Great thread, I'd like some advice along the same lines. Let tell you about my situation. I'd like to earn points for using Hotels in Europe - that seems to be the biggest co$t when I travel there. In the past I've used Choice points for mostly stop over hotels, and have paid for destination hotels. Starting to travel again for my company. but I have a few restrictions now:
1) I Have to use the company MasterCard now
2) I tend to be in a city for 2 weeks to 2 months
3) I can't exceed Gov't Per Diem rates
4) I Have to make reservations thru the company travel site (in the past I could negotiate rates on my own). This means I can't get the 2 stays = 8000 pts deals I've done in the past.
5) I don't mind 'matress runs' BUT I'd prefer to keep it to weekends (Fri/Sat/Sun) and landing/departure days.
6) I've got a two week trip to LA coming up and will try and get 4 stays in at the Westin LAX for a deal they have going this fall 2 Nights = 1 weekend night free.
7) Marriot looks like it has some reasonable (12K/nite) properties in Europe. So I'm leaning that direction for my weekday points, but I don't fully understand the relation between AA, Delta, etc and hotels mentioned in this thread - Can those points be converted to Hotel points of certain brands or just the other way around?

Appreciate all the input