I forgot to talk more about this while chronicling our trip to London and Amsterdam but got side tracked with trying to find all of my pictures and make it sound semi-coherent. But this trip really showed me the value of mattress running.
For those of you that don't know, mattress running is when you stay at a hotel for the sole purpose of earning hotel points that push you toward the next level of elite status, or you stay to take advantage of a promotion a hotel is running.
My first encounter with mattress running happened in May when Club Carlson was running a special for their Radisson and Country Inn and Suites brands where a one night stay would earn you 50,000 and 40,000 points respectively. Both Kelsey and myself stayed a night at one of each to earn the 90,000 Club Carlson points and after the actual points for the stay posted we both had a points balance of around 112,000.
We paid an average of $90 a night for the two night stays so all in we were at about $180 a person or $360 total. We then used the points that we each earned to stay two nights at the Radisson Blu Edwardian Mercer Street and the Radisson Blu Amsterdam. These properties both cost 50,000 per night, which is the highest cost per night Club Carlson has.
Right before we left I looked at the paid rates for the hotels that we were staying at found out that the Edwardian Mercer Street in London was going for $400 a night and the Blu Amsterdam was going for $250 a night. So, if we would have booked our hotels online (Yes yes yes, I realize that these rates might be inflated a bit since they were so close to arrival) we would have paid $1100 for four nights. Instead we only paid $360. By taking a two nights to stay at hotels that were 10 minutes and one hour from our house we saved ourselves almost $750.
This hobby may seem a bit weird and strange at times...but if you are willing to put in the time to explore how you can maximize your potential earnings it can pay off in dividends.
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