Starting monday im homeless in denver, and am going to be staying in hotels. I'll have about 2 weeks that I need to stay. Any way to make this a status run for marriott? My budget is ~$100/night BUT i have to pay for the hotel room anyhow, so i'm looking to see what hotels would maximize my points per dollar. Thanks!
Check first whether you need stays or nights credit. If it's the number of nights with Marriott that matters for you--as is true for me--you don't need to switch hotels, just find someplace that you want to stay for the money and maybe look for lounge opportunities if you qualify for lounge access. If you're switching hotels every night, check rates day by day. Sometimes downtown places can be cheapest on weekends if there's no special event. If you don't have to change every day, consider an extended stay hotel such as Residence Inn and it's cheaper versions (Park Town Suites?). RI gives a hot self-serve full breakfast every morning and evening snacks, perhaps with wine/beer, three or four evenings per week, which can save a lot of money compared to restaurants. However, be aware that these places tend to fill with families with kids around weekends.
Call and ask for a Platinum (not gold) challenge. - upside if you get it (apart from the free breakfast, access to lounge and so forth) is that you will be given the plat status immediately on a sort of probationary basis and will therefore be able to get an additional 500 point 'welcome gift' with every stay... which makes changing hotels every night slightly more 'worth it. ( A search of the forum should provide details of how to get a challenge, and sorry if this is slightly incoherent but it's late in the AM here and I've been in front of a laptop screen for something like 30 hours straight now) Iin terms of properties in DEN I stayed at the REN Denver airport which was around your budget or less for a FS marriott - so not too bad, and close to lots of other marriott's in the 'airport suburbs' to do an MR. Finally if you are doing an MR, or just want to save your bucks - consider looking for an LNF rate for any of the hotels, and if you find it, book that rate for every night or every second night depending if you are switching hotels.
Did the challenge last summer. It's basically (IIRC) 18 nights in 90 days. Worked perfectly, since we are NOW on track to do the regular Platinum requirements. FWIW, our regular property is $79+tax (83'ish all-in) per night. Great corporate rate.....
If you're already Gold or above, remember you can take advantage of the elite free weekend nights at FS Marriotts, JWs and Rens. You can often find these properties in the $100 range on weekends in Denver, which for two nights is a pretty good deal.
Not that this would be anything related to Marriott, but the current Priority Club Point Breaks offers a decent deal in Denver: http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc...nts/us/hre/pointbreaks/us.html?rateCode=IVANI Only 5000 points per night! Free breakfast buffet too.
I think i'm going to go for the platinum status run, i'm searching around now to figure out exactly how to get it started. Thanks all the advice everyone! <edit> How do i find lower rates than marriott has posted? For example, would a hotels.com rate for the same marriott be a valid LNF claim?
Okay just got off the phone with marriott rewards, everything's in order. Hotels.com nights will not count towards status right? iirc last time i tried getting credit the hotel told me that my rate didn't qualify for points. So how do i search for cheap rooms @ marriott? Thanks!
I'd suggest a search here of on FT for LNF. But in essence, if you find a cheaper rate than marriott.com, you let marriot.com know, and if they can verify it within 24 hours you get 35% off the LOWER rate. so you never book except on the marriott site, it's not necessary to make the second booking. http://www.marriott.com/hotel-rates/travel.mi One trick I wasn't aware of was that you can LNF marriott USING marriott. I was given an example several years ago which I used, booking using a publicly-available code for a suite gave a rate lower (just) than was being offered on the website as the best available rate for that room type at the time I booked. The nest result was of course a rate 25% lower still
Do hotels.com rates count for LNF? <edit> For example if i book on marriott.com and then find it for $50 less on hotels.com, does that count?
So if i book it with one code @ marriott.com and then with the REG code @ marriott.com, and use the REG as the origionally booking (since its the higher rate), i'll get the lower rate and a 25% discount? That's awesome! Thanks for the information, i'm about to give it a try.
Just FYI I believe the only way it works is if ANY of the publicly-available codes give you a rate lower than the one shown on the website 'normally' (i.e. without any codes) you've a good chance of getting a LNF. another way to look at it is "if we didn't give you the best rate we offer on our own website we'll match whatever other rate we offered on some promotion as long as it's publicly available" - that is at least the logic used I think. basically the rate used to compare will be the lowest 'default' rates shown on the website
Either would be just fine, i'm looking now @ the courtyard downtown. But i'm not too particularly picky.
