As others have said there is no surefire best hotel loyalty program.
I would disagree with that. Unless you're traveling at very high end hotels, Hilton is really the best choice. Marriott has really high requirements for qualifying. Starwood? They have a good program but a lot of benefits aren't available for gold level and their hotels nickle and dime you. Neither of them allow you to download your folios off of the web.
Hilton wins for having properties everywhere, having everything from low to high end properties, having staff that really take care of you and a program that just works. You also have properties everywhere where you can redeem miles.
That said, status at hotels? Who cares. You get a small points bonus, but you really don't get much in the way of rewards at hotels. As a top tier member on an airline, you'd have enough miles to buy a $15k first class international ticket. At a hotel chain, you might get 3 nights out of it. Less if you stay somewhere nice. Car elite status is nice for the car upgrades. At the end of the day, no matter how nice your room is, you do the same things in it. You just have more dead space.
Whatever benefits people get from different credit cards really isn't applicable to the choice here.