Hotel Points Program Comparison
 

I'm new to traveling and want to consolidate my points with one rewards program. What are the pros and cons of SPG vs HiltonHonors vs Mariot Rewards?

Have you visited the Hotel Programs Thread?

Basically you need to know how many stays you are going to have in a certain location.

Marriott is great if you stay with them a lot because of all the bonuses.

Hilton gives you points and miles.

SPG has their credit card and plat is very valuable.

for me..i just looked at hotels in places I might be visiting soon..for Hawaii..seems like Marriot might be the best program......although spg seems like the easiest amount of points that are attainable...i guess it depends on where and what you will be staying in...

Lucky for me I didn't have to make this decision. The new consulting position pays for weekly stays at the Sheraton, so I'm an SPG loyalist, by default. :)

score...now time to get that spg card...

Hilton offers the advantage of award stays counting toward status.

It's obvious to me that you're new to traveling because you want to consolidate points with one hotel rewards program. If, like me, you'd been traveling to various places around the world (and not always just the very biggest cities), you would long ago realized that no one hotel program works everywhere.

Want to go visit Iguazu Falls (Argentina/Brazil border)? SPG is the only one that will get you there inside the park, and the only hotel program in one of the surrounding towns is Best Western. Want to go to Salta, Argentina? The only hotel program there is SPG. But some other comparably sized towns in Argentina, the only hotel program there is Wyndham Rewards.

Want to visit the fjords of western Norway? Once you get outside the big cities (and there are no big cities out on the fjords themselves), the only hotel programs you find are Choice and Best Western. And even in moderately sized cities, outside of Oslo, the only additional chain (where you could earn in the US) that you're likely to find is Club Carlson (for Radisson SAS).

Want to stay on points near Stonehenge in the UK? The only hotel program you'll find there is Priority Club.

Want to stay anywhere near Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah? There are two Best Westerns right outside the park, but no other hotel programs within a couple hours around there. When you do finally find some other programs (at least a couple hours' drive away), they're Choice, Priority Club, and Hilton HHonors (because of Hampton Inn), maybe a Fairfield Inn here or there (from Marriott), but nothing from SPG.

The only program of the ones I've mentioned about that I don't have anything collected in is Club Carlson.

And besides that, sometimes in a particular location hotel program X requires tons of points while hotel program Y requires very little, but in another location it might be vice versa! Having all your points in one program means you have to collect even more points than if you have a good enough balance in several programs that you can always choose the hotel in each location which is the best value on points.

For comparisons among hotel programs, go to:
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler/
You will lots of info there which will help understand which program(s) fit your needs the best.

Although this thread didn’t generate much attention it still brings up an interesting question which I though I would revive with a slight modification. I’m going to be closing some AmEx Membership Rewards accounts and Chase Ultimate Rewards accounts (about 150,000 - 200,000 total points) and plan to transfer the points to a hotel partner program, no specific redemptions currently planned. Thus my question is the relative value, for redemption only, of each hotel program’s points compared to one another. In researching this I found the following on other threads here: (These quotes concern redemption values only, not earning potential.)

“1 SPG point = 1.2 Hyatt Points
1 SPG point = 2.0 Hilton Points
1 Hyatt point = 1.6 Hilton Points”

“PC and HH equal around a penny apiece. HY is around 2 cents.”

“-100,000 Hilton buys 2 to 4 nights, pointstretchers increase this to 3 to 6 nights.
-100,000 Hyatt buys 5 to 12 nights, no discount rates for points.
-100,000 Priority Club buys 3 to 6 nights, discount reward increase this to 6 to 12 nights.”

I certainly realize that a night in one hotel is not necessarily compararable to a night in another and that each program has more or less properties in different areas but I’m still wondering about other people’s thoughts along these lines. (FWIW, I think I would generally use these transferred points for “expensive” vacation type hotel stays rather than just a night at an airport hotel before or after a flight.)

Thanks.

Well, Dr J, as you seem to wisely realize, one basic answer to your question is, "It depends." It's good that you clarify how you want to spend your points (on good vacations), but if you have the time and inclination you might want to consider what specific places (if you yet have any inkling) you might want to go to.

Another variable is whether you think you'd get status in a given program. HH Gold and Diamond gets you free breakfasts that otherwise could be very expensive; I believe that Platinum at SPG does the same for you. If you're not staying enough to gain status, but you spend a lot on credit cards, $30K per year on the Starwood Amex gets you SPG Gold, $40K per year on the Hilton Surpass Amex gets you HH Diamond, and I believe $20K (or is it $30K?) per year on that Surpass card gets you HH Gold. There's also another Hilton card (Citi Reserve) that I believe comes with Gold status, perhaps without a spending requirement.

In any event, back to picking programs and just to pick my own example: Overall, I think that SPG is the best program in terms of the perks, the ability to sometimes use the "points plus cash" option (whereby you can use relatively little $ and relatively few points for nice stays, which HH offers to only a very limited extent), and diversity of fine properties. So my wife and I will use our points to stay at three very good properties (Tambo del Inka, Hotel Paracas and Westin Lima) in Peru next September year, with even a fourth hotel in our sights (Palacio del Inka) if, as seems possible, it joins Starwood by then. BUT, overall, for beach/tropical vacations, we've found more Hiltons we like (based on FT and Tripadvisor reviews, as well as our own experiences) in Bali, the Maldives, French Polynesia, the Seychelles and Thailand (the Conrad Koh Samui). In certain places, such as FP, there may be a great St. Regis (part of Starwood), but IIRC the point redemption costs are astronomical or the option isn't available.

And yet another variation on this theme is that there are incredible Park Hyatts in Paris, Tokyo and Sydney, for example, if those are cities you'd like to visit. (Also, I've read very nice things about the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo and the Hyatt in Kyoto, FWIW.)

So this brings me back to my original point: You might want to consider exactly where you'd want to go, check out the hotel reviews and points required accordingly, also take into account whether you'd achieve status in a given program, and then decide where to deposit you points (splitting them between programs if appropriate) based on all that.

In any event, happy trails!

My hotel program needs seem to change every year. A couple years ago, IHG points got us an awesome trip in Bora Bora. But IHG has only one property in all of Hawaii which we will visit next year. SPG does have some stunning resorts there so while I have neglected SPG the last few years, they are back to the top of my list. We know we are going to Europe in 2014 (there is a special event there in Sept) so when Club Carlson came out with the Free Nights Promo, we did a cheap mattress run nearby knowing that we would get expensive European hotels for free later on. So you really need to be able to plan ahead and see who has hotels where you want to go.

I would not put 1HH:1PC simply because of the fact you can by PC at 0.7 cents. You can't do that with Hilton.
Also I would say that 1 SPG:2.5 Hilton simply because of the fact you can do 1SPG:1.25HA:2.5HH but remember you can't do direct transfers.

Also, it's important to note that hilton no longer offers point stretchers (as mentioned in the OP's post).

They do have th AXON, GLON, VIP rewards if you qualify for those. (these are great redemption value for hhonors points).

Actually, 100,000 Hilton points can "buy" up to 8 nights if you don't mind paying a very reasonable cash price for each night. That's because Hilton often (but not always) has a cash + points rate which is about half the points but very little cash compared to the normal cash rate (and is thus in those cases usually a better value than either cash alone or points alone).

Same thing happens at SPG, but again, it's not always available.

And you've got the Priority Club math wrong. The one prevalent type of discount award is PointsBreaks, which is 5k/night, and tthus would stretch 100,000 Priority Club to buy 20 nights! (And while there are cash + points rates at Priority Club, they are of fixed value -- you're essentially just buying points and instantly redeeming them -- so it's not the great value it is over at Hilton and SPG. With Priority Club the great value is PointBreaks, if you can find one somewhere you want/need to go.)

But therein's the rub. The value of each program is very highly dependent on whether you need/want to stay at properties where the better values are available or not.

In my case, I have no so many points in some different programs, that I can avoiding using HHonors points or SPG points until I find them to be at a good value. I don't have a specific trip I need to "burn" them on (where I'm forced to accept whatever value they have). I can thus afford to value them for myself at cash + points rates, because I'm unlikely to redeem for an HH or SPG hotel when I can't find cash + points rates.

But if you won't limit your uses of hotel points to only the greatest values, you have to do your own calculations differently.

Finally, Hyatt has a tiny "footprint" (places where they have hotels) compared to SPG and Hilton, but it is slighly depeendent on destination type. If you were to dump everything into Hyatt (say, because you determined it had the highest point "value" in theory), but then find you're constantly going to places where there is no Hyatt, how would that help? But that can really happen with any chain, especially once you look internationally, since every major chain has some signficant countries where they have zero presence.