Originally Posted by DKorda
Join all the hotel programs, use them while you travel. From there make up your own mind which hotels suit you best.. Starwood doesn't work for me because they only have hotels in major large cities.. If you have to travel to the pucker brush, you need that Hampton or HIE.
This is a good point that I'd overlooked. I'd still recommend the Starwood Amex card because you'll build up a lot of Starwood points that could be used for vacations at some great hotels all over the country and world, or alternatively can be exchanged for miles on most airlines at a points/miles exchange rate better than other hotel chains. And given that you may be on the road 200 nights a year, I'd still suggest trying to get to Platinum status on Starwood (which requires 25 stays or 50 nights per year) if you can.