thanks everyone for all the great info! the analysis of differences between gold and platinum for marriott and starwood is very helpful.

I will primarily be staying at starwoods and marriotts in the future, so whether I go with Hilton or Hyatt, i doubt I'd use them that often - it's more as a back-up. I may stay just enough times to get a few nights, to keep on hand in case I run out of starwood or marriott options. for that reason, it seems to make sense to go with hilton, since they have more locations. I feel like Hyatt and Starwood overlap a lot in that they both have some pretty nice properties but primarily in major cities.

i don't have the premier marriott CC - i went with the regular marriott CC b/c I didn't want to pay for the $65 annual fee.

in terms of my company being able to negotiate - we're a large, global consulting firm of over 150K people. and the deal wasn't offered to everyone - but a smaller group based on our career level and amount of travel. i was pretty surprised when i received the offer; i'd never heard of something like this before.