For the properties that Cash+Points is not available at, then it does make sense to stay at another chain, or use a revenue stay etc. Also, the SPG points are incredibly flexible when converting to airline miles (with 25% bonus too). All this means that the SPG Amex should be part of one's wallet, really regardless of whether or not one is loyal to Starwood or another chain.

SPG Amex does nothing to help you with staying at other chains. While Diners Club and Amex MR and Chase Sapphire Plus / Ink Bold do.

Thus I don't agree that SPG Amex should necessaily be part of everyone's wallet. If the SPG points are valuable to you for hotel stays, then they're more valuable that way than the miles conversion probably, so the fact that you can convert to miles shouldn't even be a factor. But for when you need points in another hotel program, the SPG Amex doesn't help you a single bit.

I would thus counter that if you have a healthy miles balance but have holes in your hotel points collection (and don't know ahead of time which one you'll need to fill), a Diners Club or Amex MR card may be a better fit (if you're only going to use one card for ending up with hotel points) than SPG Amex.

(Please note: Diners Club US/Canada recently changed owners, and is not yet ready to start accepting new card applications. I only mention it here for completeness, but at present you can only be using one if you already have one.)

I was just looking at Priority Club Visa, they have a pointsbreak Intercontinental in Santiago.

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/...rateCode=IVANI

I'm saying even if you are loyal to say Hilton, you should still get the SPG card for general purpose spend to convert to airline miles with great flexibility.

Chase and Amex both allow points transfers to other hotel chains, but they lack the flexibility in terms of airline partners to make it truly worthwhile- adding to that with the exception of SPG, one airline mile is usually worth more than one hotel point

There is a lot more that could said about various ways to get airline miles with credit cards, but this is a thread about ways to get hotel points with credit cards, and getting an SPG solely to convert to airline miles has nothing to do with that!

In case you're not aware, it is in general much harder to earn lots of hotel points from credit cards than to earn lots of airline miles from credit cards (as you touting of the SPG Amex, a hotel card, for airline miles, demostrates).

I'd like to resurrect this thread but to consider only the signup bonus with these options:

(1) Chase Sapphire preferred (50k)
(2) Chase Hyatt (2 free nights)
(3) Chase PC (80k points)

My analysis is that PC is best if you are looking for IC nights as 80k will get you 2 nights at most IC properties (and within 20k at the most expensive ones) v. 50k with Chase. It also gets me 3 nights at an HIX on the CA coast that runs $200/nt on the weekends.

However if you want Hyatt nights then the question is whether 2 nights > 50k Hyatt points. Which in turn depends on the property.

I guess it boils down to where you plan to stay next and whether you want 2 nights at Hyatt v. IC. Am I missing something? We already have SPG and Marriott cards.

I am curious why no one mentioned Capital One Venture where you can apply the points earned to any hotel - so the affiliation (or not) with a chain is moot.

I have lots of experience with Hilton and SPG (end up aggressively getting SPG points for a trip to Italy where they have a much stronger presence than Hilton) and agree that if you are starting out in anticipation of a specific venue, look at your hotel options first then choose a program.

I am looing at a trip to Portugal and although I have thousands of points with Hilton, SPG and Mariott, I found that there are "alternative" awards through American Express MR that will give us 5 star stays at properties where we could not use our other points. It would also give us an opportunity to stay somewhere that we otherwise would have "overlooked" because they weren't Hilton/Starwood/Marriott.

The reason most people don't mention Capital One is that it's simply a card that's restricted to hotel (or other travel) redemption, but beyond that restriction it's simply a 2% cashback. Also, "Match My Miles" aside, it doesn't come with that great signup bonus (it certianly doesn't give you multiple free nights with just the signup bonus the way many "true" hotel cards do.)

The value in hotel cards being sought here was for free nights earned with just the hotel bonus, and on the Venture falls flat for most people (since most people cannot do "Match My Miles" any more*).

The value beyond that is that with "real" hotel points, the redemption value is not fixed at 2%, and can in fact be much higher in some cases. (Also, you can combine the points earned from the card with the points earned from the stays you do at the brand, which Venture doesn't offer. Venture's points are not combinable with points you earn anywhere else.)

The latter point is the one that applies to "altnerative" hotel redemptions like with airline miles. Again, they tend to be at a "fixed" value (behind the scenes, they're simply paying cash to the hotel based on the miles you used), so it's hard to get a high-value-in-cash hotel on a small number of miles, the way you can at least sometimes get a high-value-in-cash hotel on a small number of hotel points.

Priority Club Select Visa, for example, give you at 60k (and there's an offer for 80k) just for the signup bonus. Well, if all the hotels you stay at are in the PointsBreaks offers (5k/night0, that's 12 nights!

Of courese, being able to use hotel points only for high-value redemptions requires taking the attitude that if it's cheap on money, use that occasion to earn points, and only redeem when it's expensive on money but cheap on points. (You can't do that with Venture, since with Venture the redemption cost is always proportional to the cash cost of the hotel.)

... Meanwhile, in Portugal, have you looked at the cash cost? When good hotels are only 40 Euros a night, why both using up points at all? (Unless you only have Venture, and have no better use for the points, since all travel uses for Venture points are exactly the same!)

Well, this gets back to the adage: rewards are like cameras, the most valuable are the ones you will actually use.

Like you said: it depends on the property. The Hyatt card comes with two nights at ANY Hyatt worldwide, but the sign up reward does expire in 12 months. There have been people who have signed up for the Hyatt card and then used those 2 free nights for some extremely expensive vacations. Depending on how you would use it, the Hyatt sign up bonus is the most valuable; but do not sign up for the Hyatt card until you know you can use the reward.

16 nights at a Pointbreaks property will always be more valuable than 2 Hyatt nights, even at that Paris one.

IC Tahiti was on the last list......

Indeed, but to just to clarify: Poirntbraks properties (a sale of 5k/night at select Priority Club properties, for those who don't know) are only announced for a two-month window, typically only a week (or maybe two) before that window opens. So to use them somewhere far away, you've got to be ready to book your trip at the moment you see them come up. Otherwise, you can only use them if they "happen" to become available someplace you were already going.

But trying to book an award trip to someplace far away on short notice like that can be tricky (especially for the inexperienced) on the miles side, especially if you only have sufficient miles in one airline / one alliance.

I've used Pointbreaks several times, but so far have only managed to use them for domestic travel, because I usually need to plan my overseas travel further in advance. (Still, they've saved me tons of points, while also saving me tons of money, on stays in several cities, including once in NYC, just across the Queensboro bridge from Manhattan at a then-just-opened new Holiday Inn.)

IMHO it takes a very patient mindset to get the Priority Club Select Visa card for the 80k points and then to only use it for Pointsbreak properties. :) (But it's 16 nights out of just the sign-up bonus only if that's the way you do it!)

By the way, breaking news from the Priroity Club forum (which may or may not apply to new applicants automatically, we haven't figured that out yet for sure):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/inter...um-status.html

(But before you get too excited, learn what PC Platinum status is and isn't good for.)

Also if Hilton is an option, if you have the Hilton AMEX you get a break for the longer stays using AXON code. You can do a search.

Yeah, there's typically one InterContinental, maybe a little more (though admittedly they did have the IC Beijing Beichen which is very decent) and a couple of others this time round.

But when push comes to shove most of the PointsBreaks redemption opportunities will be in a HIX on the side of a road in a outer suburb of Detroit...