Doing the Hotel Shuffle

IHG (what most of us would likely call Holiday Inn) is doing a promotion for its frequent-traveler program (formerly Priority Club, now IHG Rewards Club) that is worth quite a few bonus points if you can hit all of the elements in it. (Enough for two or three nights in one of their London properties, for instance, which is something near to my heart as I make my plans for next year's trip to Worldcon.) If the program had started a week earlier than it did, I'd already have one of the three remaining goals triggered, but only nights after the end of August count, so the travel at the end of August didn't count toward the total. However, to complete the remaining goals I need to spend a couple more Saturday nights in IHG properties, and two of those nights have to be at properties on a select list. Adding complexity, two stays in the same property on that list don't count. Thus tonight and tonight only I'm in the Holiday Inn Express Fremont, while next weekend I will check off the final goal with a night at the Holiday Inn Express Union City just up the freeway.

When the program first came up, I figured I'd never hit the target because the headline hotels on the list of "select" properties included places like Paris and Denver where I didn't expect to be traveling. Fortunately, I stumbled into the full list which included somewhat more plausible locations like a bunch of Holiday Inn Express properties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Because I'm spending so much time in hotels in the Bay Area, all this requires me to do is spent a little bit more per night (about $30) than I'm already spending for one night per week, and also requires me to switch hotels twice in two days. That last is a bit more hassle, as it means moving out of the Vagabond Inn, driving up to Fremont, checking in for one night, then reversing the process then next day.