Hilton vs. Marriott for Golds
 

I have gold status with both Hilton and Marriott, and finding myself increasingly cancelling my Hilton stays in favor of Marriott. With guaranteed lounge access and a 4pm late check-out for Marriott Golds, I cannot justified staying at the Hilton in almost any circumstances. I have switched from 2/3 of my stays at Hilton to 2/3 of my stays at Marriott. So far I have 20+ bookings planned at Marriott and less than 10 at Hilton. HH needs to do something fast....

Btw, I have my Gold status in both from credit cards, so quantity of bookings doesn't affect me and I have true choices....

Can't argue with your choice...in the mainline Marriott/Renaissance brands (which it sounds like you use, based on the lounge comment), I think the hotels are more consistent and better to begin with.

Only things to watch with Marriott:
(1) If the hotel is labeled as a "resort", you get no benefits. There isn't a definition for resort...you just have to look at each property.
(2) There's a growing "exception" list of non-resort hotels where you get no benefits if the lounge is closed. Normal city hotels...Chicago Magnificent Mile being the one I learned my "lesson" in...are on the list.
(3) Marriott, in general, seems to close their lounges more often than Hilton. In most places, that just turns into breakfast in the restaurant, which you may or may not prefer.

On the plus side, my normal lounge-closed experience with Marriott is breakfast buffets, which tend to be pretty good. I have run into Hiltons and Starwoods that take the "continental" bit a little too far, offering up stale muffins and the like.

I remember many years ago when I had the Marriott credit card, and would follow Marriott Rewards-related boards, and how people were constantly upset at the devaluing of the Marriott points.

The grass many not always be greener, I'm just saying. 4pm checkouts are great if you need them, but eventually if they have an influx of Golds wanting 4pm checkouts, do you want to be the person arriving at 3pm and told that there are no rooms available yet because people haven't checked out?

But otherwise, if it works for you, then by all means do it.

Devaluation isn't among my criticisms of MR: I actually think they've protected the value of 1 point, as well as the value earned per $1 spent at the properties, relatively well. Structurally, the program hasn't changed much in many years, which speaks to its stability and sustainability. The one structural change (several years ago now) to the award types resulted in an 8% devaluation to elites - but genuinely came with increased availability and ease of use. (Marriott ditched what were effectively capacity-controlled "saver" awards.) Believe it or not, that "enhancement" was an actual enhancement for me, as Travel Packages got easier to redeem.

I'm never quite sure how hotels handle late checkouts, and its unclear to me if this is really going to be easy at Marriott or not. I wouldn't base a whole lot of my decision-making around late checkouts because it seems like hotels can always wiggle out of giving them to you.

While I am Diamond with Hilton, I've been staying at Marriott's lately due to travel to places where there was no Hilton, or to stay with co-workers who are Marriott folks. I'm finding that there are things in both programs that I like. I seem to be getting more upgrades as a Marriott Gold than as a Hilton Diamond. I also seem to be treated equally well by both (although I'm not convinced Hilton Diamond is that much better than Hilton Gold).

For the rest of the year my plan is to stay at Hiltons to renew my Diamond but shift over to Marriott for their promotions and any excess stays after I hit Hilton Diamond. With Marriott's 3 levels of lifetime status, I'm much better off chasing that, than the Hilton lifetime Diamond program which I'll probably never hit. (of course, with the merger with SPG, Marriott's lifetime program may totally shift so...)

Everybody looks at things differently. My wife and I have never gotten too hung up with the points, redemptions and devaluation.

My wife was doing a number of one night stays when they started building a lot of Hampton Inns. She enjoyed that because she could check and see they were new and she liked the covered driveways and eggs for breakfast. We later ran into a problem after buying into the Hilton Club in NYC and they made us combine our accounts. Through both names were on the account only one would show up on the computer and when I made reservations for her, we would then need to change the name and then had a problem getting the points (no need to respond to this as it's an old issue).

She then started to stay at some similar Marriott properties and generally we have gotten much better service at Marriott and rarely stay at Hilton anymore. As someone mentioned we have found the Executive floor open on weekends to usually not seeing that at Marriott (though some properties have given us a full breakfast in the restaurant so that's great).

We can't stand what Marriott did with Courtyard and don't stay there except in one city where they have been fantastic in the past.

We get Gold with Hilton automatically and that suffices for stays. My wife need more nights and points to make lifetime Platinum so we are working towards that (probably about another 2 years).

Point redemptions vary. We usually wind up using them for attending sporting events when the cash price is high. It might be a lot of points but we have a fair amount of both.

I think the bottom line is that the situation is different for a lot of people and there's no one "right" answer.

I'd even rather have Marriott Gold than Hilton Diamond.

Is there any credit cards offering annual Marriot Gold?

I think it depends on where you stay at and whether you stay a full service or limited service hotels. The status really make s a difference if you are staying at hotels with a lounge or have rooms that are available for upgrade. I think MR Gold and HH gold are fairly comparable. The only situation is where with HH Gold, some Hilton hotels will not give you lounge access unless you are upgraded to the executive floor. If the hotel happens to be full during your stay, this can happen.

It really depends on where most of your stays are ... Marriott does not offer free breakfast at Courtyards (except some in Asia), whereas Hilton does offer Golds & Diamonds free breakfast across all its brands (except the WA). At many places that I stay (e.g. Paris CDG airport) the Marriott has no lounge but the Hilton does. So it really depends on where you generally stay

I find Hilton family hotels to be consistently cheaper than the comparable Marriotts.

That, and breakfast and free internet being the only benefits I care about, has kept this Gold at Hilton primarily.

I do agree that Hiltons are generally cheaper than Marriotts (and have deeper discount codes), but often Marriott has more choices and lately some strong elite discounts as well.

The lounge access at Marriotts is definitely a big difference, with Hilton is gamble, especially if you book the cheapest room and several upgrade layers exist.

The 4pm late checkout is sometimes not relevant, but sometimes it is, and it can get easier extended to 6pm, than a Hilton noon checkout.

All in all, when comparable prices and locations, the guaranteed lounge access is a huge tie breaker, and to a lesser extend the late checkout.

All I am saying is that HH just needs to make lounge access a guaranteed benefit for Golds to even the playfield.

Only the Ritz Carlton Visa from Chase (or United high elite status, I believe).

Hard to do that when it's possible to make HH Gold by fogging a mirror. It's an easier status to get (given that Diamond AND Gold are available on the credit card).

In fact, if you stay 60 nights at Hilton and 60 at Marriott, you're a HH Diamond, Marriott Gold- and if you do 20 stays at Hilton, you're a HH Gold. There are also a ton of "four stays and we'll comp you Gold for 18 months" offers out there too.

Guaranteeing lounge access for HH Gold would overcrowd the lounges for sure...

IMO, for an EASY status to get, HH Gold is just fine by me. I don't stay in hotels enough to get anything meaningful for SPG/Marriott/IHG.

The RC card comes with Marriott Gold (along with a number of other benefits), but it comes at a fairly hefty annual fee too. None of the Marriott branded cards give you Gold status though they can get you closer (i.e. 15 nights toward Gold status.)