Is there really that much difference between a $1000 night hotel room and a $300 a night room? As long as there's a decent mattress on the bed and the sheets are clean, I don't see there being all that much difference.

Yes and no. Mostly no -- there is not much of a difference between a $1000 hotel room and a $300 room. At least to my tastes -- I frequent business hotels, I suspect resorts might be different.  Depending on the time of year -- it can be the same room that sells at different rates.

 A room rack rate of $1000+/night is basically a 4-5 star hotel near maximum occupancy at peak season in a major city. They get to charge that much because of scarcity -- whether its a room facing Times Square on New Years Eve or a last minute reservation for a suite in London during the coming Olympics. The advantage of hotel programs vs. frequent flyer programs is that program rules will allow you to get the room as long as its available. You don't get charged extra points because its peak season.

Secondly -- with the exception of international flights, the majority of flights in the USA are under 5 hrs. I agree (oh dear lord do I agree) that on international flights business/first class is a HUGE difference but correspondingly if you are travelling international the hotels are more expensive as well.

Finally - as a frequent guest of a particular chain, they treat you much nicer than a frequent flyer of an airline. Even when I pay the cheapest hotel rate (or use points) I automatically get bumped to the best available room, get free meals (breakfast) and access to a business lounge which offers free liquor. Compare that to flying where I'm grudgingly offered a seat on a flight route thats most convenient to the airline and its clear to see that I'd rather just fly the cheapest airline flight and concentrate on racking up the hotel points.

p.s. The greatest hotel program is Starwood which allows you not only to rack up hotel points, but convert those points to obtain frequent flyer tickets at favorable rates. For every 20k starwood points (1 pt accrued per dollar of spend on a starwood credit card) , you can get 25k ff points on most airlines.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

"Is there really that much difference between a $1000 night hotel room and a $300 a night room?"

Hell, I'd settle (and have many times) for a $50 room at a Super-8, Motel6, Red Roof Inn, HoJo...  I've been in all of them, and if it's clean, I don't care about much else.  For the most part, the only thing I go to a motel for is to sleep and use the bathroom.  The rest of the day is time outside.  

Yes, I have stayed at some fairly fancy hotels in NYC and NOLA when someone else (the magazine I was working for at the time) picked up the bill.  Was it worth the money?  Sure, as long as I didn't have to pay for it.  

there's only one way to find out...

There are some really nice beds out there. I don't know what kind of bed you have at home but I'd never put a ton of thought into it until I ran into some really nice ass beds at a couple.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Have you ever stayed in this one?

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Actually, people like you are who they want. They WANT to use the miles to attract people, have banks pay for the right to branding credit cards, and then pay the airlines for miles they pay out as rewards, have retailers pay to pass out miles to customers. What they do not want are people who accumulate enough miles or are savvy to use them for expensive awards.

It surprises me that they are getting rid of the minimum mileage policy. That is just stupid and likely to piss off their best customers -- the guy who needs to get from NYC to Boston or something with no more than a days notice. Those flights can run $300-400 round trip or more. Considering US Airways specializes in short flights like from Scranton to PHL, or Lehigh Valley, PA to PHL, etc (some of the trips can be as little as 30 miles) catering to business travelers who pay through the nose and expense it, this move is stupid. Why should Joe MBA expense a flight on US Airways, get 45 miles and have to take like 556 trips (25,000/45) to get a basic free coach ticket for his family when he can transfer to United/Continental/Delta/whoever and earn a full 500, plus a frequent traveler bonus, and probably earn a free pass in 10 or 20 trips?

Ma and Pa making that big trip cross country vacation style to San Fransisco with flowers in their hair don't make jack for the airline. Those are long trips, burn a ton of gas and people book in advance so they spend less. Short business flights are where its at. If they had to screw customers they should do something to the irregular leisure fliers.

Why am I interested in this? I have spent tens of thousands of miles from my frequent flier days getting free flights for myself or my friends or upgrading people to first class (all I ask is that they drink enough or consume enough first class services to have outweighed the cash at the gate upgrade fee. Heh.). It pays off because if you buy a ticket at the last minute using miles instead of cash you can save hundreds instead of being screwed by the airlines highly confiscatory last minute walk up fares. I don't fly much anymore, but by being a savvy consumer (credit card, florists, branded companies I would have used anyway, etc) I have filled one of my airline mileage accounts with about ~350,000 points. This will hopefully buy my significant other and I two round trip tickets to Australia in International First Class, a month long vacation of which has been a goal of ours for a while. If we paid cash those tickets would generally run ~$10k each or more. But by doing stuff we would normally do, and just being smart about it we will go for free. Because that's how I roll.

I probably just jinxed it and tomorrow the airlines are all going to go under and recall their miles like the worthless fiat currency they are.