Hotel Loyalty Programs: For you, is it about the points or the status?
 

The thread title says it all. Do you belong to more than one loyalty program and stay where you get the most points for the buck or do you stick with one loyalty program and try to max out the status?

I don't travel for business so I focus on diversifying my hotel points. Of course, elite status never hurts, but it's all points for me.

Both, but probably a slight emphasis on getting to the right status with each program, even if that's not the top-tier status.

If you're doing any meaningful SPG stay activity at all, then you want to be Plat in that program - period. It's really the only "elite" level they have, and it's a very good status in terms of both total rewards and room upgrades.

Marriott is a pretty decent program at Gold level, which you can get with approximately 33 or so actual butt-in-bed nights. (Maybe less if you actually use their credit card for all of your everyday spending, but I wouldn't really recommend that.) Plat adds 2 points per dollar but not much else.

I mostly dropped out of HH when they had their 2009 devaluation, but I can always get back in via the Surpass card and extend Gold status pretty much instantly although with a path to Diamond if I use the CC. I've been HH Gold since 2001 and haven't done more than one or two paid stays per year with them, but my award stays as a Gold have always been pretty decent. No major suites or anything but else a good room and some sort of breakfast option.

Don't really know about Hyatt but from reading the boards here it sounds like you really want to be Diamond there if you're going to do many stays. The confirmable suites seem like an attractive perk...

It sounds like with IHG you really have to buy that paid Ambassador status. I'm the basic Platinum with them basic I earned a bunch of "Crack the Case" points but it doesn't seem that that gets me much... With that program, I'm just happy to have the points - they seem to be a good option in Manhattan where none of the hotels (SPG, HH, MR) treat their elites well to begin with.

If you are doing weekend stays, SPG is pretty nice at Gold.

If you travel for work, elite status is worth it for the lounge benefits, room upgrades, free breakfast, etc. If you travel for leisure, it is all about the points.

I find it's the unpublished benefits that make elite status worthwhile. Just this week, in a completely boneheaded mistake, I no-showed a reservation. I was completely in the wrong, yet the hotel still refunded the fee to me.

I've had my fair share of bending cancellation deadlines, suite upgrades, emergency cash, etc.

It's not that these things are impossible without status, just much easier to negotiate.

IMO, both are important.

Having Diamond status in Hyatt has made me MUCH more loyal to them these last few years. And even though in 2012, I'll only be a Platinum, I'll still be spending most of my stays with them, and trying to re-hit Diamond.

But the points, and ability to redeem them with relative ease (looking at you Hilton!) is also important, I love free nights :)

For me, both. I love getting a free night at, for example, the Park Hyatt Vendome or Milan and love the free breakfasts there that I receive as a Diamond.

I"m going to say both are nice but the status is a lot more important.

Having status gives me something nice with every night: upgrades, free drinks, breakfast and other small perks.

The free nights are nice, but I'm probably only going to get a week or so free a year and usually at only standard rooms. And at least at IHG hotels the stays are treated different on rewards.

At the end of the day having a lot of really nice stays is better than having one free week of just good stays.

To me, the status is more important:

I am a Royal Ambassador member at IHG / IC and many properties do not grant you any RA benefits when using points. Therefore, I actually rather pay for my stay using a non-qualifying rate (e.g. F&F) and receive all the benefits including suite/club-floor upgrades, free movie & minibar etc. if I will actually be able to enjoy them.

If I'm checking in at 11pm and out at 7am, then I wouldn't care and spend my points. However, the latter situation is a quiet rare event so actually and therefore I actually have to spend money rather than points for my stays which makes those points more or less useless to me...

Hotel Points
 

For my wife and me, it is the actual hotel stays which matter. With small children in daycare and student loan debt (expenses which combined exceed a couple grand each month), our current expenses are not reflective of what our expenses will be in a few years. Consequently, right now, we are most interested in doing the most travel possible for the least hit to our bottom line. With regular trips to Disneyland and Disney World, we care far more about our final cost for each trip than whether or not we are getting the best cents/mile or cents/point value. We participate in both HHonors and SPG. SPG has 2 Sheratons near Disneyland, the Swan and Dolphin at WDW, and several other resorts near WDW. The Hilton brands offer several hotels near Disneyland, a couple at Downtown Disney in WDW, and several more near WDW.

As far as status goes, we just do not care at this point. Ease, comfort, etc. matter most. I wouldn't dream of staying at a different SPG property each night when traveling to WDW with toddlers and babies. Ask me in 5-10 years, and I perhaps will feel differently.

For me, it's about the points. I tend to stay at lower-end hotels where internet and breakfast are already included (like a Fairfield Inn rather than Marriott), so the perks of status are less important to me.

I tend to focus on IHG and as such have platinum status, but that's less because of the "perks" and more from the coincidence that IHG hotels tend to be in the locations I want at the prices I want :) When IHG won't work for a particular stay, I have no hesitations booking with a different hotel.

In the meantime, I love cashing in my Priority Club points for free stays, but also have some Hilton & Marriott points banked.

Mostly points. Sure, lounge access, a nicer room, etc., are fine, but when traveling on business I have pretty simple needs. But being able to take my family on a couple weeks of vacation every year to very nice resorts around the world at no cost - that's the real benefit.

Points for sure. I also have pretty modest needs when I'm traveling for business, which is most of my travel. So when I have vacation time I like to redeem for luxury properties.

I go for points with either HH or Marriott and have Gold with both just used a week in Europe while on vacation

For me it's the exact opposite - for work the points are most important and for personal travel it's all about the bennies. I get a per diem for work which pays for my breakfast and rarely have free time to spend in the lounge. Those things are important to me when I'm staying on my own dime.

I could put them to use if you'd like to send them my way!

signing up for the Priority Club Visa my account went first from Gold then to Plat... from dirt.

I don't know what its worth to me, but I can definitely use the points for some free nights, so that has a true tangible value.

There was a time that I cared about status. These days, if I'm at an airport or downtown property, I save a small fortune using Priceline.

dh

Can I say both? I get a per diem when I am on the road- I'm not going to starve myself- but if I go under- I get to keep the excess. I have really enjoyed having gold with Marriott- lounge accesss with breakfast and often enough for dinner, a nice place to chat with colleagues in the evening and an room with a view are wonderful perks and have kept me pretty loyal to Marriott and I usually have enough points for a nice vacation somewhere,

I travel for business and on vacations. I Don't care about status, I stay where I can get the most points, miles or free award nights for
Vacations.

+1 to that.

When I travel for work, I honestly don't care too much about how the hotel treats me as long as it's decent. Get my bed/smoke type right, lounge access if it's available, don't mess the simple things up. I'd almost rather have the suite upgrade go to a family there on leisure...I don't need it when I'm traveling solo.

It's when I travel for leisure that I want the status to really differentiate and add valuable benefits. It's why I've always thought that Marriott has their weekend and resort policies exactly backwards...and why I'm directing so much more stay activity to Starwood in the past 2-3 years.

+1. Couldn't have expressed it better. But in the tangible category, it's about free (real) breakfast and wifi.

I travel on my own dime, but I spend about 140 nights a year in a hotel. I usually look for the cheapest rate I can find, but I focus on 4 hotel programs. I hotel hop to maximize my points, especially when the promotion is based upon stays and not nights. However in the process I end up being top tier in my 4 programs that I target HH, PC, Hyatt and SPG. So at the end of the day when I check in my hotel for the night, I do enjoy the suite upgrade, the complimentary cocktail and the complimentary breakfast. I do use the points for vacations and weekend trips

Both are important, however on a day to day basis with a LOT of hotel stays the status is more important. While I am a member of all the programs, as not every chain has properties where I go, or sometimes one brand has has a significantly better property or better location, so I have elite status with multiple chains, but I do have one I favor.

As we all know many "nice" hotels and normally excellent brands have some nasty rooms at some of their property. I have had the misfortune of getting rooms at the Ritz Carlton that a Days Inn wouldn't tolerate.

Generally speaking with status you never have to endure these rooms, even when you arrive in the wee hours after several flight delays. Also when you have status you will get a room with short notice at a full hotel, and it will be a nice room. Usually the hotel sees you have high status, and either out of respect to that, or they know you know who to call when you don't get the room you requested. With status they assume you will show up, and block the room rather than trying to sell it a second time to improve the bottom line.

Status is the juice that keeps you from getting the shaft when the hotel makes a mistake, and most hotels do make mistakes frequently.

So while I do like the points, knowing I won't always get the room next to the ice machine is more important. Lounge access, free wifi, free breakfast, a room on the "executive floor" which are usually rooms in better shape because they are normally used by us road warriors who have better things to do with our time than to damage a hotel room during a wild party, or to run up and down the hall annoying the other guests. The welcome gift, be it the fruit or cheese plate, or even just the free bottle of water goes along way for me to be loyal to a chain, and the costs of these items are just pennies versus how much I spend on hotel rooms every year.

I would also tend to think the hotels have figured this out, and realize that the vast majority of their elite-level guests are the type of guests they want in their hotel.

So the points are the cake, and the elite benefits are the icing on the cake. One without the other, not so good, but you put them together and you have something worthwhile.

Pretty much the same. Upgrades are very nice, but free is better.:)

Its all about the points for me personally. Getting free wifi is nice, but not necessary.
The "complimentary" upgrades are comical at best...with exceptions. Upgrades are worth it, when you travel internationally because not many people in EU are HH Diamond.
e.g. We stayed at the Hilton Sorrento Palace and we were treated like the King of England. Upgraded to an amazing room with a crazy view of the ocean and mountains. Champagne the works.

But I am all about the points, when my wife and I travel we go for a long time. This past summer we went to Italy for 3 weeks. It was really nice to stay for free the entire trip. If we had to pay we would not have gone. I added up what all the rooms would have cost in USD and it was in excess of 13k. We got to stay at the Waldorf in Rome which was sick BTW.

To Sum it up.
Points allow you to have experiences you would not have had otherwise. Status provides perks and conveniences, the cherry on top.

Nobody's mentioned much about Priceline here, but I totally agree that it has a place - especially since there are a couple different sites on the Internet that effectively remove the opaqueness by showing exactly what to bid and what hotels the winners are getting.

We use Priceline fairly often, primarily for the following:

- Airport hotels where our arrival is late and departure is early. This exact pattern fits most of our airport hotel stays - the whole reason we're there to begin with is usually because of a 6AM flight. I've found that status means little to nothing on these stays, so might as well just save the cash. Typical $150/nt. Marriott ends up being about $60 all in on Priceline.

- Roadtripping stays where the only category to bid is 2.5* - stuff like HIX, Sleep Inn, Hampton, etc. Again, status means nothing at these places and everybody in the hotel eats the same breakfast. Had one 3 weeks ago in rural Iowa where all of these places would have been about $110 with taxes: $52 all in got the HIX.

- Booking multiple rooms for several nights at a 4* type hotel, even if the city has my "Platinum" options available. Here's where you simply do the math, assume that a Priceline stay will yield the worst possible treatment, and then decide if the difference in price is worth it. My best example: I needed 4 rooms for 5 nights in Woodley Park, DC once in late May a few years ago - a fairly in-demand time to go to Washington DC. Marriotts and Starwoods were all $250+ per room per night. So I bid right around $100 on Priceline (it might have been $105...) and ended up with the OMNI. The $6,000 all in tab at Marriott became a $2,500 tab at OMNI. We decided that having four run-of-the-house rooms, no lounge access, and having to wander down the street for breakfast was worth saving three grand. :) And as it turned out, the OMNI *didn't* treat us poorly or dump us into bad rooms at all - and they even provided their normal complimentary morning juice/coffee service. ^

Shouldn't this be the other way around?