rserson

I am sure this has been enough discussed already in this forum, but I am not yet enrolled in the Priority Club and will be traveling to some of their hotels.

My question is : If I will not be a frequent guest in the PC’ hotels, should I join to the program with the option of PC-points or miles at my airline ?

Another question : I am a current Gold member at Starwood. Do you think that PC will match the status ?

knkjens

Based on the points available in the Current Promotions thread, I would go with the PC points. But it depends on what your definition frequent guest would be. 3 or 4 nights a couple of times a year wild still be worth the PC points.

Shareholder

If you do a search you'll discover a variety of reasons not to opt for miles...including status-earning.

smallfly

At a guess, yes. PC matched my HH Diamond status with PC Platinum within 24 hours. In any event, nothing (except five minutes of your time) is lost by making the request.

sdsearch

It depends on what your airline is, and it depends on which hotels brands you'll be staying at!

It's NOT true across-the-board that points are better than miles, like some posters suggest.

In particular, I note that you're based in GRU (Brazil). Take a look at this chart:

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/...s/airline.html

If your airline is in the first group and you're staying at properties OTHER THAN IC, it is true that in most cases points will be better than miles, since you earn 5x the number of points per dollar as miles per dollar (before gold/platinum bonuses, if you get to that level), and the conversion rate is 5:1. HOWEVER: You said you would not be a frequent guest. So if you don't stay enough to earn 20k points per year, you won't get to gold, and so it'll be a wash.

But here's the big point: If your airline is in the second (or later) group, you earn a flat number (typically 500) miles per stay if you earn miles directly, but you would have to pay more than $250 for that stay $more than $500 at Candlewood or StayBridge!) to earn more miles by earning points first and then converting. So if you collect with one of THOSE airlines, and your stays are generally way cheaper, it's WAY better to earn miels directly.

For an exterme example: If you stay one night at a Candlewood Suites which costs $75 a night, you'd earn 75 miles per stay at airlines in the first group, you'd earn 75 miles per stay at ANY airline if you earned points first, but you'd earn 500 miles per stay at airlines such as BA.

Of course, if I read this chart correctly, all participating South American airlines are in the first group, as are all US airlines other than Southwest. So it depends on whether you collect with either Southwest or some airline OUTSIDE the Americas as to whether you can take advantage of the better earning through miles directly at those flat-rate airlines.

Oh, and if you stay mostly at the top end IC brand, then it all changes again, because there you get 500 miles with ANY airline, and that's slightly better (before gold/elite bonuses anyway) than earning a flat 2000 points (that's how many ponts you earn at IC) and then dividing that by 5 (the points to miles conversion rate).

Finally: You can only convert points to miles in 10000 points to 2000 mile increments. If you keep using Priority Club to SOME degree on an ongoing basis, you may get full value out of the conversion eventually. But if you only stay a few times and then stop, and you're short of a conversion threshold, you've earned NO miles. (And since you're outside US/Canada, you can't use something simple like Priority Club Dining to "top off" your points to a conversion threshold.)

Btw, you don't have to make the miles or points choice once. You can change your sleection at any time. The selection in effect at the time the points post (typically 4 to 7 days after checkout) is the one that gets used (NOT the selection in effect at the time you make the reservation, like at some other chains).