FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Best backup chain?
View Single Post
Old Mar 10, 2013, 11:22 am
  #9  
KittyCat
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Europe now, used to be NA
Programs: SPG LTP
Posts: 154
Originally Posted by TravelinSperry
Thanks all. Seems like Hilton is the choice here... Although it sounds like their footprint isn't so large either. I'm going to St Petersburg, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuiania, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and possibly Croatia. Oh and Turkey at the end.

I did a little research and I can get Hilton gold just by getting their credit card, so that's nice. Although I wonder how valuable the benefits can be if anyone can get gold level so easily.

I will look into Club Carlson further as well. I recall many Radisson Blu's in Western and Northern Europe. Not sure how many exist in Eastern though.

Thanks for all the advice. Def helped! I sure wish Starwood would stop their mad focus on China and expand a bit more elsewhere.

Was in similar boat when last year travelling in Baltics & then Poland: opted for Club Carlson, and extremely happy about them (easy match from SPG plat to CC gold, and from there nice hotels, great service & a couple of pretty wild upgrades, even if the latter is not considered as a guaranteed benefit of CC). SPG will remain primary & well on track for requal, but actually trying to maintain the CC status as well thanks to nice experiences
KittyCat is offline