Originally Posted by ehallison

You need to separate the hotel STAY points from the hotel PAYMENT points. Because you earn the same STAY points no matter how you pay.

Here's a very easy example that I would use to calculate this for a Hilton stay of $100, using the double points promo starting May 1:

1000 base points
500 points & points bonus
150 silver points
1000 promo
2650 total points x .5 cents/point = $13.25 in points earned for the stay.

SPG Stay (I'm not familiar with their current promos so I haven't included that):
300 points = $8.10 in points earned for the stay.

Looks like Hilton is much better...then, I decide how to pay: 300 Chase UR points worth $6.60, or 600 Hilton points from Citi worth $3, or 200 SPG points worth $5.40. For either hotel chain, if you truly value UR points at 2.2, then using the CSR to pay is the best choice.