So the first thing you might ask is why am I staying at a hotel that is 0.3 miles from my house.  Well that would be for a mattress run.

What is a mattress run?

Mattress Runs are Hotel Stays for the sole purpose of Gaining Points or Status in a Hotel Loyalty Program.

Does it ever make sense to do this?

Well The truth is it usually hard to argue why it makes sense to spend money on an unnecessary hotel stay. But for me,  I was happy to waste this money since I value what I got in return.  Here are some Vital Statistics about the stay.

Hyatt Fairfax at Fair Lakes

Room: 1 King Grand Hyatt bed and 1 Full size Sofa bed 
Rate: $55.20  Final Bill (w taxes): $61.82
Points Earned:  1,359 Gold Passport Points
Bonus Points:    2,500 Gold Passport Points (per night after 20 nights under Hyatt Endless Possibilities Promo Q1 2014) 

The hotel room at this all-suite property is fairly nice, but definitely nothing special.

 

What made this Mattress run appealing for me was the low rate ($55.21 Hyatt Elite Rate).  Here in the Northern Virginia it is common to find sub $60 weeknight rates at hotels that usually charge $200+ during weekdays.  In total I earned 2,859 Hyatt Points for this stay which I value at around 1.7 cents each.  That’s about $48 value in points.  On top of that I also value being a Hyatt Diamond which is the top elite level status in Hyatt’s loyalty program that is earned after 25 stays at Hyatt during a calendar year.  Because most of my travel is personal, the only way I achieve this status is by doing mattress runs in addition to my normal leisure travel so I can achieve the 25 Hotel stays needed to requalify for this status.

Why do I value being a Hyatt Diamond?

There are a lot of nice perks of Being a Diamond member of the Hyatt program.  During this stay I got to make use of the very generous Breakfast benefit.  This particular hyatt does not have a regency club so I am entitled to a full breakfast for up to 4 guest staying in my room.  This means I got to have a nice Hotel Breakfast Buffet Brunch with my parents on a Saturday morning that would have normally cost me $57.  Now granted I probably would not normally have spent that much to take my parents to breakfast, but an IHOP breakfast would have cost me around $30 and not been as good.

 

I’m not a Hyatt Diamond, would I ever want to do this?

Well the economics of a mattress run are a lot tougher if you’re not a Diamond member.  However, as a Staycation, it might make sense.  The Fair Lakes Hyatt for instance has AAA breakfast rates that include breakfast for two that  is frequently around $60 during the winter for a weekend night stay.  Plus there are other ways I save money on Hyatt Hotels stays. I’ll write about some of these in a future post.

Some Final Thoughts

Hotel point programs like Airline Frequent Flier programs offer a lot of perks for their best customers.  These loyalty programs are in a period of ever decreasing value mainly because Hotels and Airlines are more profitable than a few years ago when the economy was in recession. That being said there are still opportunities to do some travel hacking including something as silly as a Matress Run. Again it is easy to argue that this is wasteful spending, and I will not try to argue, but I will mention that the points I earned during this stay will go toward a stay at the Park Hyatt Maldives I will be taking later in the year.  The nice breakfast I had was a also a great bonus.

 

-TK