If you think of the annual nights as pre-paid..or paid for with your hotels annual fee - you may feel more comfortable about carrying around 3-4 hotel cards. Like I said, you can take those 3 or 4 prepaid nights, double up with your spouse and turn them into 6 or 8 prepaid nights. And you can piece together some pretty decent vacations with these annual free nights - you just end up hotel hopping every day or two.
I think that Hyatt has a terrible selection in Europe. To the point where it is worthless to consider them outside of 3 cities. I have been looking at what works for me in Europe quite a bit - and Marriott/SPG are really the best candidates there. They literally have zero hotels in Spain, one in Italy, a few in France, a few in Germany.
If I had to pick 3 that would cover the worldddddddd round - I would go IHG + SPG + Marriott. IHG and Marriott are just monsters.
Originally Posted by
Locke42
Well, I don't want to be overwhelmed with annual fee cards, so I need to choose just one with an annual fee. Besides, I already have a CSP, which gives me 2 pts/$, more if I book through the UR mall. I'd rather earn 2 UR points than 5 Marriott/IHG points or 3 Hyatt points, especially since I can just transfer UR to Marriot/Hyatt.
That being said, I've been eyeing the Hilton cards, because they come with big sign-up bonuses and earn points two or three times faster than other cards (25-27 pts/$ for Hilton vs 15 pts/$ for Marriott). Not to mention better sign-on bonuses AND Gold status (the Gold status is really what I want). I know Hilton devalued their awards recently, but the points-per-dollar rate is just so damn high. I'm guessing that, availability-wise, Hilton + SPG + Hyatt (via CSP transfer) will cover me for 99% of the travel I'll be doing. Agree?
The only question I can think of is what Hilton cards to apply for and how best to churn them. I'm thinking Citi Hilton + Amex Surpass for now, and then later down the road get the Citi Hilton to the Citi Reserve and cancel the Surpass to get the basic Amex Hilton's sign-on bonus. That way I get Gold status and I don't double up on benefits.