Best Hotel Rewards Program
 

I have seen a few posts on the best hotel rewards programs. Most of the post are people who usually have to pay for their own trips so the replies are geared more for the personal traveler who is more concerned about price. I travel a lot for work and mostly only to Midland TX. My trips are completely paid for by my company so I am not as concerned about price per stay. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the best hotel rewards program on a points basis as in which program requires the fewest nights needed for a free stay and which program has the best upgrade program. I would love to earn points on the company dollar that I can use for personal vacations. Any help on this would be very appreciated.

Thanks

As a starting point--tell us about your hotel options in Midland, TX? Have you checked out the hotel options and determined which you would choose if points were not an issue...

While my client reimburses all my travel costs, the most imortant thing for me is finding a hotel that is close to my client (less of an issue if you have a car, which I usually do not)---and provides me with at least a certain level of comfort and amenities.

Pretty much everywhere I go, I find that I will be able to stay in a Marriott or Hilton brand property--they are far more abundant than Starwood or Hyatt. I ignore IC/Priority Club--I think it is a second rate program in terms of the bulk of their offerings (HI, CP) and weak when it comes to aspirational properties for redeeming points.

I like Marriott and Starwood. Used to belong to Hilton but couldn't understand why they thought their hotels were worth 30k points for a single night. Marriott is great once you get to Gold level as you will get free upgrade to the concierge level which is very nice overseas. I like Starwood for the Cash and Points program which allows you to spend less points if you want to spend a little cash. Also with Starwood you can trade your points for air miles and on some airlines they give you bonus miles. I recently cashed in 40k Starwood points for 50k Alaska Air miles.

Midland has at least one hotel from each of the major chains. I do have a vehicle there and it is a pretty small town so all of the hotels are a possiblity. I have been staying at the Residence Inn a lot but they recently opened a Courtyard that is very nice but I have only stayed there once. I do realize that both are marriot hotels, I just want to make sure that I am getting the most out of my stays. I used to stay at the Hilton there but I one time when i got in after work and my room was locked from the inside and some things were missing. That has been a few years ago and I have been thinking about going back but don't want to bother if the rewards program isn't better then Marriot.

Stay as far as you possbly can from Residence Inn if you are seriously interested in accumulating points. You only receive 5 base points/dollar spent at RI versus full service Marriott or CY.

If it comes down to Marriott versus Hilton--there are several posts compariung the two programs.

In summary, I would currently give an edge to Hilton for the following reasons:
1. Hilton has a stronger suite of new aspirational hotels IMHO (think Koh Samui, Sanya, Sienna)--but Marriott is not far behind, especially in "standard" cities (like London, NY etc.).
2. Hilton provides free breakfast for elites almost everywhere (Waldorf-Astoria is notable exception)--while Marriott excludes resorts (where I like to relax!), Ritz Carlton, Edition, and CY (a serious liability when I am vacationing on my own dime).
3. Marriott has REALLY bad promotions these days (megabonus is really a minibonus), whereas Hilton has had AWESOME promotions in the past two quarters (no doubt to compensate for regulars who bolted when they devalued the HH program in the midst of the recent recession).

We use Marriott and Starwood. Starwood I do for 3 reasons: I got their Amex card years ago (and that is what we put the bulk of our household spending on, which since we moved into a 10,000 square foot house 5 years ago has been way too much). With those points, I have enjoyed:

1) transfer them to airlines, including American (which Marriott doesn't partner with anymore) at a rate of 20,000 points = 25,000 airline miles

(side note: with that we've flown free to Hawaii on AA 3 times, twice first class, with kids, in addition to the AA mastercard and spending through their shopping portal)

2) take the kids to Disneyworld and stay at the Swan and Dolphin free (done that several times)

3) used the points for a couple nights at the Moana Surfrider in Waikiki (an old fave since we used to live on Oahu, and it's quite expensive for non-Hawaiians)

Summary: SPG Amex has been valuable to us.

Marriott: my husband started traveling for work in 2008 with a couple of different job sites. We also purchased one timeshare from Marriott, so joined MR and got the visa card. He is the only user of it, only for his job travel. One site he stays at a Fairfield Inn and another he stays at a full service Marriott, but also he stays at various ones for other trips. We find it's usually easy to find a Marriott very close to anywhere he needs to be, and getting the 50% bonus on points as platinum as well as club level weekdays at full service hotels is nice. For his work, Marriott brand has been good. We haven't used the points yet, so will wait and hope to in 2012 for a summer family vacation. We've got almost 800,000 points now - but problem is choosing where to go (we go to Hawaii every other year so that's this year).

I agree - stay away from Residence Inn if you can. They're good for families who want a full kitchen, but not the best for work travel. We've stayed in some icky ones, and have avoided them the past 10 plus years.

I haven't stayed in a Hilton in many years, like I can't remember. When you get loyal to one brand, it works both ways. We get more points, and they get our loyalty. If Marriott works for you, get the visa card, and always choose them. The nights will add up (we also do getaways with Interval International and those nights count, not bad for $40 a night for a 2 bedroom condo!), and the points add up too.

Unless I'm mistaken, neither Starwood or Hyatt have a hotel in or near Midland. Of the "majors", that leaves, Marriott, Hilton, and Interncontental (Priority Club) hotels as possibilities. So you really only need to compare those three chains.

Marriott has a FFI, an RI, and a CY in Midland. Hilton has a full service Hilton and a Hampton Inn. And for Priority Club there is a Holiday Inn Express. So with that in mind, you have some choices.

First, lets look at Priority Club. PC's strength is that there tends to be one everywhere and you can earn points extremely fast. Also, elite status is extremely easy to get and maintain. But the downfall is that you don't necessarily get very much with their elite status either. Quality can be somewhat variable at some of their hotels and they are much more limited in the FS and Luxury area. So if you are looking for a program that has a lot of nicer resort options to choose from, this may not be your top choice. Another possible issue with PC is that you only have one option in Midland. If they have any "stay" based promos, you can't hotel hop between two hotels to maximize that type of promo (at least not with staying directly in Midland.) That could limit your potential point earnings possibilities.

Hilton has two properties. So it would be possible to hop between hotels to maximize any "stay" based promos they might have. Also, it looks like only Hilton has a FS hotel in Midland. The problem that I have had with Hilton is that their FS properties can be extremely variable in terms of quality. I have no idea whether this one is a "good" FS property or not. Hilton has fairly good hotel coverage overall. Their mid-tier hotels (like a Hampton Inn) tends to be pretty nice. One plus Hilton seems to have is that their top level elites get free breakfast just about everywhere and all the time. So if that is a major factor for you, then you might want to look a little closer to Hilton.

You can earn a decent amount of points and they do have what they call "double dipping" by giving you airline miles if you choose (though my understanding is a lot of their elites tend to choose to get extra Hilton points rather than the airline points.) It seems that Hilton may have somewhat recently (i.e. within the last couple of years) had a major devaluation of their points and program, even more so than the other majors like Marriott or SPG. Personally, I've thought a couple of times about trying them out again, but when I read about the issues with their program from the threads in the Hilton forum, I've decided to stick with Marriott and SPG as my primaries and PC as a secondary.

Marriott has three options in Midland. Just like with Hilton, this will allow you to hop between hotels if you get a "stay" based promotion. If you stay at the CY, you won't get free breakfast as an elite, though a lot of them seem to have breakfast in their corporate rates now. So I have been getting breakfast in a lot of my recent stays. I personally like CYs and as a Plat, I've been able to ask for and receive suite upgrades on the vast majority of my stays. So if you like having a suite room, this might be your best option (unless you want to get fewer points and stay at the RI.) As mentioned by others, RIs will only get you half the points of the CY or FFI. I tend to stay at RIs on awards (more room) and stay at Marriott's other properties to earn points. Newer FFIs can actually be very nice hotels. You will get a free breakfast everyday of the week there and still get your full allotment of points.

Marriott's points program tends to shine the most for those who can earn a lot of points (i.e. in the 200,000 and up.) Their Travel package awards which come with 7 nights in a hotel and upto 120K airline miles is possibly the single best hotel point awards out there. But you have to be able to earn the points. One benefit of Marriott is that they don't only focus on "points". They offer elites Buy-one night, Get-one night free certificates a couple of times each year. They have "bonus buck" rates that can net you $25/$50/$100 toward your room bill.

Marriott has the most stringent elite requirements (75 nights to reach Plat). They also don't provide breakfast to their elites at resorts or on weekends at their FS properties. But Marriott does have a life-time elite status that is a great opportunity for business travellers that have a lot of years of traveling ahead of them. (Note I'm a lifetime Plat member myself.)

Just how many nights per year will you be traveling? If you are traveling 100+ nights a year, you might be able to achieve and maintain top elite status with two programs. I do that and it is very helpful when it comes time to plan out those family vacations. Having points in multiple programs gives you the ability to be more flexible have more options to choose from.

You may find a lot to gain from these folks as I strongly believe they place a higher value on points than those who earn them from employer/client paid stays as they have to pick and choose which stays they use their costly personally paid for points.

Now you will find this group to range from infrequent to frequent travelers, with varying tastes in hotels from budget, to full service, to high end. So POV will vary. I am a frequent full service leisure traveler, usually staying in international Marriott, JW, RC, and Ren properties, and only with rare exceptions CY in Waikiki and Tokyo.

I use Marriott (Plat) because they have the properties in most of the places I visit and the earn to burn ratio is the one of the best. As a fall back I stay at SPG whose earn to burn sucks IMO and YMMV, but their Westin, St. Regis and LC properties are great.

I have not been using points for stays the last year or two, and don't anticipate using points in the next year as the rates I have booked are reasonable by my standards and as the recovery strengthens price have started to rise and will only continue to do so IMO. There will be properties I am stay at right now for around $300/nt that will be selling for around $400/nt in another year or two.

My standard is to get a return of 1.5¢ or better when using points for a stay. Examples: The only exception over the past couple years was a stay at SYD Marriott over NYE for 5 nights which would have cost $699/nt or 2.9¢/pt. An example of where I pay: Vail Marriott 286.14/nt or 1.2¢/pt if I were to use points - I pay and save the points for a better burn rate.

Now those prices may seem high to some or low to others, and this is where those who travel a lot for business clean up. Let's say a Plat travels 100 nights for business and stays at moderately priced hotels (BTW - on the rare occasion when I travel for business, I often stay at CYs) say $189/nt 189*100*15 = 283500. That would translate 10 nights at Cat 7 or 15 nights at a cat 6 (with a few additional points - think MegaBonus). Well the business traveler did not spend $20K out of their own pocket for those points, so is more prone (IMO) to use them for any vacation stay regardless of burn rate because there will be more points next year from more business travel and there is no requirement to weigh the cost of numerous other personally paid or point stays against their use because this may be the only personal stay or one of a very few. It makes the rationalization of use much easier and less stringent for those who do a lot of business travel.

With all that said, there is no one frequent stay program that is the best. It varies for each of us and what we value, where we travel, and how we travel.

SPG is better in terms of Plat upgrades to suites and has a nice assortment of higher end international properties.

Hilton is better with free breakfast and earn to burn looks good on paper.

Marriott is better in consistency of product and one of the better earn and burn ratios.

Hilton and Marriott due to their size are better in terms of likelihood of property availability in most places.

All of these are my opinions and others will have their own. In terms of earn to burn, do the math. Take $20000 and figure out how many points that will earn as a top tier elite (assuming you will be top tier) at all chains and how many nights you can stay with those $20000 worth of points earned from each chain.

SPG comes up lacking with few lounges (only Sheraton TTBOMK), no breakfast for elites, and inconsistency of product - specifically Sheraton and a few Westins (LAX sucks). Terrible earn to burn.

Marriott comes up lacking with no suite upgrades (by rule, although isolated upgrades to suites do happen despite the rules), no breakfast on weekends at FS properties, no breakfast at resorts, RC or CYs. Lounges closed on weekends at vast majority of North America properties but open on weekends at vast majority of properties outside North America.

Hilton has inconsistency of products (actually not all that inconsistent IME as all of them have been dumps - my reason for not choosing Hilton; maybe I just picked the wrong properties). I know little else about Hilton including nothing about their lounges, if they have them.

Hyatts are nice, but very few and far between. Nice lounges, but don't know anything about their weekend lounge policies, or breakfast policies.

I've been a Marriott guy for a long time, and I would rank them the highest overall when counting locations, tiers of hotels, and rewards.

As a Hyatt Diamond, I think Hyatt easily has a better program for upper-level elites, and their nice hotels are nicer than Marriott's nice hotels. Hyatt also tends to have better promotions and better redemption rates than Marriott.

There just are not as many Hyatts in as many places as there are Marriotts, although in the US that is changing a bit with Hyatt Places (similar to nice Courtyards) and Summerfield Suites (similar to Residence Inns).

I have not been completed woo'd enough to give up on Marriott, but Hyatt Diamond rocks. Lounges open on weekends, and if they aren't open, free breakfasts and bonus points to compensate.

Thank you all for the great information. There seems to be a lot more to consider then I thought and there really is no cut and dry "best" rewards program. I feel that I have enough information to make the best choice that works for me. Thanks again.