got 10 or 15 Knights for having the card. It used to be different. I don't know.

Let's say 15. So that means they were at like 65 elite knights, and maybe they spent 10 each year in actual hotels to get to titanium status. Now, or the reader made a little mistake and meant they get to platinum status with all that spend. I'm not sure. Because if that's what she meant, then she's absolutely right. Because the Ritz card with only $75,000 spend would earn just as many points.

75,000 spend, because that card earns two points per dollar. That would give her parents 150,000 points and would give them platinum status we give whoever the cardholder is platinum status not titanium status and not a leg up towards titanium status either which is important because if they earn 25 more nights through stays and having the credit card um that's just 25 nights. It doesn't add up because the platinum you get from spending on the Ritz card is just a all-in-one chunk.

Just platinum status. It is not 15 elite nights. It's just platinum status. Right, right. So they also wouldn't get choice benefits, which they are getting today. So there is some trade-off, but the point is they could get a meaningful level of status with half the spend and they would earn just as many points if they had 75,000.

I would think they would do much better putting 75,000, the other 75,000 on a more rewarding card, even a 2% cash back card there, you know, then use that to stay in any hotel you want or whatever you want to do with it. Right. I mean, you'd be talking about $1,500 in cash back at 2% cash back. And if you're able to do any better than that, I mean, if you're spending that much, maybe you can get the bank of America premium rewards and you got enough money or assets on hand to get a platinum honors and get 2.65% cash back or whatever. And then

you're talking about over two grand in cash back on that 75,000 spend. So yeah, you could certainly could come up with other ways to do that. The other thing I want to mention, and I'm going to mention this without the answer, because now that you're talking about all this, I'm thinking about the fact that I meant to go back and check because at the beginning, I think it was the beginning of last year, I did get an elite night for 3000 spend on my old Marriott card. But because all the promos happening towards the end of the year, I know I spent more than 3000 once or twice. And I don't think I got any extra elite nights. So I got to double check my account and see if I ever did get those elite nights. And if I do get the elite nights this year, but I'm not positive that I

did anymore, which made me wonder if they had cut it. So I would just say if your parents are spending 150 right now on that card, make sure that they are still getting those elite night credits that they had been before. Because at some point we wondered whether they would drop that as a benefit and it didn't seem that they did. But then, like I said, I was thinking that I did not pick up any additional nights when I should have. So I'll have to double check that. And hopefully you'll see it in the notes, the show notes here, whether or not I, um, I did get those extra elite nights that I should

have on the old card. Cause again, that's the old card, the $85 card that gives a 25 K certificate that's supposed to give one elite night credit for every three grand spent, or at least that was long one of the benefits on the card. So, so I would would do the writs i would go the writs route personally i think i think it just makes more sense yeah i i agree i would go that route and because also the other part of it you know if for some reason you they really value titanium status um then hopefully it's because they're staying at Marriott properties a lot where they're using that status. And in that case, they don't need to get 50 elite knights

from $150,000 spend. They could do a lot less spend on their existing card to do the incremental amount that they need to get to that level of status they want. Two other things we should point out. One, if they upgrade to get to that level of status they want. So two other things we should point out. One, if they upgrade to the Ritz card, they're not going to be able to get that specific Marriott card again.

You can't get back to that one that gives the- That's true. The elite night for every 3K spent. So there's not going to be a way to take that back, so to speak, in the future. There are downgrade options. You can downgrade to the whatever it is, the Marriott whatever card that's $95 a year that we can downgrade to the whatever it is the marriott

whatever card that's 95 a year that we can't ever remember the names because they all sound the same um oh looks like my camera just went off so if you're watching this on the video apparently you lost me hopefully i can get that back on um but the other thing that i wanted to mention is that if you had they had titanium status last year they're looking at 38 nights this year plus 15 from having the credit card they're at 58 so really you know they're in pretty good shape towards titanium status if they're going to stay at all this year anyway right that's a good that's a good point the other thing is you know if they don't want to give up that um the ability to to earn the elite night with three thousand dollar spend maybe just kind of set that one aside

and sign up for the Amex Envoy Brilliant card. Spend 75K on that each year. Has the same effect as the Ritz. And then they could always go back if they needed a few extra knights for whatever reason. Absolutely. All right, so I'm going to switch my camera over so that it fixes that and I'll find out later on what happens.

So I have no idea if any of this will get in the final recording, but Nick has been trying out all kinds of new tech today. And so we see, we see the result of that, which is. But it worked for a while and then it stopped working. So yeah, we'll have to see whether that's a battery issue or what I'll figure it out later on. But so if you're watching on YouTube,

then you just probably lost my face for a little bit. But here I am back. And if you're listening in podcast form, you probably didn't notice any difference at all. So that said, I think we've answered that. Then probably we say go for the Reds. Right. But I did give another option, which is the Bonvoy Brilliant,

which is a, there you go. All right. All right. That brings us to the end then. I want to thank everybody who's been out there listening. Finally done with this thing.

I know, right? Finally, about time. That person who was waiting for the end for the question of the week is now like, sweet, it's over. All right. So if you want to read more

about what we've been talking about, you want to get on our email list so you can get the post right away. You want to go to frequent miler.com slash subscribe. Again, that's frequent miler.com slash subscribe in order to get on our email list and follow us on social media and all that fun stuff. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit subscribe, ding the notifications bell, leave us a comment, like the video.

If you're listening to this anywhere else, like the podcast, leave us a comment, all the same kind of stuff. We appreciate your feedback and maybe we'll read it. Maybe it'll make it into the giant mailbag in a future week. Thank you guys very much. And we'll see you again soon. Thanks everyone. Bye-bye.