Elite Hotel Status Nomadic Living Strategy

We retired at age 53 and travel the world full-time. We sold everything and live out of a suitcase and backpack each. We have just started our third year of retirement and are going to be spending most of our time in major brand hotels, primarily in the Starwood, Marriott and Hilton families for the next couple of years. In our first year of global retirement, we primarily stayed in Airbnb’s. We tried to stay a month at a time to maximize monthly discounts. For most of our second year we used the hub and spoke approach. We rented an apartment for a year in Bangkok and averaged one 5-8 day trip to a neighboring country and one 3-5 day trip within Thailand per month. Click on the following link to see our Hub and spoke blog post

What is the Elite Hotel Status Nomadic Living?

This living strategy consists of staying in a hotel that is part of a major hotel chain as our primary residence. We have chosen to focus on Starwood, Marriott and Hilton properties, but other major chains would include IHG (Holiday Inn), Hyatt and Wyndham Rewards. By staying with a particular hotel chain, you gain the advantage of earning preferred loyalty status with that chain that will give you benefits such as earning points towards free nights, upgraded rooms, and complimentary food and beverage. Also, by staying in a major hotel chain with a loyalty program, you can earn points through branded credit cards, partner programs and other incentives and bonus programs.

How much will this cost? Sounds expensive.

When people typically think of staying at a Hilton or Marriott hotel or resort they think of a luxury that is only affordable a couple times a year for an annual vacation or a long weekend getaway. And that is certainly true in high-cost countries and in popular tourist destinations worldwide.

You can pay over $100 per night for a Motel 6 in places like Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco. More upscale hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriott, Starwood, and Hyatt can cost even more, a lot more!

However, in Southeast Asia and China, where we plan on spending most of the next two years, you can find hotels from major brands at much lower prices than found in the USA and Canada. For example, I found hotels in the Hilton family for as low as $32 USD per night in Malaysia, and $28 USD per night in China.

The other thing to consider is that when most people stay in a hotel, they still have to pay for the costs of their primary residence. For the period of time that they are staying in the hotel, they still have to make their mortgage or rent payment, pay the utilities and other costs of having a home. We just need to find a place to sleep every night so the hotel cost is our only cost for housing.

Also remember, the total cost of shelter includes much more than your mortgage or rent payment. According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American spends $18,886 per year on shelter. Of that, only about half goes towards mortgage or rent payments. The other half goes to utilities, maintenance, household goods, etc. This means that at $18,886 per year, the average American spends about $1574 per month or $52 per day on housing. We plan to average $30 per day on shelter over the course of a year staying at Marriott, Starwood, and Hilton hotels using both points and paying cash.

How will we do this?

• Attain and maintain the highest level of hotel chain loyalty status to give us increased rewards such as free breakfast and dinner, and give us increased points earning ability
• Use hotel reward points for many stays
• Seek out low-cost major hotel chain locations

Benefits of highest hotel loyalty status

We currently have Platinum status with Starwood (Sheraton) and Marriott hotel programs. We also have Hilton Diamond status. These are the highest level of status available with these chains. It takes 60 nights per year to attain this top status with the Marriott and Hilton programs and 50 nights per year for Starwood. Marriott purchased Starwood Hotels a couple of years ago and your highest status at either chain is matched across both brands.

Having the highest hotel reward status comes with many benefits:

• Free breakfast and access to the executive lounge where you can get complimentary food and drink at breakfast and dinner time. This is one of the highest value perks to us. Not all hotels have an executive lounge, but those that do mean that we typically can eat breakfast and dinner at the hotel at no cost, leaving only one meal per day that we have to buy ourselves.
• Accelerated points earning capability. You can earn up to twice as many points per dollar spent than someone with no status. Also, most hotel chains give you a welcome bonus of points every time you check in.
• Upgraded rooms. The best rooms are given to the guests with the highest status. This can be a room with a better view, a larger room, or even a large multi-room suite for the cost of a basic hotel room.

Maximize use of hotel reward points for stays 

In the year before I retired, I collected 1.3 million hotel and airline points. See the following link to see how we did this 1.3 million points in a year blog post I have continued to earn reward points through credit card sign-up bonuses, credit card spending, and points from hotel stays. We currently have 450,000 points with Hilton – enough for 112 nights at the lowest category of Hilton hotel, and 46,000 points with SPG – enough for 22 weekend nights at the lowest category of SPG hotels. Of course, not all of the hotels we will stay in will be the lowest category, but our significant number of points will get us quite a few free nights.

Using care to get as many hotel points as possible and then using them wisely will be key to sustaining this lifestyle. Here are some of the ways we maximize points:

• Redeem points wisely

o   Use the fifth night free when redeeming points with Hilton, Starwood, and Marriott.

o   Look for Marriott Point Savers hotels. These change on a quarterly basis, but offer stays at reduced point value

o   Use points on the weekend for low category Starwood properties

o   Evaluate whether to pay for the room or redeem points. Sometimes it is better to pay for the room rather than use points.

• Continue to get credit card sign-up bonuses

o   Only do this if you have good credit and pay off your balance every month. Look for credit card sign-up bonuses. We accumulated 275,000 Hilton points in card signing bonuses in the past 6 months between us as American Express rolled out new Hilton cards. American Express is expected to roll out new Marriott cards later this year and we expect to get another 100,000 to 200,000 points through these cards

• Take advantage of hotel points bonus programs

o   All major chains run limited time points promotion programs that offer bonus points. For example, we are currently signed up for the SPG Great Weeks promotion running from January 15 to April 15. We get double points for each stay and 500 bonus points if we stay on a weekend.

• Buy points when they are on sale

o   Typically, buying points from the hotel chain is not a great value unless you need just a few of them to get enough to redeem a reward. However, occasionally, the hotel chain will offer points on sale. For example, Hilton is currently offering points at a 50% discount, Starwood at a 35% discount, and Hyatt at a 30% discount. We will probably take advantage of the Hilton and Starwood offers because at the lowest category Hilton hotels we can get a 5-night stay using just $20 per night in points when buying at the discounted price. A weekend night at a Starwood lowest category hotel would equate to $45.50 per night using purchased points.

Use low cost hotel locations

On average, hotels are less expensive in Southeast Asia than in the USA or Canada. However, there still are expensive hotels and you need to budget wisely. For example, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia there are 9 Starwood hotels. Here are the most and the least expensive hotels for a Friday night:

• St Regis $185 USD per night or 20,000 Starpoints
• Sheraton Petaling $79 USD per night or 2,000 Starpoints

For a St Regis hotel, $185 per night is actually a really good price considering a St Regis in Park City, UT or Washington, DC will run you $800 USD per night (for those of you who have never stayed at a St Regis, you have access to a Rolls Royce to drive you around and you get your own butler). At $79 per night, the Sheraton Petaling is still more than we would want to pay for a hotel night, but on a points basis, it is a really good deal at only 2000 points.

Advantages of branded hotel living full-time

For us, this lifestyle has a lot of appeal for a number of reasons:

• Ultimate flexibility. We are not tied down or locked in for weeks or months at a time in a particular place. On a day’s notice, we can move on to our next destination.
• Carefree lifestyle. We don’t have to spend time cooking or cleaning. Much of the time we get two complimentary meals at the hotel, breakfast and heavy hor d’oeuvres in the executive lounge in the evening.
• All inclusive. Hi-speed wifi, tv, fitness center, swimming pool, etc is all provided. You don’t have to worry about setting up and paying for wifi, utilities, and health club membership on your own.
• Luxury living at times. Holding the highest level of elite hotel status means we often get upgraded, even to multi-room suites at times. Most hotels have a pool, exercise rooms, and sometimes even saunas and whirlpools so we get to take advantage items we didn’t even have when we owned our own home.
• Low cost. We can live in Hilton, Marriott and Starwood hotels in Southeast Asia for less than it costs the average American to live in their home. (By the way, China and India provide similar values.)

This lifestyle might not be for you

We have been having the time of our lives for the past two years living out of a small suitcase and a smaller backpack each and traveling the world. Moving to a hotel living only lifestyle may have further drawbacks for some people.

• Smaller living space. We simplified and downsized our living years ago. For the last 10 years of our working lives, we lived in houses and apartments that were 1000 square feet or less. Hotel rooms are smaller still. For us, we don’t spend that much time in our hotel room besides sleeping anyway, we love to be out and about exploring. For some people though, this is just too small on a full-time basis. (Note: we have been upgraded to multi-room suites that are larger than our previous houses and apartments, but you can’t count on getting upgraded to a suite all the time.)
• Lack of cooking facilities. Some people love to cook and prefer that lifestyle even if it is less expensive to eat the free hotel meals and eat out at restaurants. If you choose the Airbnb or Hub and Spoke retirement lifestyles, you still have the option of cooking at home. A lot of hotels have a small fridge, so you can keep drinks and light snacks there, but you will have to leave your room to get a full meal.
• Less privacy. Living in a hotel you have to leave your room at least once a day in order to have it cleaned. In hotels with an executive lounge, you can find a sofa or chair to sit and relax or read. With hotels that don’t have an executive lounge, usually the lobby has comfortable sofas and tables offering more room than you might have in a small hotel room when you just want to sit and relax. Many hotels also have outside seating and tables, often around the pool area. However, you may not be as comfortable in a lounge or lobby or by the pool where other people can just come and go.
• There may not be major brand hotels where you want to go. Hotel brand coverage varies country by country. We realize that we won’t be able to find major hotel chain properties in some of the places we travel. Coverage in Malaysia and Indonesia is pretty good with Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood. However, we already know that there are a number of places in Malaysia and Indonesia that have no major hotel brand locations. Some countries such as Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, for example, have few hotels operated by major chains.

What style of nomadic living best suits you?

What would you prefer?

• Hub and spoke – rent an apartment for a year and hop around for shorter trips to neighboring areas
• Airbnb – settle in for a month at a time or more at an Airbnb
• Major hotel living – use points and elite status for your accommodation needs