Given a travel related situation, and given a specific question about the situation, summarize the question into a title

[Q]: I will soon be attending a conference and staying at a hotel where my employer has negotiated a special rate.  This is a large group booking and I will not be eligible for points or stay credit.

However, I happen to be a Gold member at the hotel chain in question (Marriott), which usually entitles me to handy perks like lounge access and free breakfast.  Am I still entitled to these if the stay earns no points?

[A]: Elite perks at hotel when staying at a rate that doesn't earn points


[Q]: I will be travelling from a small city to a hub airport to catch Etihad Airways flight to Abu Dhabi. Travel from the small city to the hub is by a local airline because Etihad doesn't land at the small city. The whole journey from start to finish is on a single ticket:


Local city - hub : local airline
hub - Abu Dhabi: Etihad Airways
All of these on a single ticket.


If my flight gets delayed at the small city due to weather and I miss my connection at the hub, does Etihad reschedule me free of charge or do I lose my ticket?

[A]: What happens if local flight to a hub airport gets delayed and I have a connection at the hub airport


[Q]: I forgot to bring my padlock for this trip so my hostel in Taipei lent one to me until I buy one, which I keep forgetting to do.

The one they lent me is a generic "NO. 20" 4-barrel combination lock. There's no brand name in the instruction sheet. It has a feature where you can set or program the lock's combination.



I used the padlock fine about three times. But now I cannot get it to open just a couple of hours after last using it.

I did not forget the code. I set it to a year in the 20th century. I'm not sure the order of the last two digits but I've tried both many times, and I've even gone systematically through all 100 possibilities that begin with 1-9-?-?!

Is it a known problem with this kind of cheap padlock to "forget" or spontaneously change their combination?

(Yes I know I can just cut it off. But I'd feel like a bit of an idiot especially since the lock is not mine and is on loan. In fact the hostel must not own a pair of bolt cutters like I thought most do. They've asked a locksmith to come! I fear this may prove expensive, which is worse than just feeling like an idiot...)

[A]:
Are cheap "programmable" combination padlocks known to change their own combinations?