Whew...took a lot of searching, but I finally found the "What is a GP point worth?" thread. Knew there had to be one...

Kind of a Hyatt noob here. I travel to Seattle a lot and I just found out that our corp rate at the Grand Hyatt Seattle is really good. I've currently been hitting all of the Marriotts and Starwoods in Seattle for promo bonus purposes, but I might switch over to the GH simply because people rave about the hotel.

So...I get the fact that Hyatt would probably match my other hotel statuses, which would get me 5.75 points per dollar which, by the common 2-cents-per-point I'm seeing here, would be roughly a 11.5% return on my paid stays. Throw in the 1 Starpoint I'd also earn (since there is no Hyatt credit card), and we're at about 14-15%, which is in the appropriate ballpark.

My question is: what type of awards are popular in this program? I would probably value a true 1-bedroom suite in a full-service hotel at maybe $75/nt. over a typical room. So those awards seem pretty good, although I doubt I'd use 'em at GH Seattle since I go there by myself. Are there any particular "sweet spots" in the program? For example, with Marriott it's the Travel Packages, with Hilton it's the GLON-type awards, and with Starwood it's the 5-nighters or "Nights & Flights" depending on your valuation of FF miles.

Finally: sometimes we do short family trips, so the Summerfield/Hawthorne/Amerisuites type properties actually hold some value to us. Are these chains comparable to a Residence Inn? I have seen them from a distance but never actually been in one. Do they offer true suites (as opposed to "large hotel rooms", minisuites, junior suites, etc.)? 3000 pts/nt seems like a potential "sweet spot" for us, considering we'd otherwise pay $100-150 for a Residence Inn.