Keeping MR and SPG
 

I have been a Marriott Rewards member since 1986 and have enjoyed many free nights mostly due to credit card usage. About 3 years ago, I switched to Starwood because I thought they have a better point value which has been discussed and pretty much confirmed. Then why am I switching my credit card back to Marriott:

1. Better gold elite rewards. Just spend 3 free nights at the Renaissance Times Square and the gold benefits were a plenty.

2. More hotels to choose from. Starwood does not really have a great competitor to Courtyard.

3. Can't book a Starwood property on line with points for more than 2 guests. Although still unconfirmed, the same happens most of the time on the phone too. Pay cash, you can have more guests in your room. Seriously?

4. Nicer properties

Now it is time to probably transfer my Starwood points to Delta. I have over 250,000 Marriott points so time to plan our Hawaii vacation.

Some interesting points here. However, you need to stay 50 nights to remain a Marriott Gold. Why not stay 50 nights at SPG and become Platinum which gives you better benefits at SPG properties including suite upgrades?

I just spoke with Starwood. They said if I want to book a room for 2 adults and child using points, then I should exclude the child from the ressie and note them in the special requests area. Their website does not allow a child in the award ressie.

We maintain gold status by using our credit card. We do not stay enough nights to earn gold status with nights alone.

Now I can transfer my 140,000 Starwood points and get 175,000 Delta miles to help with the Hawaii vacation.

Ok fair enough on why you wouldn't obtain Platinum status. Not sure the reservation issue is a major issue but clearly it's an issue for you.

The reservation issue turns out to be a nonissue just an inconvenience. The gold elite rewards seem much better with Marriott and they have so many more hotels. Sometimes I just want a Courtyard or Residence Inn and sometimes a JW or RC. Am I thinking about this wrong? I do know that 20,000 Starwood points is typically more valuable than 20,000 Marriott points but that assumes that an appropriate hotel is available.

I think you have to look closely at what you can get for the SPG points. Personally, I frequent a Four Points a lot that is a Category 2 and only requires 3,000 points for a weekend stay. That's monster value compared to what I get with my Marriott Points that require 10,000 for a similar Courtyard nearby. Everyone's situation is unique, it depends on what you can get with your mountain of points. I'm still new on the Marriott scene but have been taking advantage of the stay 2, get one free promos. But once those are maxed, I'm back to SPG where my Plat status gets me a whack of benefits...

I just spoke with Starwood and they said to book the room with two adults and note the children in the special requests area. It seems like it should be an easy software fix. So now I am thinking about staying with Starwood. Of course I still hve 200,000 points to use. Here is why:

Starwood vs. Marriott.

16,000 points per night at Westin-Maui
vs. 35,000 points per night at Marriott-Wailea Beach

12,000 points per night at Westin-San Fran Union Square
vs. 30,000 points per night at Marriott-San Fran Union Square

20,000 points per night at Westin or W New York Times Square vs.
40,000 points per night at Renaissance Times Square

The Starwood gold elite benefits are not as good but the value of the point is ~2x.

Thoughts?

But you only earn 3 points per dollars spent at Starwood as a Gold, and at Marriott as a Gold you earn 12.5 points per dollar spent- so more than 4 times faster.

You forgot to mention that with Marriott you earn 10 points per dollar spent and with Starwood you earn 2 points per dollar spent. (not counting the elite bonuses) ...

Very true but we don't usually spend much at Marriott. We earn most of our points using the credit card. In the past 4+ years, I have only earned 32,000 points from Marriott expenses.

I responded in the thread where you posted this in the SPG forum.

How are you planning to maintain MR Gold with credit cards, given your apparent travel patterns? MR Gold is generally more difficult to obtain than SPG Gold, and MR Silver gives almost nothing.

Thoughts?[/QUOTE]

You forgot to mention that with Marriott you earn 10 points per dollar spent and with Starwood you earn 2 points per dollar spent. (not counting the elite bonuses) ...[/QUOTE]

So it becomes almost a wash!

It is not even close to a wash. If you primarily earn points thru hotel stays, you will be able to redeem about twice as many nights with Marriott than with Starwood, assuming your spend is equal with both chains. Marriott alos has a better earn/burn ration than Hilton, by my calculations.

This is why we are with Marriott and try to do nearly 100% of our stays with them, because perks are not my primary motivation for picking a chain, sure I like upgrades, but what I'm really after is free nights.

Award reservations or standard reservations, Starwood freaks out over families that are larger than 4. Resorts claim that they can't handle more than 4 in a standard room with 2 beds - and that's the only option provided when SPG sends out their vacation specials.

David

[QUOTE=MSPeconomist;19933175]I responded in the thread where you posted this in the SPG forum.

How are you planning to maintain MR Gold with credit cards, given your apparent travel patterns? MR Gold is generally more difficult to obtain than SPG Gold, and MR Silver gives almost nothing.[/QUOTE]

This may be a true statement, however, SPG gold is virtually nothing and barely recognizable. Therefore, unless you can maintain SPG top tier status your membership is worth nada.:(

I would say MR is far better over SPG in gold level service, benefits, locations to choose from, and redemptions. The OP may consider the event planner to maintain status at MR as well.

[QUOTE=shoreline;19933989]Very true about difficulty maintaining gold status with Marriott if I continue with my SPG credit card. I originally started out thinking I would switch my credit card back to MR. The gold rewards are great--I just received them in NYC. Marriott has more locations. I usually use my points in large cities where Marriott and Starwood both have a presence. I can get a lot more nights from 100,000 points in a Westin compared to a similar Marriott.

Starwood points are easier to use: Cash and points almost always get you great value and the added benefit of getting an elite night. It's not difficult to get 3 or 4 cents per point, sometimes much more. With Marriott I refuse to get less than a cent a point, and just won't redeem at many properties. Paying 35K points for a $250 room isn't great value IMO.

Starwood 50 night Plat is actually quite easy: cash and points and points redemption's count, multiple room bookings count as well, as well as extra free nights etc. If you get both credit cards you get 10 nights credit.

The Starwood Amex card is much better for general spend than the Marriott Chase card, which I reserve for Marriott stays.

Agree. I am totally with you.

Confused???
 

flanbarr - what am I missing?

In the first post you are leaving SPG because of bennies, property mix, and nicer properties - along with a ressie system glitch annoyance.

Two posts later you are switching back to SPG because they fixed the system glitch. :confused: What happened to the bennies, property qualities and mix?

Then back to Marriott due to the great bennies - but your earnings are primarily through the credit card?

You keep mentioning the Gold Bennies at Ren TS being "aplenty". What exactly do you mean by that? I have stayed at the Ren, and was not impressed with the bennie package!

Here are some thoughts -

1) if you do not travel very often, "bennies" should be the least of your concerns. Good pricing (with a free breakfast or other family friendly activity) will pay off far more for you - especially in resorts.

2) "Bennies" only really apply at top hotels in each chain. You mention SPG has no comp to CY - there are no bennies in a CY!

Instead of comparing properties solely on points, try looking at the room size, offerred activities your families will enjoy, hotel location.

You can always use your "points" for airfare!

So you only spent $6,400 in Marriott brand hotels over a FOUR YEAR period? In that context, your posts are not making a lot of sense!

No offense intended to anyone, but IMO, using points for cheap hotels with any chain is a terrible return on value! A 3,000 point hotel at SPG, or a 10,000 point hotel with Marriott brands (for a 2 day stay) to me, is madness! I have historically have spent my points at hotels which run $450/night or more, such as Paris, London, Hawaii. A hotel which would cost 10,000 points would probably sell for less than $70/night MAX, so what's the point of that? However, at a hotel which goes for $700/night (which I have stayed at before on points), and which I would never pay for with my own money, that is a valuable use of points for me, because if not for points, I would not be staying there at all.

When you add to that the MR benefit of 'use points for 4 nights, get the 5th night free,' then the value increases by 25%, and at high $$$ properties, that is huge. That means that I could stay at a $700/night hotel for 5 nights, which would cost $3,500 if I was paying out of my pocket, for 140,000 points, that is a great deal, and a true benefit. That is true without even thinking about travel packages, which make points even more valuable!

[QUOTE=flannbarr;19934144]Since on hotel spend only (meaning no credit card points, no elite points, etc.) you only get 2 points/$ spent at SPG hotels, while you get 10 points/$ spent at Marriott hotels, that means that 10,000 SPG points are approximately equivalent to 50,000 MR points, so it is not a proper/reasonable comparison to say 100,000 points redeemed at a Westin (or any SPG hotel) is comparable to 100,000 points redeemed at a Marriott.

For a proper/reasonable comparison to be made, for 100,000 points redeemed at a Westin/SPG hotel, you must compare 500,000 points redeemed at a Marriott hotel. Before you object, remember that if you spent $50,000 at a SPG hotel, you would have 100,000 points, but for that same $50,000 at a Marriott hotel, you would have 500,000 points. It is never the redemption alone which is comparable, because it isn't, the earning accrual must also be included in the equation, otherwise the calculation is completely faulty.

I agree with Sophie, and further feel that the OP's reasoning is very inconsistent and faulty. Bottom line, if the OP wants status and meaningful benefits for his hotel stays (and credit card usage), since it sounds like the OP does not actually stay at hotels all that much, that maximizing earning and status will require sticking to JUST ONE chain, and ONE CHAIN ONLY. Otherwise, the OP's meager earnings and status will seem even more meager. Or, as Sophie suggests, use points earned for airline miles instead of redeeming for the actual hotel rooms on your family vacations.

So, pick one and stick with it, or, to paraphrase Yoda "...either do, or do not, there is no try..."

That strikes me as a terrible, awful waste of Starpoints.

Yes, true, especially when you consider that 140K of Starpoints are approx. earning equivalent to 700,000 MR points! AND, for 700K MR points, you can get two, bodacious, 7 day travel packages for only 660K. Is there anything even closely equivalent for the equivalent number of earned Starpoints, which would be 132K?

I am not sure if this is mentioned but since OP has been a Marriott Rewards member since 1986 and only switched 3 years ago makes me wonder how close is he/she to lifetime gold or even Plat?

Thank you for your most recent replies and Happy New Years to everyone. You are correct that I have gone back and forth a but but I think I have it figured out. Let me give you my situation again.

We feel like we travel a lot especially more than most of our friends. The travel is typically for pleasure and not business. Our vacations usuallu consists of:

* January-4 nights at our Disney Vacation Club resort in Florida.
* Early April-7 night cruise or 7 nights in a warm destination
* August-7 night vacation at various locations, usually staying at a Marriott if available. We sometimes vacation in Northern Michigan which does not have Marriott hotels in locations where we often go.
*Long weekend in December-Disney, New York or Chicago

We typically only redeem our points at high cost hotels. For example, we just used points to stay at the Renaissance Hotel Times Square which would have cost us $500+ per night. We used them for a week in Aruba. This summer, we plan on staying 5 nights in San Diego at a category 4 Residence Inn and we are paying cash at $190 per night insterad of using 20,000 per night (16,000 average per night after taking account the 5th night free). With the point cost in Hawaii, we may not use our MR points there but instead may pay cash since there are some decent deals out there.

We spend between $80,000 and $100,000 annually on our credit card. We have primarily used the MR Visa until a couple of years ago when we switched to the Starwood AMEX which is rated as the best credit card by most reviewers. Probably 90% of our hotel points are earned from credit card purchases and the remainder from hotel stays.

We currently have 202,000 MR points and 142,000 SPG points. This summer, we will have about 200,000 points from each program. In my opinion, 200,000 SPG points are worth a lot more than 200,000 MR points. Agree or disagree?

So my plan is to keep the SPG AMEX for most purchases and use the MR Visa where AMEX is not accepted. That will get me 100,000 points in a year which is good for 6-7 nights at some very nice Starwood properties or 3-4 nights in very nice Marriott properties. I will use my MR points on a future vacation where it makes sense--maybe Cancun, maybe Hawaii, maybe Europe. It probably does not make sense to transfer my SPG points to Delta unless the right miles deal come up. A couple of years ago, I was able to secure 4 roundtrip tickets from DTW to Anchorage and Vancouver to DTW for 40,000 miles per ticket roundtrip. That would have cost me $900+ per ticket. So we transferred some points to Delta and got what I thought was a great deal.

I am nowhere close to Lifetime Gold or Platinum because I don't pay for hotel stays often enough which means I will probably be losing my MR gold status soon.

Thioughts? Thanks for your help.

The Renaissance Times Square just gave us a room upgrade, free breakfast daily and 8 appetizers (each worth up to about $20) and that was only a 3 night stay. That seemed pretty good to me.

I think it depends what flight deals I could get using miles but you may be right.

In my situation, I think comparing Marriott at 5X the Starwood points is faulty because I don;t earn points at that ratio. I earn most at a 1:1 ratio from credit card usage. I remember many years ago when we could get 2X points for general credit card usage--now that was sweet.

Agreed. Some may disagree, depending on how they earn their points, but imho SPG points are harder to earn than MR points (receiving fewer per $ on paid stays and only 1 point/$1 on CC spend. But, on the bright side, it takes fewer points for a reward stay.

Do higher SPG elite statuses receive more points for their hotel stays as bonuses?

As a GOLD at Marriott you receive breakfast at any FS property during the week.. Usually this would occur in the Concierge Lounge, where you would also get food in the evening. Because this hotel does not have a CL, they give appetizer certificates.

Looking at your travel schedule - only one trip a year benefits from "status", the Dec trip. in Hawaii, chances are you will stay in a resort - you will not receive breakfast there...unless you purchase a rate that includes it.

Everyone's evaluation of points value/usage is different. An earlier poster spoke of "low end" usage being a waste, but there are travelers who never travel overseas, but need to consistently visit family in East Backwards USA. Doubt they think their usage is a waste!

Seems as if you are thinking things through as to what is best for you, which is smart.

yes, but this is a Marriott forum so why are SPG questions being asked here??????????

In an attempt to help the OP decide between the 2....the entire point of the thread.

I think that low end usage of points is a waste, no matter where you use them. Keep in mind, there are category 5, 6, 7, and even a few category 8 hotels and resorts in the USA, so it is not necessary to visit London or Paris to stay at higher end properties.

First of all, hello from a fellow DVC owner. Most people on FT slam timeshares, but it has worked out beautifully for us. You do have to know what you are doing.

Also, SPG points are easily worth way more than Marriott points. Matter of opinion of course, but I'd say maybe 100% more.

You sound like a prime candidate for a Marriott Travel Package. 270K Marriott points gets you 120K airline miles/points and a week in a Marriott cat. 5 or lower. Add 30K for each step to cat. 6, 7, and 8.

If you do that, consider using Southwest as the airline. WN points are worth 1.67 cents each, flat, toward their economy fares (so $2000 for the 120K), but you'd get as a bonus a Companion Pass so that every time you flew WN for up to 2 years (transfer today, good through 12/31/14), you could take a specific person free, unlimited. Best deal in the air, IMO, potentially worth thousands.

I have never really looked into the Marriott travel packages so thanks for the input. We usually travel Delta because they fly almost anywhere nonstop out of Detroit although I do like flying Southwest. What are WN points?

I agree with your facts, but not necessarily your premise. You are assuming that most people soley use their points for recreational/ vacation stays at resorts, and that is not the case.

Using myself - while we certainly do use them for vacations - I have a niece who has is hospitalized frequently. I often use points to allow myself, or other family members, to stay in a lower end property to be near her. Is it a good use of points by FT standards...no. But to my family this is priceless, especially those who absolutely do not have the wherewithal to visit otherwise.

That is why I am annoyed about loss of the $1k gift cheques. They helped in many different situations - family use OR when a popular property was not available on points, OR points usage was too high as compared to the rate. (off season, for example.). Others found them a complete waste, and were horrified whenever they were discussed - TEHO.

Even if people WANT to use points for vacation - they may not always choose a resort. With no real bennies (at Marriott anyway) it can get rather pricey with items NOT covered by the award. These forums have plenty of posts requesting information on FI, SHS, etc around Disney, Hawaii, AZ, - so am thinking those users do not find using their points in low end properties to be a waste.

It seems as if you and I can pretty much use our points when and where we want without worrying about the total vacation cost to the penny. Everyone is not at that point in their life, and I try to be mindful of that in my responses.

Southwest points.

I need to research the travel packages to get my arms around it. It looks like the deal is in the transfer to air miles at a 1:1 ratio. I can transfer SPG points at a 1.25:1 ratio to Delta so maybe that is a better deal?

I did not just say resorts, I also said hotels, for stays in cities, or suburbs, or whatever.

While you think it's a waste to use points on a lower cat property, sophiegirl's points are valid. Not everyone wants/needs/can find a high end property & there are many circumstances where using them at lower cat categories can come in handy - illness such as she described, visiting the kids at college (not everyone goes to Harvard), change in financial circumstances, staying at a property/doing a mini-vacation in an area where there aren't any hi-end properties, using them at a lower-end property that has extremely high rates due to an event, etc, etc.

Here's my take on points. They're valuable when you need them, whether that's for a stay at a lower cat property or a high cat property/hotel. Each person's circumstances is different. What is one person's waste is another person's priceless.

flannbarr, sounds like you're doing a good job analyzing your travel & how best to use points, whether *Wood or Marriott.

Cheers.