As long as there is competition in the market I would expect that there will always be someone offering a promo and once one does it the rest have to follow like lambs to the slaughter.

The way we play the game is we maintain membership in all the programs. When we are going somewhere we look at the hotels on offer, price it up then run the numbers thru a spreadsheet I have built which tells us how many points each location will offer us and what those points will give us in terms of freebies. We don't stay anywhere just because of a promotion or because it is part of any chain. For example our next 3 stays are the Intercontinental at Monterey, Grand Hyatt Vancouver and Hilton Honolulu. We are never going to be top tier at any of the programs however we are fine with that.