Originally Posted by
vincentvanvinh
Hi everyone,
long time lurker first time poster. So my travel schedule is the standard consultant calendar ie. M->TR and I don't mind playing the check-in check-out game. I've been able to maintain top tier at SPG and gold status on Hilton. My question is this: If you had an option of maxing out two hotel chains, which two would they be?
I only ask this, because I tried booking a hotel through spg and noticed they seem to have less hotels then Hilton. But I also know that Hilton gets a lot of flack for not having "standard rooms" and thus causing you to book with more points etc. As the year is relatively young, I'm wondering if there's another hotel program I should think about using as a secondary hotel chain (ie. SPG + Marriott/ SPG + Hilton/ Hlton + Marriott) any input would be great, thanks everyone!
If I were you, I would go by the hotel chains that works best from your WORK travel perspective (whether your considerations are price, location or availability of upgrades/perks on paid stays).
My personal position has always been that it makes sense to look at the points value at redemption only if you have two hotels otherwise equal from the perspective of your business travel.
For example, when travelling to Amsterdam, on the night before my flight back to the USA I try to stay in one of two hotels located in the security area of the terminal. Though one of these hotels doesn't earn any points while the other one earns points I would likely never use anywhere, I just cannot justify extra 15-30 minutes of travelling from the next closest hotel (which is Sheraton) to the terminal, standing in lines to pass the passport check in the morning peak hour etc. Extra points for the personal use will never outweight convenience of being in the right place for your business travel (and I'm not talking here about inside-the-terminal hotels being EUR80 cheaper than the Sheraton which saves my company money - which I learned to treat as my own - I understand that this might not be the strongest argument for some).