Sorry if this is the wrong subforum, but I don't see a general hotels subforum or a picking a program pinned thread for hotels like there is for flights.

BUT! I'm reviewing my overall points/miles strategies, and I think I'm in a good place with airlines and credit cards, but have no clue or plan with hotels. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth paying attention to hotel loyalty at all, and, if so, which program to focus on. Would love some advice.

- My goals would mostly be accruing the occasional free night, but secondarily minor status perks (early check in and late check-out are particularly useful).

- I'm not interested in staying at IHG hotels, so I'm only really considering Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton. Generally, I tend to actually prefer hotels in the Marriott brands, and secondarily the Hyatt brands, but the Hilton brands are also good enough and it doesn't really make a big difference to me in terms of how I perceive the quality.

- Currently I have gold status in Marriott and Hilton but only through the Amex Platinum, not through stays. Also carry the CSR and the United club card, and planning to get the C1 Venture X soon (when I get out of their stupid six month application jail---made the mistake of getting the savor one first). Willing to get a hotel credit card if it turns out to be a good idea, though a bit skeptical given the sheer number of high annual fee cards I already hold.

- Have negligible points in most of the hotel programs, except about 50k points in Marriott. Usually have about 150k or so amex points and a similar number of chase points.

- Live in Chicago and almost exclusively fly United, have ~100k points at any given time with them, will have platinum status in 2024 though will likely drop down to gold afterward.

- Travel patterns: mostly short domestic work trips. I'm an academic, so think talks and conferences at other universities. Mostly on someone else's money. For work trips, I usually tend to find myself in high mid or upper tier but not luxury tier hotels. Looking at recent and pending work trips, for example, I've got an Aloft, a Moxy, an Autograph Collection, a couple of Marriott/Marquis brand Marriotts, a Hyatt Regency, and a Canopy, as well as some more luxury-side independents.

- For work trips, I often but not always tend to have some choice about the hotel. Sometimes the host of a trip books the hotel and I stay where they tell me (and this tends to be hit or miss---this has seen me in the Boca Raton Beach Club but also in ...... university-affiliated independent dumps).

- In my field, many of the big conferences I attend tend to be at Marriott brands. However, sometimes I get forced to book these through travel agencies, and have trouble getting my Bonvoy account on them because of third party sales.

So, do you all think that it's worth trying to commit, where possible, to a hotel chain? For me this would basically mean being willing to spend a little bit more on personal trips to stick with the same hotel chain, and choosing work trips for that chain too where it's financially equivalent (since we gotta be ethical with other people's money), even if it's slightly more inconvenient.

I'm thinking that I should probably just keep doing what I have been doing, which is have a mild preference for Marriott but don't try too hard to concentrate on them (in particular, don't spend significantly more for the privilege of using a Marriott brand). This has the advantage, I guess, of coinciding with the hotels where I end up regularly for the big conferences in my field. But because Marriott awards are so expensive, I feel like this basically means that I'll never see a free night. Also, as much as I like Marriott hotels, I feel like their cash prices also tend to be notably more expensive for comparable properties in places I stay a lot. For example, I was recently booking a short trip to DC, and was trying to find a Marriott, but in the neighborhood I was looking at all of the Marriott properties were like 1.5x as expensive as comparable properties from Hilton/Hyatt. So... dunno.

Secondarily, even if I stick with the same strategy, is there any reason to consider a Hyatt credit card of some kind that confers status just to have basic perks in all three of the brands that I find myself in regularly?