I think that the best answer is to go with the program that has the best options where you stay. I tend to stay in a few cities. In those places the Marriott and SPG properties aren't as great as the Hilton properties. For me it's Hilton. For someone else, it may be SPG or Marriott or Best Western Rewards.

People whine about the award rates at "aspirational" properties, then others say well, they are not all that aspirational.

Everyone has different tastes in travel destinations.

In the Carribbean/Mexico, Marriott has some aspirational properties in development, mainly JWs:

Puerto Rico

Turks and Caicos

Cabo San Lucas

Plus an operational Autograph resort in the BVI

Since I've visited all HH properties on tropical islands (except Koh Samui), I'm focusing my primary business towards MR.

Following HH's megadevaluation, I have been giving my secondary business to Radisson, since their points values seem vastly superior to HH.

However, most Radisson Blu properties in Europe get 3.5 or 4 star ratings at Tripadvisor.com--there are few 4.5s.

Aspirational does not necessarily mean remote resorts (resorts were never hilton's strength so people had to focus on those few mentioned here) - the problem is that most decent and easily accessible city properties (Paris, Tokyo, New York, London, Hong Kong, Rome etc etc) went up dramatically and became outside of scope of AXON etc.

The only destination type Hilton wants you to visit now is suburban Hampton inn...

Same picture for Hiltons in Europe in terms of ratings.

I've stayed at many Club Carlson properties in the UK and Germany, and with one exception (which was a Park Inn, Watford) I was quite pleased. In the UK Radisson certainly has the more modern properties, particularly outside London. And don't forget Radissons 2 for 1 / 4 for 2 weekend rates, plus the extra night you get with its credit card for award bookings.

Want to chime in on that sentiment. (I thought I heard La Defense just left the Honors program?)We are staying in Rome 5 nights at Marriott Grand Flora (160,000) pts. stayed last year at Champs Elysees Marriot 5 nights 160,000 pts. and while we didn't have the points in account for a Marriott London stay I was envious of the props we saw. We stayed at Hilton Waldorf and they were gracious but I researsched H props extensively and there isn't a Hilton knockout in London.

Everyone has different award 'needs' certainly but for major city mid-high end availability at a reasonable point redemption I would take Marriott points
over the "new" Hilton points.

Most? Nice list of cities, but that's your list. My list might include the following, where one can still find reward rooms at 20K-50K for a good part of the year:

Dubrovnik
Krakow
Warsaw
Munich
Venice
Florence
Moscow
Prague
Barcelona
Istanbul

This is only Europe and I've not done any sort of exhaustive search (see the "Sweet Spot" thread). Points & $ awards seem to be at 40% of standard redemption rates at a lot (most?) properties and can be a very good deal.

I'm not happy about the devaluation, particularly at my favorite Conrads in Asia, but as long as I can continue to find decent redemption rates at properties I'm likely to visit, I'm not abandoning Hilton.

I agree to some extent but many of them were also less expensive pre-devaluation...there are some acceptable exceptions but only because the rest went up so much - prior to devaluation no one looked of those as deals... Of course ymmv

Sidebar: how in the hell does a massive global hotel program like HHonors not have a hotel (or five) in Central Paris? I honestly don't know how/why hotels choose to join and leave the major brands, but this just seems like too huge of a gap.

It varies for everyone. MR and SPG had modest devaluations this year. I have a sense that one is coming with PC as they formally reboot their entire program this summer. Sweet spots in all of the programs are getting harder to find, but you have to figure out what your own preferred destination/type of award is.

I now have Lifetime MR Gold and, theoretically, perpetual HH Gold/Diamond status through the credit cards. Ideally I'd send just enough stays Starwood's way to make low-Plat but I don't know if I'll have quite enough this year.

At the end of the day, I'll just pursue diversity, thus maximizing options for different types of trips.

One would think that Hilton would at the very least be able to entice an independent hotel or another brand to re-flag under the Doubletree banner to get at least one hotel in downtown Paris, but none so far.

What hotelier in his right mind would want to deal with the self-entitled people on this board? If it was me, I would lock the door if I saw the Hilton franchise rep getting near.

No doubt there is a lot of whining but at the end of the day the hotels and airlines created the monster and continue to feed it with promises of more and better rewards. It disconcerting to buy into their programs and find out that your earned points are being constantly devalued. Kind of like holding a savings account in US dollars.

Devaluation hitting home? Yep (well, maybe). I make a couple trips to Australia annually and generally stay at the Sydney Hilton. When I have used points in the past, I've generally gotten it for no more than 60,000/night. The dates in August I will be there, 306,391/night. I'm hoping this has more to do with something going on in downtown Sydney and less about points devaluation! Figured booking this far in advance, I'd have no issues getting it at a reasonable points level.

There has to be something going on during those dates and anyway, you could have seen those numbers prior to the devaluation when space was very limited.

Agreed! But, I have been in Sydney at New Year's in the past when the hotel was booked solid and only had it charge out at ~100-125K points/night. The number quoted now is absurd! Not sure if the Sydney Hilton level was reclassified with the recent devaluation, but it's one of the highest points/night I have ever seen at any property.