The most important thing for a hotel chain is for them to have hotels you will actually want to stay at. Hilton’s portfolio is aggressively skewed toward lower-end limited service properties. They have very very few true luxury properties. With that being said, some of their luxury properties are truly exceptional. They are just rare.

Hyatt’s portfolio shifts more toward regular full-service upscale and upper scale properties but they also have a very limited luxury portfolio. They seem completely uninterested in expanding into luxury. Hyatt has been launching new brands like Caption and Hyatt Studios. These are both limited/select service properties targeting more midscale than anything. To be fair, they have the best loyalty program by far but it really doesn’t make up for their terrible hotel portfolio IMO. It’s just impossible to make Hyatt your main chain if you really care about traveling at “higher end”
properties.

While Marriott’s overall portfolio leans toward limited service, the sheer size of their portfolio enables them to have the best portfolio of luxury hotels (by far) amongst the big 3. There are definitely flags that are generally a step up from Marriott’s luxury flags but very few of them offer meaningful loyalty programs. In this segment, Marriott is miles ahead of its true competition.

IHG seems interest in breaking into the upper upscale/luxury space more. They have purchased Kimpton and Six Senses relatively recently and have also worked to revive Regent. They also launched a luxury soft flag (Vignette Collection) not too long ago. However, their current hotel portfolio is very similar to Hilton’s with largely limited service properties. It will take them a long time to catch up to Marriott.

TL;DR: if you care about actually staying at nice hotels (rather than staying at airport hotels when visiting a city just for the free breakfast), Marriott is the best choice for most people by far. Amongst the current competitors, only IHG seems poised to challenge Marriott but it will take a while for anything substantial to materialize. Both Hyatt and Hilton are aggressively moving toward more budget properties.