Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holy cow! I’m shocked at some of these responses. We make $400k, and if a hotel for a regular trip is over $200/night I have an existential crisis on if it’s worth even going.

(And that <$200 had better include breakfast!)

I hustle and work my ass off every day. I’m not staying at a Hampton Inn on vacation, and I don’t care if breakfast costs me an additional $100. I work too damn hard to nickel and dime my leisure time. I refuse to do it.

With that said, I’m sure there are things you spend money on that would can use me to have an existential crisis. Value is so subjective.

+1

I feel the same way, PP.

Congratulations? Everyone has different preferences. Most of the time when I'm on vacation with family, we don't spend much time in the hotel room except to sleep because we're off doing things during the day, so I prefer to spend $150/night unless it's a high cost area like NYC or SF where that's difficult to do.

Exactly. I don’t know what $500 gets you in a hotel room that would make my life better. Designer furniture? Sparkling water? More pastries? If I travel it’s usually because I want to see the destination, not lounge around the hotel.

From this thread, I now realize that I am in the minority of paying $500+. It’s mostly about the location. I don’t want to be inconvenienced on vacation and spend a lot of time in a taxi or train or getting to the beach. I spend a couple of hours a day in the car at home. I want to walk out of my hotel and have restaurants and shops. In NYC, I don’t want to be in Times Square. I want to be by Madison Ave or Central Park.

Hotels by Central Park are often cheaper than hotels in SoHo or Chelsea or other trendy areas.

Yes, you spend a fortune at the Carlyle (it’s NYC…you can find super expensive basically anywhere if you want), but assuming you are fine being two blocks off the park vs right across the street, then there are reasonable options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make that much and have never paid that much for a hotel room! My range is $250-300 and I aim for around $200 if I can find it.

Same! Would NEVER pay more than $400/500

Do you not go to the beach in summer? Never visit any big cities? I am pretty frugal person but “never” is an extreme word.

Am in London ATM, paying far less than $400 for a perfectly fine if small room in a pleasant hotel in a pleasant area right off the District Line in zone 1. Have paid 500 night for a house at a beach. But that's a house with several bedrooms.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I make that much and have never paid that much for a hotel room! My range is $250-300 and I aim for around $200 if I can find it.

Same! Would NEVER pay more than $400/500

Do you not go to the beach in summer? Never visit any big cities? I am pretty frugal person but “never” is an extreme word.

Usually keep things on the cheap side, but we'll splurge when it makes the vacation that much better (especially by saving us time). When the kids were little we stayed at the LegoLand hotel which cost way more than other hotels in the area but was totally worth it as they had a blast. When we visited Chicago we could have gone with a cheap hotel in the suburbs but paid more to stay downtown near everything we wanted to see.

Anonymous wrote:I make that much and have never paid that much for a hotel room! My range is $250-300 and I aim for around $200 if I can find it.

Same! Would NEVER pay more than $400/500

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re retired with pensions but probably 6-7M net worth in the Midwest.
I wouldn’t spend more than $150.
In fact, we STR our lake home in the summer and a couple times a year stay at a $56 super 8 so we can collect the $450 a night stay from our renters. (If we have something going on at the lake, typically we’d just stay in our permanent home 75 miles away)
Making decisions like this DAILY is how we amassed a solid net worth.
We work hard and sacrifice and spend money on experiences.
Our kids think we’re nuts.

… but a hotel IS an experience? I am all about not wasting money on luxuries, but there is a qualitative difference between a Super 8 and a nicer Marriott - smells, cleanliness, safety, amenities (like a pool or nice grounds), bed quality, and most importantly, location (usually).

Rich people insisting on paying $100/night for a hotel seem to have some sort of pathology about money to me.

This. Money hoarding is a thing.

Or maybe they prefer to give money to charity or leave big inheritances to their kids. Not everyone gets a lot of pleasure out of luxury hotels. As long as it's a basic Marriott level clean hotel, I'm fine.

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is, once again, not a representative sample. Hotel revenue management teams are absolutely price things based on supply and demand. There wouldn’t be high prices in hotels if people wouldn’t pay them.

I think people aren’t being accurate on about how much they actually are paying for hotels either.

We are paying $535/night for the Polynesian at Disney this summer. That is with a 30% discount from Disney for summer dates. (Yes, we’ve been before in the summer.) This is the upper end of what I’ll pay for a hotel but I’ve always thought this hotel had a cool vibe and I like the transportation options. In London last summer I think I ended up spending $600 because I wanted two queen beds which is hard to find. Over spring break we are going to Grand Cayman on points because I could not stomach any of the cash prices.

For college visits, softball tournaments, visits to family, we just stay in whatever $150-200 place is close and gets the best reviews. I’m a big believer in trusting reviews over going with a specific brand.

This is the honest truth. I’m sure people pay more but I don’t think it’s totally correlated to income. The spender people I know don’t necessarily have a higher income. And DH (law firm partner) has plenty of colleagues with high incomes who are terrible with money and openly complain about never being able to afford retirement.

DCUM is, once again, not a representative sample. Hotel revenue management teams are absolutely price things based on supply and demand. There wouldn’t be high prices in hotels if people wouldn’t pay them.

I think people aren’t being accurate on about how much they actually are paying for hotels either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re retired with pensions but probably 6-7M net worth in the Midwest.
I wouldn’t spend more than $150.
In fact, we STR our lake home in the summer and a couple times a year stay at a $56 super 8 so we can collect the $450 a night stay from our renters. (If we have something going on at the lake, typically we’d just stay in our permanent home 75 miles away)
Making decisions like this DAILY is how we amassed a solid net worth.
We work hard and sacrifice and spend money on experiences.
Our kids think we’re nuts.

… but a hotel IS an experience? I am all about not wasting money on luxuries, but there is a qualitative difference between a Super 8 and a nicer Marriott - smells, cleanliness, safety, amenities (like a pool or nice grounds), bed quality, and most importantly, location (usually).

Rich people insisting on paying $100/night for a hotel seem to have some sort of pathology about money to me.

It's called cheap. My dad was like this. Super 8 on work travel and save his per diem. Maddening.

DOJ litigating division road warrior here. This drives me insane. I hate traveling with colleagues who -- after a &^%$ing 10-hour day working on a case that is reported on in the NYT -- insist on McDonald's for dinner in order to save per diem money.

You should just be glad the per diem doesn’t cover hotels too anymore. Lots of times people would try to fit four in a room to take home extra cash.

Former Fed here, i like a dollar as much as anybody, but can’t IMAGINE EVER doing this. Heck, I even liked my coworkers, but no way.

There's a running fed joke here. "What's La Quinta in English? Per Diem."

I'm a fed who always tried to save money on hotels and food so I could bring home more money. I was a GS-7 (45k), forced to travel for work, and couldn't really afford to board my dog for a week while I was gone otherwise. We do get to keep the extra hotel per diem though. Some agencies don't.

Yeah, I have to imagine most places don't allow you to keep hotel per diem. Regular per diem absolutely yes and that's why I'd just hit up a local grocery store instead of eating sh*t food in the middle of nowhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re retired with pensions but probably 6-7M net worth in the Midwest.
I wouldn’t spend more than $150.
In fact, we STR our lake home in the summer and a couple times a year stay at a $56 super 8 so we can collect the $450 a night stay from our renters. (If we have something going on at the lake, typically we’d just stay in our permanent home 75 miles away)
Making decisions like this DAILY is how we amassed a solid net worth.
We work hard and sacrifice and spend money on experiences.
Our kids think we’re nuts.

… but a hotel IS an experience? I am all about not wasting money on luxuries, but there is a qualitative difference between a Super 8 and a nicer Marriott - smells, cleanliness, safety, amenities (like a pool or nice grounds), bed quality, and most importantly, location (usually).

Rich people insisting on paying $100/night for a hotel seem to have some sort of pathology about money to me.

It's called cheap. My dad was like this. Super 8 on work travel and save his per diem. Maddening.

DOJ litigating division road warrior here. This drives me insane. I hate traveling with colleagues who -- after a &^%$ing 10-hour day working on a case that is reported on in the NYT -- insist on McDonald's for dinner in order to save per diem money.

You should just be glad the per diem doesn’t cover hotels too anymore. Lots of times people would try to fit four in a room to take home extra cash.

Former Fed here, i like a dollar as much as anybody, but can’t IMAGINE EVER doing this. Heck, I even liked my coworkers, but no way.

There's a running fed joke here. "What's La Quinta in English? Per Diem."

I'm a fed who always tried to save money on hotels and food so I could bring home more money. I was a GS-7 (45k), forced to travel for work, and couldn't really afford to board my dog for a week while I was gone otherwise. We do get to keep the extra hotel per diem though. Some agencies don't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re retired with pensions but probably 6-7M net worth in the Midwest.
I wouldn’t spend more than $150.
In fact, we STR our lake home in the summer and a couple times a year stay at a $56 super 8 so we can collect the $450 a night stay from our renters. (If we have something going on at the lake, typically we’d just stay in our permanent home 75 miles away)
Making decisions like this DAILY is how we amassed a solid net worth.
We work hard and sacrifice and spend money on experiences.
Our kids think we’re nuts.

… but a hotel IS an experience? I am all about not wasting money on luxuries, but there is a qualitative difference between a Super 8 and a nicer Marriott - smells, cleanliness, safety, amenities (like a pool or nice grounds), bed quality, and most importantly, location (usually).

Rich people insisting on paying $100/night for a hotel seem to have some sort of pathology about money to me.

It's called cheap. My dad was like this. Super 8 on work travel and save his per diem. Maddening.

DOJ litigating division road warrior here. This drives me insane. I hate traveling with colleagues who -- after a &^%$ing 10-hour day working on a case that is reported on in the NYT -- insist on McDonald's for dinner in order to save per diem money.

You should just be glad the per diem doesn’t cover hotels too anymore. Lots of times people would try to fit four in a room to take home extra cash.

Former Fed here, i like a dollar as much as anybody, but can’t IMAGINE EVER doing this. Heck, I even liked my coworkers, but no way.

Anonymous wrote:Depends. I think we usually get the top tier of accommodations wherever we go, can range from like $700 to 9k+ per night.

9k per night?!?!?

HHI $300K. I usually aim for $200 per night or less but we don't care about luxury. Hampton Inn, Courtyard, Embassy Suites is fine. Preferred actually so that each of our teens has a bed (one can use the pull out couch). I might go to $250. If it's $300 a night, I'm renting a house/condo.

But we also have parents who have houses at the beach so we are not renting places there in the high season.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holy cow! I’m shocked at some of these responses. We make $400k, and if a hotel for a regular trip is over $200/night I have an existential crisis on if it’s worth even going.

(And that <$200 had better include breakfast!)

I hustle and work my ass off every day. I’m not staying at a Hampton Inn on vacation, and I don’t care if breakfast costs me an additional $100. I work too damn hard to nickel and dime my leisure time. I refuse to do it.

With that said, I’m sure there are things you spend money on that would can use me to have an existential crisis. Value is so subjective.

+1

I feel the same way, PP.

Congratulations? Everyone has different preferences. Most of the time when I'm on vacation with family, we don't spend much time in the hotel room except to sleep because we're off doing things during the day, so I prefer to spend $150/night unless it's a high cost area like NYC or SF where that's difficult to do.

Exactly. I don’t know what $500 gets you in a hotel room that would make my life better. Designer furniture? Sparkling water? More pastries? If I travel it’s usually because I want to see the destination, not lounge around the hotel.

From this thread, I now realize that I am in the minority of paying $500+. It’s mostly about the location. I don’t want to be inconvenienced on vacation and spend a lot of time in a taxi or train or getting to the beach. I spend a couple of hours a day in the car at home. I want to walk out of my hotel and have restaurants and shops. In NYC, I don’t want to be in Times Square. I want to be by Madison Ave or Central Park.

If you make so much money, why do you spend hours a day in your car at home. That seems like something you should fix.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re retired with pensions but probably 6-7M net worth in the Midwest.
I wouldn’t spend more than $150.
In fact, we STR our lake home in the summer and a couple times a year stay at a $56 super 8 so we can collect the $450 a night stay from our renters. (If we have something going on at the lake, typically we’d just stay in our permanent home 75 miles away)
Making decisions like this DAILY is how we amassed a solid net worth.
We work hard and sacrifice and spend money on experiences.
Our kids think we’re nuts.

… but a hotel IS an experience? I am all about not wasting money on luxuries, but there is a qualitative difference between a Super 8 and a nicer Marriott - smells, cleanliness, safety, amenities (like a pool or nice grounds), bed quality, and most importantly, location (usually).

Rich people insisting on paying $100/night for a hotel seem to have some sort of pathology about money to me.

It's called cheap. My dad was like this. Super 8 on work travel and save his per diem. Maddening.

DOJ litigating division road warrior here. This drives me insane. I hate traveling with colleagues who -- after a &^%$ing 10-hour day working on a case that is reported on in the NYT -- insist on McDonald's for dinner in order to save per diem money.

You should just be glad the per diem doesn’t cover hotels too anymore. Lots of times people would try to fit four in a room to take home extra cash.