I use whatever method I can to get the cheapest hotel room that I am happy to stay in (bidding on Priceline is one common method), and I also collect Starwood points. In my experience, Starwood points are the easiest hotel points to get via credit card (I'm in Canada), and the redemption value in many cases is superb.

For direct bookings, I have so few with other chains that I typically choose to collect frequent flyer miles (Aeroplan in my case) rather than hotel points.