Stayed at the Marriot, to take advantage of the travel pkgs vs. points at one of the starwood hotels that I normally go to. The Marriot is NOT equivalent to the Sheraton or the Royal Hawaiian. Booked two rooms using points, I am PP, they upgraded both rooms. Gave us breakfast for two people for just one of the rooms. I think the whole 37 dollar a day thing is a rip off, but it is the cost of doing buisness if you are going to stay at that property.

At the time, it was roughly 1/2 the points plus 250k airline miles vs the starwood properties. Don’t know what is available now after the merger, but all things being equal, the SW properties or in a better location and are much nicer.