Originally Posted by sdsearch
You presumably have no high-value use (such as upper-class awards or upgrades on international travel) for miles, where the miles would be worth many cents on the dollar. Because when used that way, I'm not familiar with any way that 2.4 points can be worth as much as 1 mile.
Partially true. I'll use miles for international biz class awards or FC domestic awards, but I don't buy coach tickets and upgrade with miles. I don't view domestic FC awards as a high-value use. I also use them for hotel awards - I think Starwood awards give me more bang for the buck than domestic FC awards.
Originally Posted by sdsearch
So, having said that: I use Diners as my primary card, but because of the flexility of being able to transfer to so many airline programs. Diners' flexibility is also good when you want to TOP OFF some program (airline or hotel) that you've gotten CLOSE to an award with through your other-than-spending activity.
I have Starpoints and Membership Rewards points for this.
Originally Posted by sdsearch
I suppose you could use it for hotel points only, but I don't know if anyone else does (other than for top off). There's a separate forum here at FT for Diners, you might ask that specific question there. (Don't limit it to Preferred, you want to start out finding if anyone finds it worth to use Diners for nothing but ANY hotel's points.)
Good idea. I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to Diners in the past few years.
Originally Posted by pinniped
I wasn't aware of Choice's high-end props in Europe, but Europe is the one place where we purposely get away from the points/miles game. We stay in local places - mom & pop boutiques, that kind of thing. It's refreshing to escape the standard American hotel chain world for a little while.
These may not be mom-and-pop boutiques, but they're certainly not cookie-cutter properties either.