I'll be traveling to London (1week) and Germany (1 week) 2013 fall, Jan13 I'll be in India, I need to accumulate enough points for hotel rooms. My preference is comfort and safety over luxury. I have no specific hotel program credit cards. I have AmEx Gold, Sapphire and Citi preferred. are those points transferable? would it be worth doing? What new cards would anyone suggest to apply for bonus points?

The points from your Am ex gold are transferable, but hard to get good value out of those. If you have the Sapphire Preferred , the points are transferrable, and transferring to Hyatt could offer a good value. If you have the plain Sapphire, the points are not transferable. Citi thank you points are not transferable.

As for new cards, SPG is probably the most recomended card around here, but that's mainly behind the value of each SPG point. Depending on how you plan on using the points, they can stretch out quite a bit (cash and points). Priority Club card is also good for stretching out the points (mainly by point breaks, but also c+p).

If you're looking for straightforward free nights, the Hyatt or Fairmont cards are best. I'm not too familiar with the Hilton or Marriott programs.

The Marriott Premier CC has a 70K points signup bonus after your first purchase. See here for more details. It looks like the application page is not working (at least not now). If they took it down, then it's 50K points if you signup from the Marriott website. Points will show up after the first billing cycle. You also get one free night and the first year's annual fee is waived. Depending on how much you pay for those nights stayed, you can probably earn a free night or two (with the points earned) per week.

I mainly stay at a Marriott and Hilton but find that the point redemption for Hilton is too high (more points required) compared to Marriott. I'm thinking of going to SPG also with all the good reviews I've been seeing. They have a signup bonus of 25K or 30K for the credit card if I remember correctly.

Go for these cards for now:

Chase Marriott 70K bonus + 1 free night
Chase Priority Club 80K
Amex SPG 25K
Amex Hilton 50K
Citi Hilton 50K
Bank of America Hawaii Airline 35K (transfer to Hilton for 70K)
Bank of Hawaii Hawaii Airline 35K (transfer to Hilton for 70K)
Citi AA Visa 50k and Amex 50k (two browsers trick). Total 100K AA miles, you can use AA miles for fly or hotels.

There are other offers out there, but don't apply too many cards from the same issuer.
Wait for the next round.

I agree with applying for many of these cards, although I would personally not burn miles for hotels, but to each his own.

Take the time to look at the various hotels in the places you'll be staying and
how much they cost in points. While comfort and safety may be more important to you than luxury, what about location? I found in Berlin that the best-located hotel was also the most luxurious. It was important to me to be downtown; you may not mind riding in on the train/bus/whatever.

If you are spending the week in one hotels, both SPG and Marriott (perhaps others) "give" you a free night after a certain number of nights (I believe for Marriott, 4 nights and 5 nights in a hotel cost the same number of points). That can help you figure out strategy for best place to use which points.

Finally, you can probably earn enough points to stay for free, but you may have trouble earning enough points to stay for free in one hotel for an entire trip. Are you willing to pay for the remaining nights in cash or will you change hotels? That can help you figure out what hotels to choose.

I was Student at Tech Univ(TU) Berlin in late 70s, early 80s now retired(early), those days hitch-hiked Europe. no specific purpose for the trip, just nostalgic! I have miles for business class LA-FRA, like to pay my stay mostly with the points, liked to know which hotel programs to focus and then work around it. seems Marriott and Hilton are workable.....

You've received some very solid tips, but you might also try concentrating on one hotel program rather than several. For example, if you focus on Hilton you should apply for:

Amex Hilton for 50K points
Citi Hilton for 50K
BoA Virgin Atlantic for 100K (after transfer)
BoA and Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian for 140K (after transfer)
Citi Hilton Reserve for two free nights
Chase Amtrak for 50K (after transfer) and another 14K year later

Or you could focus on Choice Privileges Points that are great for European redemptions and get the following:

Barclays Choice Privileges for 40K points
Amtrak for 75K (after transfer) and 21K next year

Or you could go for Hyatt and get the following:

Chase Sapphire Preferred for 40K points (after transfer)
Chase Ink Bold for 50K points (after transfer)
Chase Hyatt for 2 free nights at any Hyatt

Or, for SPG just apply for both personal and business Amex SPG and get 50K points.

You will, of course, get even more points after meeting spending requirements, and any one of those strategies would land you more points than you need for your short vacation.

Of course, you shouldn't do it at the same time, but you have plenty of time anyway.

Also, some of those cards carry annual fees and steep spending requirements, so you'll need to investigate the further, but on the other hand you will get more points after meeting them.

Just as a FYI, I've used Cash and Points at ITC Royal Gardenia and they gouged the hell out of me on the conversion rate of dollars to rupees on the Cash side of things. It was outrageous. And with the dollar so strong in India, and with such a lousy conversion rate for hotels in such scenarios, I almost think it makes more sense to either just pay in cash or go pure points.

Do you find that there is better value to be had in redeeming points for airline tickets?

I, personally, don't, unless you transfer SPG points to LAN at 1:2.5. That's reasonable. However, the other way around is rarely a good idea, as well.

Yes, mostly and significantly if you choose Business class or 1st class cabin

Hotels are bad place to get the foreign Exchange anywhere in the world, use credit card....

Well, the whole bill was on my credit card. However, the ITC converted the 'Cash' part of the bill into Rupees first, at a horrible exchange rate, then re-converted it into cash for the final bill. Which was absurd.

This is strange....If you use credit card, they(hotel) have nothing to do with the Exchange rate and the conversion. I am curious and assume there is some misunderstanding. I heard non-Indians pay additional taxes at the hotel! Do you still have the receipt?

The way it worked was this:

They tallied the Cash portion of the Cash & Points (which was $90) and converted it into Rupees and added it to my other charges (drinks at the bar) which was already in Rupees. They gave me a final total for all expenses.

THEN, it got charged to my credit card and reconverted to U.S. dollars.

When I asked about the amount and why the $90 converted into such a high amount of Rupees, they said it was 'the exchange rate'.

Some places do have a foreigner fee (I've noticed it's mostly at tourist attractions, not hotels) but that wasn't part of it.