The dust has settled - which hotel credit card is now king?
 

With hotels devaluing their currencies across the board I found myself at a loss for which Hotel Card to get for my next App-o-Rama. Values seem to have gone down and good hotels have switched categories.

Devaluation and category shift has happened in: Hilton, Marriott, and now Hyatt.

Let's look at what's happened.

Hilton was gutted their awards a year or two ago. A 50K signup is still something, but compared to a nice 50k American Airlines bonus it seems like a waste.

Hyatt has a card with 2 free nights at Category 1-4, but since they've added a Category 7 and devaluated some of their top properties by like what was it--30%? Thats kinda makes Hyatt an unattractive card to get.

Club Carlson is of course still killing it with their last-night-free redemption thing and two cards with 85,000 points is a great deal. But if you're like me you got these a year ago and have already banked as many Club Carlson points as you're likely to be able to use... They have some nice international Blu properties but otherwise they're pretty much just airport hotels in the US. I'll save what I have banked for a trip to Europe or South America but I still need somewhere to stay when I go visit friends in New York or San Francisco.

Marriott - I never gave this program much of a chance, and it also received a nice devaluation recently but I'm seriously considering going for this card. With a free night PLUS 70,000 points it looks like this could easily be 2-3 nights at a nice Marriott and they have tons of properties in the US and abroad.

I'm stuck though, I just can't decide which to go for. :confused:

What do you guys think? Which hotel cards are you going to be getting (and churning maybe!) in the next few months?

hilton, started in dec now have 110k pints and looking at the hawaii air card for an extra 70k

IHG is worth looking at. Not sure why you are skipping over that brand. It can be hit or miss at times quality wise, but they tend to be everywhere in some capacity. The 10% rebate on awards is fairly nice and it gives you a free night annually. Points tend to be easy to get as well, since you can stack the promo codes found in a couple threads here on FT.

I think it's 2 free nights at any hyatt. The Cat 1-4 is your annual anniversary night. Can someone confirm this?

They Hyatt card is 2 free nights at any Hyatt.

If Cat 7 or under Hilton work for you the multiple HH cards and the current Visa Churn is the way to go IMO

IHG works for me also, 80K and a free night at any hotel every year for $49. It's the only AF I pay

The Dust Has Settled - What Hotel Card is now King?
 

In my opinion Starwood would be the card to go for. it has the most aspirational properties and wonderful ones in the cities you've mentioned. And it hasn't devalued nearly as much as some of the other programs.

I would second this. I'm Hilton and SPG. I've been happy with Starwood, and they have some amazing properties. The two free nights promo on the Hyatt is a good one-time use, especially if you can diamond challenge before you apply, and get suites out of it. I'm debating doing that, but after that, the card would go in the drawer for 11 months, and then closed.

SPG also gives you the bonus of being able to transfer your points out. That is a common reason a large portion of the users here only keep and hold the CSP and SPG. Sure, you can churn the churnables, and if you're into MS, probably go through cards fairly frequently, but I bet that if you were to FORCE people to pick 2 cards to keep and hold forever, most would go SPG / CSP.

The Dust Has Settled - What Hotel Card is now King?
 

Hyatt
SPG
IHG
Marriott
Carlson
Fairmont

All six, in that order.

The rest aren't worth it in my circumstances.

Chase IHG 80K is the only one I plan to get.

I've pretty much already run the table on the rest of them. I think the Carlson cards are currently the most valuable for me and are the ones I recommend to friends if locations match up well with planned travel over the next 12 months.

Not knowing what you have ...

I'll also suggest IHG. The 80000 point offer is 2 nights almost everywhere, at worst with a little cash&points. But the anniversary night is the huge value. $49 for a basically wide open night? My 2 nights so far have gone to California ocean view rooms both years - not the highest cash value but what I wanted. One could easily get $250 in value, like IC Times Square on a weeknight.

Roki's question is very good - if I could only keep two cards, which two would I keep? Right now I would pick SPG and Hyatt, because the free night is worth more to me than the bonus of 2.14 points over 2.

The Dust Has Settled - What Hotel Card is now King?
 

IHG
Carlson
Hilton Reserve
SPG
Hyatt


IHG and Carlson are so easy to get and I usually find decent value in some properties ( and some great if 5k property sale) Carlson offers easy points plus great rebates, granted Europe comes ahead. SPG is very nice but hard to obtain plus I hate MS using Amex cards. Citi Reserve also offers a free night every year with 10k spend ( that is you get one night almost anywhere plus minimum 30k points altogether )

Hyatt is OK for bonus but does not offer great points.

The Dust Has Settled - What Hotel Card is now King?
 

Is Marriott that bad versus Hilton? Redemption rates are better plus spend goes towards lifetime status ($3000/elite night + other CC bonuses). 70k points plus a cat 4 can get you an airport hotel plus a couple free nights.

I might be biased because I travel for work and Marriotts are the most prolific mid tier hotels in my territory. I gave up on Hilton due to massive devalue and no lifetime status to work towards.

I do prefer SPg but they aren't as widespread and sheraton are hit or miss.

If you haven't had one Hyatt is awesome. Wife and I both signed up a few years ago and stayed free 4 nights at the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris. That's an almost $3000 value. Also with instant Platinum staus we received a welcome bottle of wine and box of chocolates twice.

IHG is a program I hadn't much considered mostly because I don't know of any way to transfer points TO that program. The annual free night does seem like a great deal, but there's a lot of great Chase cards and holding that one may prevent some people from getting another more desirable card. However, the 80,000 points is a good deal. Which makes getting that card basically equal to 2 free nights + one on annual renewal. A fairly good payoff in my book!

SPG is of course a wonderful program but I neglected to include it here because the points are so valuable for airline transfers. I still have the card and use it when I'm not working towards a minimum spend, but I find it hard to rationalize using 20,000 of my 30,000 hard-to-get points on a single night at a hotel when the same 20,000 could buy me a roundtrip flight or a one-way international flight. It's worth having, but I don't believe it's churnable is it? So it's kind of a one-time bonus. Although there is a Business version which I plan on getting. They do have some super nice properties I'd love to stay at!

Hyatt has JUST released some breaking news about their new Cash+Points options which in many instances allow you to pay half with points and half with cash at a value of about $0.01/pt which we can all agree is a great deal. They're also giving a permanent 20% discount to Gold/Platinum members on paid stays now. Since the card gives you status, this has put Hyatt back on top in my book.

Thanks flyer4512 for confirming that the 2 free Hyatt nights are at any property, that certainly makes the signup worth it to me.

After the info everyone has provided I think I'll probably go for the Hyatt card first and see how much I use the cash+points option. The IHG card is certainly a close second for me this year though.

I don't know how many you have, but I have 5 personal Chase cards and 1 business. And I'm quite sure other people have more Chase cards than me. If anything, having more gives you leverage to trade one in to get a new one later. I have the IHG card which I got for the 80K points, but keep for the annual free night.

After a safe period of time using the card, you can close it, then wait 1 year and apply for it again to get the sign up bonus. If you rotate between Personal (year 1), Business (year 2), Personal (year 3), you can continue to get a bonus each year without paying the annual fee.

The card gives you Hyatt Platinum status, which isn't that great. Diamond status is amazing and I love their Park Hyatt and Andaz properties, but there aren't that many out there. I got the card after getting a Diamond status match for the 2 nights in a suite, but I'm planning to cancel before the annual fee hits next month because there's not a Category 4 property (post re-categorization) that I'm interested in. I also put all my domestic Hyatt spending on my SPG Business because it gives me (a) 5% OPEN discount AND (b) 1 SPG point, which is worth more to me than 3 Hyatt points or 2 Chase UR.

Overall, I put my hotel spend on the SPG Business card (for domestic Starwood and domestic Hyatt), the IHG (for all IHG hotels) or the Chase cards (all other hotels or international). I rotate SPG cards each year, I keep the IHG for the free night each year and rotate the Chase cards each year (Sapphire, Ink Bold, Ink Plus). Overall, my total annual fees are only $49/yr (from the IHG card).