Originally Posted by
YariGuy
Phew, it took a lot of karmic effort to get to this point in the thread. There's a lot of negative energy from one particular poster. To that poster, a hint: I've been here for 20 years, and people generally try to be helpful. Please let them be helpful and don't think that everyone is out to get you or every point someone you deem to misunderstand you needs to be refuted with "WRONG."
That said, I think the best summation is this:
I agree with this, and my situation fits. To fine-tune: I have a lot of Chase points to be able to transfer to Hyatt, concentrate most earn/burn at Marriotts, and at the same time have the ability to leverage the Surpass/Ascend card at specific Hilton properties that I like.
Using actual examples, I was able to redeem 30k Hyatt points per night at the Niseko Hinode Hills over Christmas, which was a fantastic bargain. I have no Hyatt status, but was able to redeem by transferring Chase points. For nostalgic reasons, I am partial to the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and having generous resort credit / not having to pay resort fees is useful.
I still don't agree with Marriott. I understand Marriott has a bigger footprint but please name me a place without any Hilton/Hyatt? There is usually something. Like NZ would be an example but Marriott is even more scarce there. Like why is there any love for Marriott except for the St. Regis/Ritz which you often couldn't do FNC on because they are >100K points. And you'd have to stay more if you want Titanium status. Hilton gives you way more earn on their cards if you were to pay for a revenue stay.
Downsides to Marriott are 1) 85K max plus 15K top off, which further limits your calendar 2) outside of US it doesn't matter as much but you are trying to get 50 nights, that is 10 extra nights of stay. You don't need to do it for Hilton.
It is not called the Ascend card.