[quote]<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Family flyer:
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">In your speadsheet, how did you earn points? In the reward equation, the difficulty of earning points is as important as the difficulty of redeeming points.

If you compare the Marriott Maui Resort to the Westin Maui the Marriott costs 120K for six nights, the Westin 50K (one night free).

For non-hotel charges, both chains award one point for every dollar spent on their respective credit cards. So in this case the Marriott award costs 140% more than the Starwood award.

I realize these properties aren't exactly the same and that the math will be different if you get most of your points through stays.

How you earn points matters as much as how much it costs to cash them in.

[This message has been edited by Family flyer (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

In general, I think you need to separate hotel stay earnings from credit card earnings. As I noted earlier, the exception would be when the credit card awards more points for hotel charges than for other charges, as is the case with Marriott Rewards VISA and both the Hilton AMEX and VISA.

If you look only at hotel stay earnings (and ignore credit cards completely), I have to agree with divaoftravel that Starwood comes in dead last, particularly if you are a base member. Comparing the properties of two programs in a single location, such as the Maui example, seems to miss the mark. In this particular instance (6 nights in Maui), I would agree that Starwood is a somewhat better value than Marriott. But unless Maui is the only location that you ever plan to redeem your points, it would seem that a more general view is needed. Most of us don't use our points that way and I'm sure we could find numerous examples in other locations where Hilton or Marriott would come out on top.

It is interesting to note that while I consider Starwood's hotel stay earnings to be the worst (of Starwood, Marriott, and Hilton), the credit card earnings from the Starwood AMEX card are the best. Marriott is almost the opposite; excellent hotel stay earnings but the worst credit card, offering only 1 point per dollar for non-Marriott purchases. So if you want to maximize your earnings/redemption value while diversifying your points portfolio at the same time, you would stay with Marriott or Hilton but use the Starwood AMEX as your primary credit card. This is exactly what I do, FWIW.

[This message has been edited by MileKing (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by MileKing (edited Mar 05, 2004).]