I didn't find this specific question covered in my searches. Also, if this should go in some other forum, I trust the mods will move it... just seemed like I would get more traction here.

I currently am not interested in miles for air travel from my credit cards. I am interested in getting the best hotel redemption value for my credit card purchases. Furthermore, I do not expect to have many/any paid stays at hotels. Bottom line is that I want to use credit card charges in one or more hotel programs and redeem the points for all my hotel stays, never spending any money on hotels again. I expect to stay in mostly cat 3-7 hotels, depending upon the chain. We travel for pleasure pretty extensively. We have significant cc charges, probably in the $125K range.

I currently have:
- HH Surpass Amex
- Hilton Visa
- An Orbitz Mastercard

I am happy with the HH Surpass card, as I get Diamond status as well as about 3.15 points/dollar spent based upon my spend profile. I use the HH Visa as my backup card, when Amex is not accepted. I get about 2 points/$ on that card. It is this Visa card I would consider changing.

I see:
- Marriott Visa
- Hyatt Chase Visa
- Priority Club Visa
- Maybe a AA Mastercard, converting AA miles into HH points
- Something else? I don't see an SPG MC/Visa

Given the above, it seems that the 4 cards all produce basically 1 point per $. That said, the AA card would convert to 2 HH points per dollar (though you pay $$ for the conversion). So on the surface it seems as if I should stick with the HH visa as a backup, given that a 25K spend would give me a cat 7 night, which is at least as good as the other program cards

Any thoughts or alternatives? I am ignoring signup bonuses in this as well as ignoring the various discounted stay plans (GLON,5th night free, etc). Also, I am aware of the sentiment for SPG high end properties being better than HH and the other "ratings" issues. I would appreciate any help/advice from anyone who has made a Visa or MC card selection based upon the "hotel only" criteria such as I have described.

If you travel outside the USA you may find value in the Chase Priority Club or Hyatt VISA because those two cards do not impose a foreign transaction fee.

Alternately, I believe Chase Sapphire Preferred VISA offers 1:1 transfers to both Priority Club and Marriott. I don't believe the no-fee version of Sapphire offers any transfers.

Thanks, though it looks like the Chase Sapphire Preferred points-to-dollar accrual is still 1:1 if I read the info correctly. Also, looks like you can directly use points for air only, unless I missed something. I'll review the "no foreign transaction fee" issue, since that could be a "designated hitter" card.

I guess one approach is to focus more on bonuses and churn cards over time, but had hoped to find something that resulted in a greater than 1:1 accrual.

Choice Privileges VISA, 2 points per dollar:

https://www.barclaycardus.com/apply/...rid=CHHOMEPAGE

Hhhhhmmmm... had not considered Choice hotels as an option. Doing some research on that now. Was about to poo-poo the idea, but looking at the "Preferred Hotel" list, there are some nuggets. Stein Eriksen lodge for 50K (as an example) is a tolerable option. Still, not significantly better than my current, since 25K spend on my current Visa gets me numerous Cat 7 international hotels on Hilton.. and I could use Diamond force for availability. Will check further on this "choice" however.

Why only MC/Visa? Why won't you even consider the Starwood AMEX card. Hard to beat for hotel stays. They have a Cash & Points options that will allow you to get a ton of hotel visits.

In terms of redemptions, I find the new Hyatt card to be great. You'll get two free nights for signing up (at ANY Hyatt) and the points per night for Hyatt are among the lowest. I have so many Starwood points that I am switching to using the Hyatt card now but truly, the Starwood AMEX is the first choice of many knowledgeable people.

The answer also depends on your spending patterns (daily life) and the kinds of hotels you typically stay in while using your own credit cards.

I have the Hilton Surpass and also the Chase Marriott Premier Visa and Starwood Amex. Corporate travel has to go on the corporate Amex, so I use my personal cards only for personal stays. Budget-wise, the Hyatt and the higher-end brands in SPG are outside my usual price range when I'm paying: Hiltons and Marriotts are a better fit. I haven't been that thrilled with Choice or Priority Club hotels/rates.

I find the annual fee for the Premier Visa worth it, in part because of the one night-stay certificate that comes with it. (The first year Category 4 certificate isn't that helpful unless you're staying outside the big U.S. cities, but the Category 5 gets you into a decent range of hotels. Last year, we used ours at the Cairo Marriott.) Automatic Silver status gets you slightly better treatment in hotels (although no lounge access).

I use the Marriott Visa for restaurants (including our cafeteria) for its 2x points, the Hilton Amex for groceries and drugstores, and another card (currently either the BA Visa or Presidential Plus Mcard) for my other purchases. I've got Gold status with Hilton until 2012 so I'm not using it a lot, but I'll start using it again in 2011 so I hit at least the $20,000 spend to retain Gold.

I haven't been that thrilled with the SPG Amex, in part because I find the SPG point accumulation methods limited and I don't stay that often at SPG hotels, so I have never really built up a big stack of SPG points (and that seems to reduce the incentive to accumulate more). By contrast, I accumulate MR points through the credit card, the occasional hotel stay and through Marriott's internet shopping portal, which functions pretty well. So that seems to keep me motivated to use the credit card fairly often and accumulate more MR points.

My choices aren't necessarily the most rational ones, if you look at the pure economics of the cards, but they work for my spending and travel patterns.

Do you ever go to Scandinavia? Choice Privileges points can be used to redeem (but not earn) at Choice hotels in Scandinavia, which are much higher quality hotels and can easily cost $200+ but are still usually 16K points/night.

So at 2 points/$, $8k of spending will get you a 16k night at Choice hotels in Scandinavia that might be quite comparable to 25k+ points/night HHonors hotels elsewhere (and there's fairly little HHonors presence in Scandinavia, in fact for example only one HHonors hotel in all of Norway, while many dozens of great Choice hotels there.

Of course, those of us who do make regular paid stays can do it much much easier: Right now just 4 paid stays at inexpensive midscale Choice brands in the US will earn you the same 16k points. (You can't repeat that, however, if you don't have enough status with Choice, while you can repeat the $8k spend over and over.)

I also had a fine Comfort Hotel in Tokyo this spring for only 8k/night, including breakfast buffet and free internet. Again, that's only $4k of spend, and IMHO it easily compares to many 25k+ points/night HHonors hotels.

That's not to say all Choice hotels everywhere are good; far from it. But then, not all HHonors hotels everywhere are good either!

And keep in mind that the different hotel families have very different coverages in different countries. So while for example Choice is great for Norway and Priority Club is worthless there, Choice is worthless in Spain (at least not counting the Preferred redemptions) while Priority Club has a lot of presence there. HHonors is worthless for Rome if you want to be in the middle of the city (they have a nice fancy property but it's far from the city); if you want to do that in style, you need 40k points/night in Priority Club for the InterContinental Hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps (breakfast not included and $30ish to $50ish extra!).

But once again Priority Club points are generally way easier to earn from stay bonuses than from credit card spend. And their credit card is a poorer value than Choice's in terms of earn rate (tho it does have a nice feature of one free night voucher a year, plus no foreign purchase fees).

As someone who stays a lot in hotels, I collect in several programs, both because of the above-mentioned pattern where no one hotel program covers everywhere I want to go, and because paying on my own dime in some areas I can afford some brands but not others .

stevens397 - I am looking at MC/Visa only since I have HH Surpass Amex already and want a fallback card for when Amex is not taken. I didn't want to start another debate on SPG vs HH programs, but key for my primary selection of the HH Surpass Amex was getting Diamond status using the Surpass card as well as 3 pts/$. As for Hyatt card, it looked like (after the 2 night honeymoon) you still need to spend $20-25K to get a single night at a top tier Hyatt, which is no improvement over my HH Visa. If Hyatt is giving 2 free nights every year if you re-up for the card, that would sway me but I assume this is a one time thing.

Kate_Canuck - Thanks for the insights. I would be in even better shape if my Surpass Amex gave bonus points for restaurants... unfortunately, I have to go to the grocery store and cook for bonus pts !! So maybe my net for a Marriott Premier card could be more than a 1:1 point/dollar ratio if I used it wisely. I used to have a significant amount of paid business stays, but that is over for me. I will look further at Marriott, since their worldwide and smaller town coverage makes it attractive for my travel patterns.

I have many times considered doubling down with SPG Amex card and shifting spending from HH to SPG once Diamond status on HH is achieved, but SPG Gold was not any real benefit, and it seemed like I would be forcing myself to shift stays to a program where I was not top tier and why would I do that? For no upgrades at the "better" top tier properties? Well maybe, but I have not yet been able to take that leap of faith. Thanks again for the food for thought!

I fall into the compartmentalizing my spend, for a hotel slant:

Marriott Premier Visa - Earn 2 points for every $1 spent on airline, dining and rental car purchases (annual cat 5 can offset annual fee)

Hilton HHonors AXP (regular or Surpass) Earn 6 HHonors bonus points for every U.S. dollar charged in the following everyday spend categories: grocery stores, drugstores, gas stations, home and wireless phone, cable and satellite TV, and Internet service providers. (no annual fee for the regular card)

It sounds like your other spend goes on HHonors AXP/Visa. You could also consider Cash Back (number of options - especially with the velocity of spend you have for any tiers.

sdsearch - Have only been to Scandinavia twice, but your description of Choice coverage in intriguing. Still in the end, I was trying to narrow the focus of discussion on best MC/Visa card for generating points exchangeable for hotel nights at quality hotels. The Choice brand as an option still seems iffy, particularly when,as you say, the best accrual method is spending my money in the hotels.... which is not my original premise. I do however agree that HH hotels can be extremely spotty (like just about any UK hotel), so maybe I shouldn't be too quick to judge. It seems like you could make a case that in certain locales, the Choice option could work, though it also seems clear that it would not be a consistent winner but might provide some nuggets.

That said.. 2 pts/$ and occasional bargain redemptions at nice hotels would be fine with me. I will continue due diligence on Choice hotel redemption offerings to see if it might fit my travels.

I think Hyatt clearly makes more sense than Marriott. Also makes more sense than the Hilton Visa. I am currently using the HH Amex as primary and Hyatt card as backup.

Keep in mind the points required for each category and also the liberalness of each program with its rankings. For example in Seattle hilton requires 25K spend, marriott requires 25K spend and Hyatt requires 15K spend. Grand Hyatt is the best hotel of all those.

Chicago yields similar results unless you think the palmer house hilton, conrad or marriott are more similar to the Park hyatt than the Hyatt regency.

My experience with Hilton is that everything is a cat. 7. Equivilant hotels might be anything from a cat 4 to a cat 8 at other chains. If you need a room in a midpriced city like Seattle or LA hilton sucks because you pay cat. 7 prices.

Also I like to compare to those who earn points by staying at hotels. At HH you get 15 points per dollar spent. So visa yields 2 points or 13% of what hotel guest gets. Hyatt is 5 points per dollar so the CC pays 20%. Marriott earns 10 points per dollar so the car pays 10%.

My opinion is that the marriott sucks and hyatt is OK. HH amex and SPG are the best.