MilesBuzz! - Hotel programs....who to choose

I am wondering which hotel frequent guest program would be the best for me to concentrate on. I have been platinum in the 6 Continents program for 5 years (seem to have hotels closer to where I work). I am silver in Hilton Honors and basic member in Marriott Rewards.

I'm thinking of starting over in 2003 with a different hotel chain. Who do you think offers the best rewards?

I like Hilton Hhonors, because of the two-way conversion it allows of FF miles and Hhonors points. (I almost always convert FF miles to Hhonors points, since airlines make it almost impossible to use the miles.) Hilton has a good mixture of properties in terms of locations and types. I do wish they had more Homewood Suites and I wish that their franchised properties were more complient with the benefits the Hhonors program offers to elites, but I have never had any serious problems in my stays.

HHonors http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif

Lots of promotions, and you accumulate points very fast

But you might want to get Starwwod points also, much more valuable, and of course, harder to get http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

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Another evil plot for world domination through the use of points and miles.

As a Marriott Platinum, I would recommend Hilton Honors. Point accrual is far superior ( better bonus opportunities, website booking bonus, etc.)and upgrade rate is FAR superior in my experience. I am a comped HH Gold and have had a far better experience as an HH Gold than as an earned MP.
I have also found CY properties to be on the decline with horrible beds while Hamptons are usually cheaper and more comfortable. Among full service Marriotts vs. full service Hiltons, I would give Marriott a slight advantage on overall quality but Hilton has a huge advantage on upgrades.
I have no experience with Starwood but there are several here that swear by them. Good luck.

you also need to think about how many nights you stay in a year.

To make top tier (Diamond) with Hilton you need 28 stays or 60 nights.

To make top tier (Platinum) with Starwood you need 20 stays or 40 nights.

Starwood points are harder to come by but I always go for Hilton Diamond first because the blackout restriction on reward travel is lifted for Diamond members. Starwood does not have blackout on awards for anyone. If you won't make top tier I would go for Starwood. I find it is easier though to earn Hilton points because there always seems to be more choices in properties, especially budget minded properties.

DoubleTree, DoubleTree Club, Hilton Garden Inn, Full Service Hiltons, Hampton Inns are all part of the Hilton Honors program

I like Starwood points because they have alot of high end vacation properties that I can redeem my points at.

I was elite with Hilton and for the past two years have been Starwood Platinum. As far as hotels are concerned, The Westin has the "heavenly bed" which pretty much does it for me. My preference in a hotel is comfort, a nice bath, quality meals and privacy. I find the Starwood properties to fit all the above. Usually with a Westin or Luxury hotel the rate may be a bit higher ($20 to $50 per night) but the sound-proofing, amenities and SERVICE really offset that. Add to that the great point system and the conversion to airmiles bonus and I think SPG is the best investment I ever made. Even as a gold I got preferential treatment and nice upgrades.

I am Diamond with HHonors and Platinum with Starwood and, if I had to choose only one, I think I would go for HHonors.

There are things I like about Starwood properties, but HHonors almost always has some type of facility in any domestic location and the international sites are great--always offering wonderful breakfasts and lounges.

Obviously, if your schedule provides enough stays to qualify for two, you should pick Starwood and Hilton, or just Marriott. But, if you are hitting only about 30 stays a year, I would suggest HHonors as the best overall choice.

Hilton has more properties around the world, so it's easier to find stays and redeem points.

Starwood have the best customer service around, and the have very nice hotels that you'll enjoy. Earning points is not too hard for me, given that I buy savings bond on starwood amex card and get quite a bit of points that way. Starpoints are very valuable to me because I really prefer the hotels in this chain.

I love starwood http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Punki:
I am Diamond with HHonors and Platinum with Starwood and, if I had to choose only one, I think I would go for HHonors.

There are things I like about Starwood properties, but HHonors almost always has some type of facility in any domestic location and the international sites are great--always offering wonderful breakfasts and lounges.

Obviously, if your schedule provides enough stays to qualify for two, you should pick Starwood and Hilton, or just Marriott. But, if you are hitting only about 30 stays a year, I would suggest HHonors as the best overall choice.</font>

I reccomend Hilton HHonors Diamond Staus because there are multiple hotels in every market from the Hilton family of hotels and the HHonors program is very good w/ upgrades.

Good Luck!

[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 10-04-2002).]

for a number of reasons starwood would be my first choice , one of the most important being the presence oft the " starwood lurker " ( hi william) they have watching
and dealing with the ft starwood forum .
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif

THANKS EVERYONE ! !

I forgot I had a Starwood Gold membership. I have too many cards that I don't keep track of!?
I have had over 160 nights in hotels this year so far, so I will not have any problem earning points. I just need to consider a different hotel chain for a while. Thanks again for helping me make a decision!

Think about the future as well as the present. If you accumulate a lot of points over the next few years but someday you see your travel & hotel stay patern changing, then I would suggest Starwood. In the future when you no longer have any status, the Starwood points will be the most valuable and easiest to use due to their no blackout policy.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by trvlr64:
I am silver in Hilton Honors </font>Search the Hilton forum for CNTU. I think you can still get signed up -- and you'll get instant gold status and up to 50K bonus points.

Do the math (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007259-3.html) with your credit cards to really add up the points.

Very quickly, HH can pay for an entire vacation via a combined air and hotel reward at any number of worldwide hotels and resorts.

As you have 160 nights, I would definitely stick to at least two programs. I heartily agree Hhonors Diamond is much more valuable to acheive than Starwood Platinum. The waiver of blackout dates for Diamond members is the invaluable compared to being a Gold member.

Starwood has a higher quality of hotels, but I don't agree that the points are more valuable. They accumulate slowly and redemption levels are high for their premium properties. On Hilton I can go anywhere in the world for week for 150K (or 100K for Hawaii). Given a 5 to 1 conversion rate between the two programs, I should be able to stay anywhere for 30K points for a week at Starwood. You won't find many hotels where this is possible.

Starwood does have been customer service and generally higher quality hotels, but they also nickel and dime you to death, which lessens the experience for me. ($2 for a toll free call, $4.95 for a bottle of water).

If you can stay anywhere, you might try Hyatt. They are my favorite program, but unfortunately are too pricey for me and a bit sparse on properties. They also have a great Diamond amenity. On my honeymoon I want to the Grand Hyatt in Bali on a Gold Passport stay. They treated myself and my wife like royalty in a magnificent suite overlooking the ocean. Because of their lack of locations they wouldn't be my primary, but they'd be a great secondary program.

Cheers!

I love Starwood properties, but agree that points accumulate very quickly with HHonors.If I could achieve Diamond status I'd be easily converted.

A couple of quick questions:

1.Do award stays count towards the 28 stays/60 nights requirement?

2. I believe that Hilton runs a CNTU type of offer each year. Does that sound right?

3. Do they base the stays/nights on a calendar year? Or can you start with a first stay and try to accumulate the total in a 12-month period from that date?

Thx

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Biblioman:
I love Starwood properties, but agree that points accumulate very quickly with HHonors.If I could achieve Diamond status I'd be easily converted.

A couple of quick questions:

1.Do award stays count towards the 28 stays/60 nights requirement?</font>

yes

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">2. I believe that Hilton runs a CNTU type of offer each year. Does that sound right?</font>

yes for 50,000 points, but there is no guarantedd that it will continue.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">3. Do they base the stays/nights on a calendar year? </font>

yes.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Punki:
I am Diamond with HHonors and Platinum with Starwood and, if I had to choose only one, I think I would go for HHonors.

There are things I like about Starwood properties, but HHonors almost always has some type of facility in any domestic location and the international sites are great--always offering wonderful breakfasts and lounges.

Obviously, if your schedule provides enough stays to qualify for two, you should pick Starwood and Hilton,..... But, if you are hitting only about 30 stays a year, I would suggest HHonors as the best overall choice.</font>

Definitely, Hilton has many locations and a great variety of properties (quality wise and cost wise) and some very savvy use of points for great rewards. Starwood has generally more upscale properties which are great to take your vacations with once you tire of the premium Hilton properties.

Throwing in my 2 cents - go w/HHonors http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Another vote for HHonors. I sort of stumbled into the program just 3 years ago, first year sliver, next gold and now diamond. After 2 years, I had earned enough points for 12 nights in HI which I redeemed efforlessly for this summer (still enough points left over for another 6 nights in the future). Plus rec'd airline miles to boot, sometimes double miles during one of several programs which have been offered in the past. Am also Starwood Gold, but upgrades tough and never include club floors and no free breakfast ever. Marriott's program is the most stingy in my experience, so I just avoid them.

Hyatt is offering AA EXP's instant Diamond - and with 4 nights between now and the end of the year, it will be good for all of 2003 - great upgrade program if Hyatt is your bed of choice. I signed up and will be using it in Tokyo next weekend for 3 nights....

the comments on HH are right on - I have taken advantage of that as well with AA - and it's been excellent.

I am Marriott Platinum, Starwood Platinum and Hilton Diamond (whew!). My thoughts are:

Marriott - Most consistant hotel experience. Generally poor on bonus earning opportunities and/or promotions, though those weekend certs are nice. Award availability is OK every time I've tried.. Customer service is OK -- response time is good via email but quality is not that great. Website simple and basically effective.

Starwood - Most varying hotel experience. Some are excellent, some are just poor. Generally have good promotions, though pretty dry right now. Award availability -- I have not tried so I do not know. Customer service is by far the best here, but that's primarily due to Starwood Lurker and my personal Platinum Concierge (which doesn't exist in the other programs). Website a bit too complex to use, but usually effective.

Hilton - I'm a relatively new Diamond, however I like Hilton because they are most comparable to Marriott in terms of variety and brands/hotels available, and I can usually find something in my budget for that week. I've been hopping between several of them for several months now. Quality is a little sub-par Marriott but better than Starwood. Don't know about awards here either. I got hooked on CNTU, but now don't see many bonus options. Customer service here is by far the worst of the three -- they hardly respond via email or phone. I've been having a lot of trouble with their website recently, so I've actually had to call in several reservations.

So to summarize from this top tier member, I chose the program that has the best hotel in the area, since the programs have their strengths and weaknesses. But all other things being equal, I go in this order:

Starwood
Marriott
Hilton*

With Hilton getting a nod above Marriott often because I often find better corporate rates through them than Marriott. Customer service is what sets them apart, IMHO. Of course, I travel so much my award is to stay at home or go to Vegas where award stays dont' make much sense http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I am a Gold HHonors member (because of an e-Rewards promotion last year, not earned) and have been pleased with the service and upgrades at Hilton properties.

But the program I swear by is not a points-based program--it's Wyndham ByRequest. For the money (especially with the discounts I've found this year) Wyndham has some of the nicest properties around, and the extras you get as a ByRequest member are amazing (free calls, including long distance, free high-speed Internet access, upgrades, newspapers, snacks, etc.). I stay at Wyndhams as often as possible.

I agree that both Starwood and Hhonors are excellent options. (I just completed my four stays for the CNTU promo - 69000 points by my estimate with all the bonus points, etc.!!!)

However - I believe that if I had the opportunity to earn hotel points for 100+ stays in a year, my money (or my company's $$) would be spent mostly at Starwood properties. (If the cost was about the same for either Hilton or Starwood properties.)

The redemption options are much better with Starwood - 2500 pts for a $50 Avis cert vs. 25000 Hhonors pts for a one-day rental at Avis?!?!?

And the 5000 mile bonus for redeeming 20000 Starwood pts for airline miles?!?!
(vs. Hhonors 75000 pts for a domestic coach ticket with restrictions up the ying-yang.)

Sure, it takes a little longer to earn points with the Starwood program, but maybe, just maybe, they're worth a little more too.

Just my 2.5 cents worth. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Wyndham's program is a joke: avoid it. Can't earn free nights. I dropped Wyndham completely b/c they only rarely delivered on the skimpy benefits of the program, even when I reminded the front desk about them.

Starwood's 25K miles for 20K points might sound good compared to Hilton until you do the math on the number of stays/nights you'd need to earn that many points. B/c you get 500 airline miles with Hilton props. exc. Hampton (100 miles), you can earn thousands of miles anyway in addition to the points which you earn.

I would select Hilton if you go to smaller cities, and probably Starwood if you stay in big American cities.

Starwood is great if you or your employer can afford the Sheraton/Westin/etc level, and they have the incredible Lurker and no blackout dates. But Four Points and Sheraton Inn properties are often very very sad and tired compared to Courtyard or Hampton Inn. Many of the places where I travel either do not have a non-4Pts Starwood brand, or its at a premium of around 50%. I don't stay at Marriotts because I inevitably get hassled about using goverment rate when travelling as a contractor on government projects whose contracts specify that I qualify for and have to stay at/below government rate.

I really value consistency when I travel for work, and except for the ex-Red Lions that are now Doubletrees in the Pacific NW, I have been very satisfied with Hilton.