Originally Posted by
SkiAdcock
I care about redemption & Marriott works for me. To me redemption means being able to redeem points at properties worldwide when I want them & I've always been able to do so with Marriott. If I'm staying at a higher category property then yes it's going to cost more points than if I'm staying at a lower level property. That's true of a few chains.
The other 2 things that Marriott has going for it in terms of redemption is:
* Book 4 nights, get 5th night free
* 7-day travel package, which gets you hotel & airline miles
Thanks for the overall comparison of the 2 programs!
Cheers.
+1.
On the redemption side, I still think Marriott stacks up well to the other programs. They place a heavy emphasis on two things: (1) using their credit card for all of your hotel stays and (2) the willingness and ability to hang in there for the BIG awards. If you're okay with those two constraints, you have perhaps the best total return per dollar spent at hotels, especially if you place reasonable value on 120,000 FF miles in your choice of quite a few programs.
SPG is more rewarding to a Plat with the SPG Amex if you prefer shorter awards, the Cash & Points awards up to a 5-night hotel stay. But if you stay enough to get up to the 300k+ points level with MR, you can unlock value that the other programs can't match.
I put HH a notch behind both MR and SPG because of their devaluations in recent years. There are sweet spots within the system, but you have to work a lot harder to find them. With Marriott, I avoid the resorts and the biggest European markets, but there's still a huge part of the world where Marriott awards are of very good value.