Originally Posted by BaldEmu
If we had been writing this about 18 months ago, you would have thought we could almost guarantee 100,000 bonus points a year from HH because of all the generous promotion they had back then. Of course, those are gone now.
So I'm not quite sure how to factor in bonuses, because past offering of bonuses is not indicative of future offering. Given the huge earning disparity b/w HH and SPG for hotel based spend (eg 50% more spend needed for SPG), my instinct is that relying on SPG bonuses is a risk.....
I stopped paying at Hiltons about 18 months ago because I kept reading about all these great targeted promos on FT and I was getting offered zilch as a Diamond status member. I burned close to a million points during those months and earned status solely on award stays.
That is why we need competition. Starwood has been great for me in the meantime and now I find myself receiving more promotions from Hilton and I am starting to spend more money with them.
I did an analysis recently of my cost/earning for Starwood over the past few years and I have earned over 10 points/$ in 2003, 2004, 2005. My point is that bonuses really do significantly boost the SPG point earnings over a simple 2 points/$.