For me, the worth of the points is what it costs me to earn them versus what it would cost me to pay for the stay.

You people who have someone else picking up the tab for your stays can stop reading now.

Since I have to stay somewhere, my basis of comparison is what it costs me stay in accomodations that are sufficient: that is, safe, warm/cool (as appropriate), and clean. That pretty well sums up Motel 6 for instance. I do no entertaining in the hotel, and it's basically a place to sleep.

Anything I pay above that rate has to have a return. For a national chain, the return is usually a free breakfast, nicer surroundings and points. The difference between Motel 6's rate and what I pay at the national chain is what I'm paying for the points. I don't know of any other way to look at it.

Let's take an example: Currently, I'm staying at an HGI, and the rate is $60/night. Factoring in the difference in surroundings, breakfast, and so on, I figure I'm paying a $20/night premium. For this $20, I'm getting Hilton points. At present, I'm getting about 3400 points/stay. So, my cost for these points is $20/3400, or about $0.006 per point.

The question is, then: what can I get for these points?

I have an award stay coming up at the Cavalieri in Rome. Because there was no availability when I wanted to go, the Diamond Desk actually booked the room and will convert it to an award stay when I get the points/certs to do so. They sent me the confirmation which included the price -- 525 euros/night. This converts to about $675 plus taxes -- let's say $750/night.

In the worst case, I would pay 40,000 points for this room, which (in my case) turns out to be $240. So, it's an obvious bargain for me.

If I had used a GLONP, the points cost is 29,166 points/night, or $175 night (what the points cost me) -- an even better bargain.

Of course, I'm doing the stays on the 5/10/15 promo, so at the end of the day I'll have free night certs. 15 nights will have cost me a premium of 15 X $20 = $300. That $300 is buying me three nights at the Cav (or $100/night) a fantastic bargain!!

At an Opportunity level property (do they have them anymore? ), 7500 points have cost me $45 -- if the rate is higher than that, it's better to use points.

I can use the same math at any other property and make the decision based on what I find. As a further example, we are returning to London on our trip. I like to spend that last night at the Gatwick Hilton, so we're not rushed in the morning to make the plane.

The Hilton at LGW is a Cat 5 hotel, which is 35,000 points. That figures out to be $210. However, I can get a Net Direct rate of about 90 GBP whch, with the current exchange rate and VAT, etc., comes in at just about $200. So it's sort of a tossup, although I would get about 5000 points or so if I paid.

The bottom line for me is that these various valuations of points that people do are fairly meaningless because other people are paying for the points. In my case, I'm shelling out actual dollars (my own) and so I have a very good idea of what the points are worth, and I can make judgements based on hard dollars rather than some imputed value.

So there.