Reaching a Hotel Tier Without Inventing Trips

A hotel tier is earned in nights, stays, points or a mix. Find out which your programme counts first, because the accelerators that work depend on it.

Nights versus stays

A night is a night. A stay is a booking, however long. In a nights-based programme a seven-night booking gives you seven. In a stays-based one it gives you a single stay, where seven separate one-night bookings would give you seven.

Programmes that count stays reward frequent short trips. Programmes that count nights reward long ones. Working toward a tier under the wrong assumption is the most common way people end the year just short. Some programmes count both, with different thresholds, so read the actual terms once, properly, rather than taking it from forum folklore.

Radisson Rewards counts both. Its FAQ sets Premium at “5 nights or 3 stays” and VIP at “30 nights or 20 stays”, reached within the 12 months after you join or last move up, and whichever count you hit first wins. Twenty one-night trips reach VIP on the stays count while sitting ten nights short on the other. The same FAQ breaks the usual rule about where you book: nights and stays booked through a third party “will be counted towards your next tier”, although they earn no points. Both thresholds are on Radisson’s own tier table.

Co-branded cards

A co-branded credit card that grants elite nights annually, regardless of stays, takes the least effort of any accelerator. The nights arrive whether you travel or not, they usually count toward the tier, and they compound with everything else.

If the card also gives a free-night certificate you would use, the fee frequently pays for itself before tier progress counts at all. This is a rare case where the loyalty maths favours the customer: the chain pays for the relationship out of interchange rather than out of your travel budget.

Promotions and registration

Chains run regular promotions with bonus nights or accelerated credit. You must usually register before the qualifying stay. Retroactive credit is rarely granted, and customer service will say no politely.

Registering takes a minute and costs nothing, so do it whenever a promotion appears, whether or not you have a trip planned. A promotion you registered for and did not use costs you nothing, while an unregistered stay is simply gone.

Pooling and shared accounts

Some programmes let household members combine qualifying activity or share benefits. Where this exists, it can turn two accounts that reach nothing into one that reaches a tier. Rules vary and some charge for it, so check before assuming two travellers must build separately.

Buying nights, and where the line is

A paid membership is the version of this that is sold openly rather than gamed. Across South and Southeast Asia, Accor Plus has more properties where one would actually get used than the alternatives. The sum is the same as everywhere else here: price the benefits against a realistic year of travel before you start. If the answer only works assuming you travel more next year than last, you are funding the tier.

Programmes sell points, and some effectively sell status through paid memberships or challenges. Buying a tier is fine if the sum works, because it is a purchase and purchases can be good value.

Some programmes draw the line between buying points and buying status in writing. Radisson lets a member buy up to 250,000 points a calendar year. Its FAQ answers whether points can upgrade or maintain a tier with a flat no: the tier is “calculated only on the number of nights or stays”. An award stay booked online does count, since nights count “whether paid in cash or points”. Bought points turn into tier progress only by being spent on a real night in a real room. Radisson’s FAQ sets out both rules in two short answers.

If you are booking hotel nights you did not need in order to reach a threshold, the programme has stopped working for you. The classic case is the mattress run, a cheap night booked purely for credit, sometimes not even slept in. Occasionally that pencils out. Far more often it spends real money on a benefit you will use twice.

A paid membership passes that test and a mattress run usually fails it. The membership has a published price and a countable return, so the sum either works or it does not. The mattress run has neither, so it runs on the feeling of progress.

We have affiliate arrangements with Accor Plus and Radisson Hotel Group and earn a commission if you buy a membership or book a stay through our links.