skittles15

Hello FT.

I've been browsing the forums for some time but haven't seen anything recent about this exactly. With the advent of the new Hilton card at 14x points it seems adventageous to jump ship. For the record, I am marriott plat and have held hilton diamond. I'm most concerned with point accumulation. I rarely stay in full service hotels and almost never stay in resorts. Hampton inns and fairfields are fine by me. That said, I'm having a hard time understanding which point valuation would be best in this scenario. From what I can tell, Hilton has higher point redemptions, however, at 14x points + 50% bonus on base it seems like the accumulation is much higher with Hilton. If your only big interest is to accumulate points, which brand is best? FYI I also carry the spg card and stay at their properties when available.

mahasamatman

If you just want points, go with Hilton. If you want points that have value, go with Marriott. I have lots of trouble finding properties to use my Hilton points.

Kacee

The rebate is very close and which is higher depends on the valuation you assign. I personally value Marriott at .9 cpp and Hilton at .4 cpp. Using those valuations, Marriott earn is higher unless Hilton is running a promo:

Hilton Diamond 10x+10x+14x=34 points/dollar @.4 cpp = 13.6%
Marriott Plat 15x+6x=21 points/dollar @.9 cpp=18.9%

Marriott still has a slight advantage if you value Hilton at .005 cpp. Hilton is slightly ahead if you value at .006 (which I don't believe to be a legit valuation).

In terms of property desirability, Marriott/SPG wins by a mile for me.

Cledaybuck

On that last point, he says he is staying mostly at Hampton and Fairfield Inn type properties. In general, I find the Hampton's to be consistently better than Fairfield's and more common too. SPG seems almost non existent in this segment.

mahasamatman

That's going to be very location-dependent, so the OP needs to take his travel patters into account.

Kacee

And new construction Springhill Suites are better than either (IMO).

ohmark

IMO, most often simply depends on which property is significantly newer.

pinniped

For just raw rewards, I still give Marriott a slight edge. 21 Marriott points is worth about 27 cents to me. 34 Hilton points is worth about 24 cents to me. And I trust the stability of the 27 cents farther into the future than I trust the 24 cents, given how frequently HH changes their redemption rules. (Yes, I say this even today, knowing there is some chance that Marriott could change their entire structure on January 1, 2019.)

The effect of promotions and bonuses ebbs and flows by season: right now, I like the Hilton 2k promo better than my Marriott promo. But when I get the 2 Stay Get 1 Free Night from Marriott, I prefer that (usually) over whatever Hilton is offering.

I participate actively in both programs. The bedrock of Marriott Rewards is the 120,000-mile 7-night Travel Package, which is a *big* award that I earn and redeem less frequently. Hilton is built around the 5-night hotel-only award, which I redeem a little more often. Also, Hilton extends elite benefits to resort stays, so whenever I get the beach bug, that's the direction I go. I use Hyatt as my standalone 1- or 2-night award program.

Of the rural / suburban brands, I tend to rank them New SHS > HGI > Hampton > Old SHS > Fairfield. By I almost never redeem points at any of these...maybe if I run across an expensive Category 1 or something.

Srisarin

Kacee

I'm really down on Hilton right now. Everywhere I've priced recently has been below .5 cpp, with many in the .35 cpp range. They seem to be stealth devaluing with some rapidity.

Acknowledge there are good deals still to be had, they just seem to be getting rarer and rarer.

djohannw

Probably depends on where you want to and when - for my upcoming trip I came up with redemption-values between 0.52 and 0.73 cent per point - without the fifth night free as all my stays are shorter. And I did not really look around very hard to maximize return...but also not looking at luxury-properties, rather Hampton and Embassy Suites along our planned road-trip.

Greetings - Dirk

pinniped

Agreed...they do seem to be getting rarer. Seeing Hampton Inns at 70,000 points per night is evidence that they made little attempt to keep the "old" category caps in place last year for very long at all.

I generally don't trust Hilton very far beyond my next 5-night resort award. And to continue earning there, I feel even more reliant than ever on aligning with their promotions to try to get my gross earnings up into the 50-60 points per dollar range. They've created their own inflationary economy there... Remember when 100,000 HHonors points was good for 6 nights at any of their Hawaiian resorts? LOL...now that's basically 1 night.

Marriott, by contrast, has remained comparatively stable over the years. The hotel you got with a 270,000 point award ten years ago is maybe 330,000 points now - and there have been genuine (slight) increases in the ability to earn points, along with a better (single-tier) redemption system.

Kacee

I've been looking at higher end properties . . . Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Berlin, FRA.

pinniped

I was just looking at a potential stay later this year in NYC that would be around 0.8 cpp. Of course, this says more about the insanity of NYC hotel rates than it does about Hilton. Only reason I'm willing to "credit" Hilton with that much is that confirming a 2-queen room in Manhattan during peak seasons is typically $375-400/nt. plus taxes and fees, whereas 70,000 points can do the same thing. (A four-person party using Priceline in NYC really needs to book two rooms.)

So you could easily be looking at a $2400 stay all in vs. 280,000 points.

You're then left to ask yourself how bad you want to be in NYC at that time, whether you need to be in Manhattan, and how nasty of a hotel you're willing to gamble on with Priceline.