He may be a troll or he may be very naive when it comes to points/awards programs haiving mostly earned and not redeemed a lot yet. Most of us know that we can't expect to say- I must find find 4 free tickets to Aruba in business class departing the day before Thanksgiving after 3 pm and returning Sunday with hotel availablity exactly matching at one single desirable property. We start early, we look at a range of dates, at a couple of different properties, we are a little bit flexible about possibly returning the Monday after the holiday instead of Sunday- etc. In return, most of us, have some pretty nice trips without spending a whole lot of our hard earned money but having done some leg (or finger) work.

Welcome to FT.

First post.
Title: Rewards is (are) Terrible.
Lots of generality and no details. How can we help you, OP?
Please return with specificity!

(are) my bold.

Ive got a boat load of SPG,MR and HH pts and the worst is HH, give me a break its hard to find a Hampton Inn that isnt 30k. While there are tons of MRs cat 3 (15k) or cat4 (20k)

MR is better then SPG and to an extent even HH is better then *W in that *W doesnt have anything like a Fairfield or Hampton , nor many right off an Interstate Exit.

Once I leave Parsippany,NJ I must drive some 7+ hrs till I get to Clevland ,Oh to run across another *W Hotel, yet I will pass numerous HHs and MRs off the I-80. Then the *W is in the city well if Im not staying in that city just need a room why go downtown and get with parking fees etc

Id give up with Hilton before dropping *W or MR

Okay--here is my secret for getting the EXACT award accomodations I want 99% of the time that hopefully few will follow so I can keep getting the free nights I want...

I have a detailed travel plan of where I want to go and when.

I then book one year ahead.

If I need to cancel, I go to my online reservations, and in one minute I cancel the booking. Does not cost me one dime.

Shhh--please don't spread the word about this ultra-simple strategy.

The OP's rant (or troll post) is ludicrous, of course. But, as to HH, I had absolutely no problem booking HH's finest properties in Rome and Venice for this summer at relatively reasonable rates while, of course, neither the Grand Flora nor the Marriott property in Venice (Boscolo Venezia) were available for any amount of points on my dates.

+1

Also I remember booking the W/A in NY for 30.000 HH points/night last summer, which was an incredible deal.

I have been hhonors diamond and pc platinum in past lives, and I found my ability to make reward redemptions to be, by and large, the same between chains. For example, I just booked 5 nights in a JW Marriott in Cancun in the middle of "spring break" season only two months out.

I liked some of the experience awards I was able to bid for with Priority Club points (no Braves game has ever been better than sitting in PC's Suntrust Suite seats!) but overall I think Marriott's redemption options are a good deal.

are you referring to summer 2011 or 2012? and how far in advance did you book? For Rome the only Hotel in town is the W/A Cav and now that HH has changed the way Diamond Forces are done Id say alot less Forces will be done since it wont be at the standard rate

my main problem with HH is most Hamptons are a min of 30k by the main airports or $179. Its a Motel!, at least Marriott I can usually find cats 2-4 = 10-20k in pts Heck at LAX all 3 *Ws are cat2 so 4k during the week 3k weekends or 1100 & $30 C&P, and the Westin or Shearton gets me 500 pts back. Thers a DT Westside thats 25k but the reg props by LAX are 30+ and I cant remember the last time I saw a decent rate for any HH hotel there either

personally since I make my travel plans pretty last min = a few weeks before going, I relied on HH Force once they changed the way they apply it, its no longer any benefit since Im not gonna use 250,000 per night for a suite or Exec room

All three of the big programs have different sweet spots. You just have to learn how to play 'em. Hampton Inn is obviously not an optimal place to use HH points and never will be. If you're roadtripping often, you might take a look at Priority Club since you can earn so many points on every paid stay thanks to stackable promotions. The other school of thought is to simply Priceline all of these roadside motels but that's another topic entirely...

I like HH for 4 or 6 night resort stays in their higher categories (although not W-A). I like SPG for the C&P in their middle categories or even as low as a Cat 2 in some parts of the world...and occasionally a straight 5-night award. I like MR for the Travel Packages.

I definitely agree that each program has its own strong and weak areas.

For Marriott, I also like to use points at the Cat. 1 level in those "remote" areas (some of them can be brand new hotels). 7.5K points (6K if you can find PointSavers) isn't too bad a redemption for what often will be close to a $100/night hotel room.

Cat. 1, really? Nicely done. Can you give us an example or two?

One not too far from you was the FFI (brand new at the time) closest to the Ocoee river.

When I'm driving home from Destin each year, there is a nice FFI in Hattiesburg, MS that we usually stop off at. Also, if we are driving out to Knoxville for a game, I like to try and stop off in Cookeville (I have a couple of degrees from TTU.) There is a nice FFI there as well.

Summer 2012. The Rome property, as you note, is the Waldorf Cavalieri and I'm not a Diamond, so I didn't have any force at my disposal. It was just simply available as was the Molino Stucky in Venice. And the Cavalieri was 42,000 points a night (Hilton points are worth less than Marriott points) for stays of at least 4 nights and gold or above status--otherwise 50,000 points a night. Included with gold status is upgrade based on availability and breakfast every day.

I was thinking something similar-- a guerrilla marketing/market research ploy to find out what MR members say in praise of the program when they don't think they're being surveyed.

+1 - Works for me, I have stayed at Waikoloa Marriott over New Years on points and I get Kentucky Derby rooms every year on points too.