The wild variance in point awards for our 5-night stays at our hotel confuses us. The last 3 weeks have been in the same room type, but have resulted in very different point awards.

• 3/11 – 3/16: 9,950 pts (3,950 base + 3,000 random bonus * 2)
• 3/18 – 3/23: 10,675 pts (4,250 base + 425 10% Gold bonus + 3,000 random bonus * 2)
• 3/25 – 3/30: 7,675 pts (4,250 base + 425 10% Gold bonus + 3,000 random bonus)

Each includes at least one large bonus award, which we presume to be due to our greater-than-4-night stay (especially in light of an earlier 4-night stay with a drastically lower point award), but obviously the bonus is inconsistent. We think there must be a random number generator involved here somehow.

We cannot decide if it’s sad or not that we’re eagerly anticipating hitting platinum status, which should occur in about 3 weeks, whereupon our point award rate will increase dramatically due to the “rich get richer” clause common to affinity programs (at Platinum, you get a 50% bonus on base award points). Of course, if they stop giving us the 3K extra points, it’ll take longer, but who can tell?