I have already calculated loss of at least one 6 night trip at a level 6----just disappearing into thin air.

Marriott also devalued in the past year--but I forgive them for two reasons (a) I am now getting a 50% Platinum bonus versus previously 30%, and (b) they have a lifetime elite program.

So for me it's adios Hilton. I'm just not going to be pacified with a free night having a rapid expiration--which as we all know, is pretty useless in and of itself. Most of us need at least two nights somewhere. I guess the idea is to force the user to redeem some additional points or pay in more dollars--and we all know who that really benefits....

Loyalty points are supposed to reward changed behavior, and compensate you for the cost of that change (like booking a pricier HIlton room over the cheaper Holiday Inn next door). Ancillary/adjunct earning opportunities that cost you nothing -- presumably you would have spent that $20,000 on stuff anyway -- cheapen the proposition. Credit card bonuses and monthly dumps, especially, run up HHonors balances without requiring any loyalty to Hilton. Too many points in the system, not enough loyalty, everyone suffers. Like I said, currency (program) mismanagement.

Excellent point. We might pray for a sale, in fact, to some entity that understands both loyalty and the hospitality business. Blackstone clearly doesn't.

Loyalty is a two way street, Hilton seem's to have forgotten that

Has the HHONORS progranm turned dramatically south since Blackstone arrived on the scene, or since CEO Chris Nasetta arrived on the scene?

Or both. Maybe its the genuises running Blackstone who had no idea what to look for in a CEO. And it shows.

Consider this. One of Chris Nasetta's first orders of business was to move company headquarters from Beverly Hills to Washington DC. Really important, right? Demonstrates just how in touch he is with his customers. Just like Boeing moved headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. And we all know how fantastically well Boeing is faring these days (promise the 787 will take off in 2009 after double digit delay anouncements...).

Except the mass purchase of points by Amex, et al, is paid to Hilton in cash today.

For grins sometime, look at the revenue statement for FF programs like AAdvantage. It's mind-blowing how much revenue AA is bringing in through all of the non-flying points.

No one is forcing anyone to open and read this thread, so those tired of this thread or any others are free to not open and/or read them.

Hotel revenue per available room has fallen inside the US and outside of the US too. This has come with a decline in room prices that is reflective of much of that fall.

Hotel prices have fallen this year compared to 2008 or 2007 and that's true in USD, EUR and many other major currencies. Whether you or I are getting the full benefit of a drop in hotel costs in Europe or elsewhere doesn't much matter as the hotels in Europe are generally discounting too and have done so by lowering rates or increasing back-ended discount terms.

Increasing the price in points during a year in which regular currency denominated prices have fallen -- and fallen tremendously from the year prior even in localities with a greater growth rate than the anemic economic performance found in Europe, the US and a lot of other places -- comes across as extraordinarily greedy and customer-unfriendly.

Trying to assign responsibility to the US government for Hilton's customer-unfriendly change is the most ridiculous thing I have read in this thread since coming across the ridiculous Mormon-bashing evident in this thread too.

I fully agree with GUWonder here. This is a thread for
"Commitments to Take our Business Elsewhere ". There is a separate thread, by FL, for lucky people that are "Happy for an additional free night at Hilton".

Not surprisingly, I, too, fully agree with GUWonder.

I would just like to add to what others have stated before -- in a time where SPG not only lowered the category level of many properties participating in its program -- and did away, at least for this year, the split, high season/low season point cost for some of its marquee properties, Hilton has decided now, of all times, to raise them. Moreover, Marriott even has lowered the point cost of a couple of their Hawaiian properties to reflect the business realities of that market, which has tanked.

I agree with others that this is an effort to get potential liabilities off of the books for a future sale of some or all of the lines that presently consitute HHonors -- in fact, I believe that it was Hedoman that first raised this possibility. @:-)

I do not know what other chains might be shopping for a brand or line of properties, but I do know that Hyatt is going to be floating an IPO some time soon, and Marriott appears to have fairly deep pockets, as well. Now that ACCOR has a points based program, they may look to expand past Motel 6 and Red Roof Inns in this market, and IHG may have cash lying around as well.

By the way, that 4th Quarter bonus -- what was it -- 25,000 points after X number of stays? -- it looks pretty laughable right now with this point cost inflation, right?

Demonstrates to me how smart he is - he left high-cost, high-tax, business-unfriendly, bankrupt-state California for tax breaks and a far larger pool of available corporate hospitality managers in the DC area. Probably a great move in the long run.

Absolutely right, but for program operators it's foolish fiscal policy -- getting cash now in return for a liability down the road -- unless they dilute that liability with anti-customer moves like this.

In light of this devaluation it wasn't really a bonus at all -- it was a co-pay to help you stay at parity. The vast majority of HHonors members who aren't getting bonuses are actually losing ground. Like keeping cash in a no-interest checking account with an admin fee charged every month; you may feel good about having money in the bank, but at some point down the road you have nada.

Why stay at Hiltons with the devaluation
 

Since Hilton is giving you less for more money, Why stay at Hilton's when there are better programs out there that reward you with more rewards? Sure location matters in some cases but if we are truly only looking at the rewards program, there are programs out there that are more rewarding than the new 2010 Hilton program unless we see changes or more promotions.

If you have a lot of HH points, by all means use them up but future stays at other brands need to be seriously considered. I hope Chris Nassatta and Jeff Diskin @ Hilton get the message and this may be the way to send it to them loud and clear.

At the risk of sounding like a Hilton apologist, I don't see a program with measurably more rewards out there.

My most recent HHonors redemption was at the Hilton Paris ADT and before that the Hilton Barbados, both excellent hotels as discussed here on FT. Let's take Paris, after these changes a five-night stay will be 200,000 HHonors points. Let's compare that to similar properties from the other major chains.

HHonors = 200,000 points
Marriott = 160,000 points
SPG = 80,000 points
Hyatt = 90,000 points
IC = 200,000 points

(Note I picked five nights because that is most beneficial to Marriott and SPG with their 4 nights - 5th free on awards).

Now, how about earning, let's assume top tier with each and you are using their top co-branded credit card, the points/dollar come out to:

HHonors = 10 base + 5 Diamond bonus + 9 Surpass = 24 points/dollar
Marriott = 10 base + 5 Plat + 5 Premier card = 20 points/dollar
SPG = 2 base + 1 Plat + 2 SPG = 5 points/dollar
Hyatt = 5 base + 1.5 Diamond bonus = 6.5 points/dollar
IC = 10 base + 5 Plat (RA?) bonus + 3 credit card = 18 points/dollar

So, how much spend for each:

HHonors = $8,333
Marriott = $8,000
SPG = $16,000
Hyatt = $13,846
IC = $11,111

Of course, there are wrinkles to each program that makes this not exactly what we want. HHonors we can double dip, it may be more appropriate to do this on a points + points comparison, which would lower the cost to $6,897. SPG, Marriott, and Hyatt you would get their "welcome" amenity which you can opt for more poitns, 200-1,000 points/stay, so that would effectively lower their cost a bit. They all have promos from time to time, I'm sure some would say IC's are the most generous.

Quite frankly, Hyatt is my favorite of the bunch anyway because of their annual Nights after Nights (now Next Big Thing), but Hyatt and SPG have a huge problem in that they don't have as many properties combined as any of the other three.

I think Hilton's lounge access policy for Diamonds is a big plus, others will say SPG's suuite upgrade for Plats is where it's at. IC has good benefits for Royal Ambassadors, but my limited understanding is that's a tricky status to get (based only on stays at IC brand hotels, not the cheaper hotels).

As I mentioned prevoiusly I gave an advantage to Marriott and SPG by using a five-night stay, you get the most benefit from them in exactly five-night increments, Hilton VIP awards you can do 4-14 days and still receive some benefit.

Note that if your goal is earning hotel stays through credit card spend, the Surpass card blows away the competition, especially since you can earn top tier elite on spend alone.

In the end, while I'm not arguing this is not a devaluation, I always thought HHonors was ahead of everyone before, which is why I favored them, and it seems like now they're roughly even, not behind. Now that Hilton has done a big devaluation I would guess it will be someone else who devalues their program next, but that is just a guess.

Edited to fix math errors pointed out by VA1379

Your numbers seem a bit off to me. Isn't the platinum (and gold) elite bonus for SPG 50 %? For Hyatt, the diamond bonus is 30 % or 1.5 points per dollar. Starwood and Marriott give 500 point platinum bonus welcome gifts at FS properties. Marriott gives 200 points for limited service properties, except for CYs outside of the USA where they give 250. Hyatt gives 1000 for diamond members only in North American FS properties, 500 for limited service properties.

I could be wrong, but I think the 2 Hyatt properties in Paris (not including the one at CDG) require 18,000 points per night. So your comparison would require 90,000 points for a 5 night stay.

Promotions occur at uneven frequencies depending on the chains. Until recently, I have not seen many Hilton systemwide promos, whereas Marriott has had at least 2 MegaBonus promos a year for the past 5 years at least. Starwood and Hyatt run more property based promos that seem easier to get than at Marriott and Hilton. I think this will push down the cost of awards for both Starwood and Hyatt. The top tier welcome gifts also count more at these two chains because you do not earn as many points through the room rate itself.

Starwood and Marriott have packages that let you redeem points for rooms and airline miles at attractive rates. I still think the Marriott travel packages are one of the best deals around if you earn enough points (since you can transfer one Marriott point to one mile in 50-120k increments for US and a few foreign carriers).

Hilton is good if you want top status by charging $40k/yr to an Amex card, but it is not so good for those who earn most of their points by staying at Hilton properties. I prefer a combo of Marriott and Hyatt since they offer better customer service and have unlisted benefits for top tier customers. I think some of the intangibles (soft landing at Marriott for elite status if you are platinum, extra flexibility for bending rules from both chains, and lifetime status) are worth something. Also, Hyatt and Marriott do not have points expiration.

This is a case where YMMV. For North American travelers, Hyatt is a good fit to earn lots of points on cheap weekend stays if you travel to cities where they have a lot of properties. Hyatt does not give diamond members welcome points as a gift for travel outside of North America, unlike Marriott and Starwood.

Otherwise, I would rank the three main ones as: Marriott, Hilton, and IC based mainly on quality and award redemption. I am not a big fan of IC limiting points earning at top properties and the lack of consistent quality in their lower end properties, but it is real easy to earn their platinum status and a lot of points with few stays.

What, are you trying to impose reason and math into this dogfight…I’m still awaiting my order of pitchforks, torches and spiked clubs to arrive from Amazon.com.

I believe you're right on all of those, Hilton is my main program so I was going from memory on some of it and some is just bad math in my head on my part, I'm going to fix my original post instead of reposting. :)

I have little to no interest in converting hotel points to airline miles, others think differently obviously. Of course with Hilton I get miles with every stay anyway.

Edited again to add one more thing: In terms of intangibles, I think the ability to Diamond Force an award with Hilton is a huge benefit that I don't believe any other chain matches.