Originally Posted by
mikesyr18
Uh. Hyatt is a perfectly fine program and hotel chain. Just because they don't have as many properties as Marriott, doesn't mean they aren't as good. I would actually argue Hyatt's are much better in terms of quality, that is until Marriott officially acquires both Starwood and Ritz.
Hyatt may not have as many hotel properties as around the U.S, but at least they know how to value their points so they aren't next to worthless, ahem... Marriott and Hilton.
The Hyatt footprint might be good enough for someone who was primarily a Starwood guest to begin with. Yeah, it's a little more limited, but if you were into Starwood mainly for big city hotels, Hyatt's an okay alternative. It doesn't fully stack up to Marriott, since Marriott now has a bajillion brands and a huge suburban/rural footprint plus some other brands that saturate different regions of the world.
Marriott has done a much better job IMHO than Hilton has in terms of not allowing their points to become worthless. The value of a single MR point has stayed relatively stable for quite some time. The two biggest "devaluations" in the past decade (IMHO) were things outside Marriott's control - changes that AA and WN made. Other than that, there's just the gradual category creep that you have to deal with in all hotel programs, but they've also made it a bit more lucrative for elite earning and a bit easier to redeem most non-MVCI awards.
Hilton, on the other hand, seems to rewrite the whole structure of their program every 15 minutes. I'm Diamond there, earned 62 points per dollar on my most recent stay, and have no real idea what that will be worth six months from now. I'm still playing their game because I redeem at resorts once in a while, but the elite experience at HH is kind of lacking. That program is starting to feel pretty IHG-ish at this point.