Anonymous wrote:300K HHI. We splurge on hotels. I love nice hotels. It really enhances my experience of a vacation. We don't have a fancy house or new cars but travel, including accommodations, is one thing we don't skimp on. We can afford it. I don't poll my fellow guests about their income or education level. Usually I am busy spending time with my family, eating well, and being pampered.

Neither do we but we like to be acutely aware of our surroundings when we are in an unfamiliar place.

Our HHI is similar to OPs. When it's just us as a couple, we usually stay in a B&B or we rent a condo type situation and cook our own breakfast and eat lunch there as well.

If we have a choice on hotels, and aren't doing the B&B/condo thing (say just for a wedding out of town) we try to stay at a Marriott or Hilton. I usually have points there from work travel.

And we definitely eat at fancy places when it's just us. Love food experiences.

225k - I use trip advisor and try to stay in the best experience for an area - sometimes I feel like Marriott / Westin etc kind of sanitizes the travel too much and I miss out on the experience. That being said, I like them, value their consistency and do stay in them.

We have a teenager, so we spend more to get a suite or one bd at least - it makes our trip about 10x more enjoyable.

I prefer to spend most of our vacation budget on food and a little less on the hotel if I can get away with it.

I'm a pretty frugal person, but I'm not on vacation to cook, camp, etc. so there is some balancing of that on trips.

Anonymous wrote:300K HHI. We splurge on hotels. I love nice hotels. It really enhances my experience of a vacation. We don't have a fancy house or new cars but travel, including accommodations, is one thing we don't skimp on. We can afford it. I don't poll my fellow guests about their income or education level. Usually I am busy spending time with my family, eating well, and being pampered.

We're the same way. Our motto is "We buy experiences, not things." Carpe diem.

300K HHI. We splurge on hotels. I love nice hotels. It really enhances my experience of a vacation. We don't have a fancy house or new cars but travel, including accommodations, is one thing we don't skimp on. We can afford it. I don't poll my fellow guests about their income or education level. Usually I am busy spending time with my family, eating well, and being pampered.

PP 19:53 -OP here. Honestly we have had more problems when we "had to" stay in upscale (not luxury) hotels. We stayed onsite Universal only to get the express pass and the people in the room next to us were up really late and loud and we had to call security. We also stayed at an upscale timeshare once (gift) where the room really smelled. I think the prior guests were either smokers or they had a mold problem but they were definitely covering something up with weird perfume.

How many trips per year? Are you enjoying the hotels you're staying in now? At your destination are you going to be in the room a fair amount, or simply just to sleep? So much depends.

My HHI is less than yours. I don't travel all that much, and if the kids are with me, we stay in a suite hotel, like Embassy Suites. When we took our big Disney trip this year we splurged on staying in the park. If its just me, I stay at a mid level chain that gives me points and I can usually rely on being clean with a decent shower. Before I had kids, I would often stay in very nice hotels, especially in sketchier parts of the world. It's very nice, but it can be overkill.

If you are happy where you're staying and you aren't taking the vacation on credit, stay where you are happiest.

125K HHI.

I use Hotwire and pay for highest star rating I can get in $150-$200 range. It's usually something boutique or upper range moderate, like a Sofitel, Le Meridian, Hotel Monaco. If we must pay full price, we go for a Hilton Garden Inn at a similar price point. I have had too many lousy stays at a 2 star with the 50 member teenage gymnastics team down the hall, etc, people with a loud TV on all night, etc.

500 HHI.. We stay where this a breakfast included, free wi-fi, and a pool. Most if the time this is a HI Express or a Hampton Inn

Our HHI is under 200k, so it's usually mid level chains for us (e.g., Hilton Garden Inn, Doubletree, Marriott Courtyard, Marriot, Westin, Hilton).

We have the same HHI as the OP and we stay in B&Bs and local small places as opposed to chains because we just like the atmosphere more. We have splurged but only abroad and they were all non chain places just fancier.

HHI around $600-700k. Usually go for Westins, Marriotts, etc. Will splurge for special things and do Four Seasons, Ritz, etc occasionally.

Depends where we are going. I like smaller hotels/B&Bs in some places. In Europe I definitely aim for the smaller hotels. Same for small towns/cities. In big cities I am more likely to go for the higher end hotels. We often do condo rentals (like for skiing). We rarely do expensive resort like places because that's just not where we go. HHI is $750k+.

We have about double your HHI. I don't stay at budget hotels. We'll do mid-range places like the Sheraton or Westin half the time and splurge for something like the Ritz or Four Seasons the other half.

We make North of 200k per year and we always stay at 2.5/ 3 star hotels on vacations. A lot of times we book on discount websites like Hotwire. We don't eat at fancy places either. We do spend lots of money on day activities. Many times we find highly educated people staying at the same budget hotels Is there a relationship between the amount people spend on hotels and income? Where do you fall and what is your income?