Best Card/Program for Hotel Miles?
 

Hello All,
I'm not sure if this belongs here or the hotel forum?

Since we are working on maximizing our airline mileage accrual, last night my wife asked me if there was any good hotel programs and cards we could start to work on? From what I have gathered in my limited search was there was a large following of the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex and Starwood line of hotels. I also see that Hilton and Marriott each have their own cards and programs.

Many tout the transfer benefits of the Starwood program to airline partners, but it does hold up on its own for free hotel nights does it not?

The current offer for the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex is 25000 points once you've spend $5000. Is this traditionally a very good sign up promotion or have there been much heftier promotions that are worth holding out for if they develop?

Otherwise, both the Marriott (50K), Ritz (50K) and Hilton (40K) are the other options I see.

We are not in a hurry, but would prefer to pick the best program and work solely on it as much of our priority is toward airline mileage accrual and this would be our compliment to that. We travel all over, from a lot of cities domestically to everywhere else, so it is not like we have one specific chain that we work with.

If you were to choose one, which would it be and why?

Thank you.


(mods, sorry as not to know where posting this is appropriate)

I'm no expert, but look into your destinations. Not every chain has hotels in every place. After that, consider the spending categories on the card and night availability. A lot of people are down on Hilton due to devaluation for high-end properties. Although I think AXON awards (if you have the AMEX) are a good value. And there is a 60k Hilton Hhonors Amex available ($750 min spend).

Also, another thing to note is that Priority Club/IHG points don't expire and Hilton Hhonors points will only expire if you do not have activity for 12 consecutive months, so you can extend life by buying points, going through the shopping mall, or any other non-stay partner. So even if they're not you're number one partner, it's easy to keep those two programs going.

I would have to agree that knowing where you are going to be traveling is key. Starwood is a great card and don't be fooled by the bonus size. There points are much more valuable than other programs. When using cash and points I have gotten a return of up to 9 cents per point. Which is a lot higher than the value that I get out of HHonors points which is usually close to 1 cent or even less

SPG offers a 30K card a couple months during the year. I would just wait for that promotion. You can get both the personal and business versions of the card for 2x the bonus. You also get 5K bonus for referrals which you can refer your wife and friends to get even more points. (You also get 2 nights toward elite status for each card so that can get you to gold/plat status quicker.)

SPG points are very valuable (I value them at 2.5cents each) as they can transfer to a lot of different programs. Many SPG hotels offer points and cash redemption for even more value on your points.

Again, the first thing to look at is where your destinations will be and find the hotel availability (and desirebility) of the properties to make your decision. Hope that helps!

You make an excellent point! Some people look at the # of bonus points, but don't consider the value of each point. According the Plasticiq.com, each point in the different hotels are(this data makes sense if you do relative comparisons):

Marriot: $0.0088/pt
Hilton: $0.0043/pt
SPG: $0.0215/pt (!!)

So, SPG points are worth about 5x Hilton points, and 2.5x Marriot points.

In addition to the advice regarding evaluating your destinations to determine the best card for you, I'd also consider that just as there is probably no "one" airline card that's best for everyone, there is no "one" hotel card either. I've pursued a two-tier strategy, with SPG for my higher-end stays and Choice for my lower-end stays. I've experimented with Hilton in the past couple of months but haven't found them satisfactory for my needs. I may also look at Hyatt as another possibility.

The key is to evaluate the earning and burning rates that most meet your needs. I don't ever expect to find a high-end Choice property for redemption; however, in December, I'm staying four nights in a Choice property in London that runs 8K points a night--when a lot of American Choice properties in Podunk cost 16K/night but sell to the walk-in customer for less than $100. The London hotel room is advertised on the Choice site for 150 pounds/night or about $250, so for 32K points, I'm saving about $1000. Given hotel room prices in London, I'm very happy to stay in a well-located, decent but not luxurious Choice property on points.

On the other side of the equation, I've paid to stay at some relatively inexpensive SPG properties with the goal of earning some good redemption opportunities. SPG ran a promotion over the spring and summer that provided a free resort night for every three hotel stays. Since the definition of a "stay" could be met with one night at a SPG hotel, I took advantage of any situation where I could stay in multiple SPG properties on a multi-day trip. My reward: three nights at the Turnberry Resort in Scotland in a room that was running approximately $600 per night. And, unlike my London Choice property, Turnberry was a true luxury experience.

Choice and SPG work for me. You might find that Hilton and Wyndham work best for you. Whether you choose to get a hotel's credit card or not, however, make sure you join the loyalty program of any hotel you ever stay in. You never know when your travel patterns might change.

By the way, I find Ric Garrido's site, http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler/, to be a wealth of information on loyalty programs and promotions. He's the only travel blogger I know who focuses only on hotel programs. Digging into his archives will give you a lot of insight into the worth of most of the programs.

I just picked up both the Marriott and Hilton (Amex) card. There are actually a 60,000 Hilton and 70,000 Marriott bonus offers going on now. I don't value 60,000 Hilton points very much, but I do value how easy it is to rack up a lot of points with credit card spending as you get 6 points per dollar spent for almost everything (gas, grocery store, drugstore, cable, internet cell). Also no annual fee for the Hilton Amex so I can keep it forever. I like the Mariott because the points are more valuable than Hilton, you get one free night per year which covers the annual fee, and you get 2x points for dining out. I have plenty of different airline miles and AMex MR points so I'm not worried about transfer options. But like you, I hardly have any hotel points right now. My strategy over the next year is to buy everything I can at the Hilton bonus locations, including gift cards from grocery stores for places that I know I'll spend money at like Target, Ebay, Amazon, McDonald's (for the kids, not me), etc. Dining out I'll use the Marriott card. Cheap paid stays will be at Marriott chain hotels when possible. Any leftover expenses will go on cards that earn airline miles/MR points.

This seems like a key criterion right here. Maybe a two-tiered approach would be best?

Think about the SPG AMEX for higher-end stays, especially using cash&points. In the worst case, you can transfer to airline miles and it's still a great value.

Then think about some of the other cards for programs with a wider geographic reach and/or situations where AMEX is not accepted. Priority Club is great for "a lot of cities domestically" because there is almost always a Holiday Inn Express somewhere.

But really, you should figure out how you would plan to redeem points to try to figure out a value for each chain's points.

If you are interested in quantity over (high-end) quality, you might have valuations like mine:

SPG = $0.014
Marriott = $0.011
Priority Club = $0.004
Hilton = $0.003

Then you can compare both day-to-day earning and signup bonuses against the value you will receive. Here are some recent signup offers:

SPG 30k, Marriott 70k, PC 60k (80k targeted), Hilton (2 cards @ 50k+)

Note: Many of us prefer a 2% cashback card for daily spending. Think about how much you'll really get from hotel cards for redemption value vs. just taking the cash.

Thanks Everyone, I appreciate the input and can really understand the rationale being used by all of you.

I cannot really say "where" I will be using it because we are really flexible. For example: we have a D.C. trip next week, but then we might head to NYC for mid-dec but its unknown at this moment. Then this year, we went to Bali with a two week notice. We were in Vancouver, Whistler, and Victoria all for long weekends at different times this year with two week notices. Fairmont was our choice of hotels at that time. In Chicago we fly in for the Global Entry interview which could not be scheduled out more than 30 days. You get the drift. So you are right, a two-tiered approach might be the best and to counter that at times with a cash-back card when we are uncertain the the actually cash in our pocket would be more warranted.

I'm leaning toward the SPG as a start, but I'll wait to see if any better sign up offers pop up (30K+). In the meantime I'll continue to pile on the air miles and start understanding more from the boardingarea website - thanks for that.

Its a marathon not a sprint, right?! ;)

Keep in mind that, this year, the best SPG offer has been 30K with a $4500 spending requirement in three months. The general offer for the card has been 25K with a $15K spending requirement in six months.

That should give you context to evaluate any new offers that come down the line.

Very good to know! Thank you!

Take a look at the Credit Cards > Free Cards page of my website below. The Marriott and Priority Club offers look very good. And the Starwood offer is good, mainly because of the bonus for transferring points to airline miles.

Thanks. Yes, I like your site very much and appreciate the work you put in. I especially appreciate that you are willing to tell someone that a deal is still available even though other bloggers claim it dead because they no longer get commissions on it. While I do appreciate blogger news for limited time offers, I've found loads of purely biased information, inaccuracies, and purely mis-leading information on a few of the popular blogging sites which seem to go on without correction for purely personal profit reasons.

As noted it depends where you travel and what your goals are. I have both the marriott and Starwood cards. I am plat for both programs. Starwood is wonderful if you are looking for aspirational hotels. Overall the SPG card is the one to use due to the transferability to airlines as well the cash and points options for hotels. That said, if your goal is to be in a program that offers lifetime elite, then its marriott as SPG does not have this option today. I like the spg hotels overall better than the marriotts but marriott has much better coverage. Clearly there are pluses and minuses to every program

A strategy of focusing on just one hotel program makes no sense unless your primary goal is status in that program, and even then a wise traveler will have a backup.
SPG has small number of hotels, so you may be disappointed if your travels don't take you to big cities.

I have points in 4 hotel programs right now - SPG, PC, Choice, Carlson - and I am considering acquiring points in another to give me even more flexibility.