nippon2007 pointers to booking a room at Nippon 2007's main hotel (adjacent to the convention center) for a much lower rate than the official one through the convention's travel agent. (About $190/night for two persons, rather than the $264/night through the agent.)I was somewhat annoyed to discover that the Intercontinental -- the highest-end hotels in the family that includes Holiday Inn -- is also the most miserly when it comes to rewarding Priority Club points. Whereas I get 10 points per dollar spent at a Holiday Inn Express, and therefore figured that my stay at the Grand would net enough points for at least one free HIX night back in the USA, it turns out that you get a fixed 2,000 points per stay at a Grand. That's about one room-night. I guess in theory one could book seven individual stays and try to check in and out each day in an attempt to maximize points, but that's way too much trouble even if there isn't some rule buried in their program to prohibit it.
Nippon 2007's management -- at least their North American agent -- knows about this rate disparity. She says that they're trying to do something about it. Knowing as I do how difficult it can be to work with hotels sometimes, and knowing little about how Japanese convention running goes, I'm loathe to second-guess the folks in Japan trying to put things together here. Had it only been a small difference in price, I might have not flinched so much, but $500 is enough to pay for other parts of the trip. And not having to tie up the entire cost of the stay a year in advance helps, too.