jonny1

I have advantage miles and some UA miles but i know they are mainly good for air travel.

Which cards are best and with most bonuses for maximum hotel stays?

I saw priority select card with 60-80k, citi hilton with 50k and read that i can get 100k hilton points if i apply and transfer the VIRGIN ATLANTIC CARD 50k bonus? do these hotel points expire if you close the card1 or 2 year later?
I applied for citi advantage amex and visa last year and have them and just got the citi advantage biz approved.
Thanks.

sun_aa

Are you looking for maximum number of stays regardless of the kind of hotel? If yes, then 80k PC points will give you 16 pointsbreak nights. If not, be more specific about what kind of hotels you are looking for.
Your question is like asking what the best hotel in some destination is. Some people are content with beds in a hostel while others will whine if they aren't in some highly pampered environment.

jonny1

holiday inns, hilton gardens courtyyards or 3 star hotels are fine with me. the bOA virgin atlantic card withh 50k transferable to hilton for 100k hilton points might be good idea since i have couple of existing chase and citi cards already? to get the hilton points for hotel use, i need to apply for hilton card or i can enroll ?

RevJim

Wait, how do you get the 100k Hilton points? This one is new to me, do you have a link?

srdshelly

An important factor is not simply the number of points you can earn with a card, but how many points it takes to redeem a night's stay. Points are not created equal. To me, Hilton points are the bottom feeder in value, and are perhaps worth about half or a little more of what Marriott points are worth, and those in turn are possibly worth about half or less of what SPG points are worth. These are rough numbers indeed. Others will have other valuations, and it will vary for me as well as for anyone, depending what's available in what markets you wish to stay in. But don't just look at big numbers for Hilton points and think that's necessarily a great value.

jonny1

so which cards i should go for?

sun_aa

Don't forget Marriott 70k+1night and SPG 25k. Since Hyatt gives 2nights as the bonus I wont talk about it. Have a look at the standard redemption charts

http://www.priorityclub.com/hotels/u...e/rewardnights
http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/...s/freenight.do
http://www.marriott.com/rewards/poin...dType=Standard
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/prefer...omparison.html

For hotels by category use these links

http://www.ihgplc.com/files/pdf/fact...worldstats.pdf

http://hhonors.hilton.com/en/hhonors...sRewardLevel=1

http://www.marriott.com/rewards/poin...e=Category%201

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/prefer...CategoryCode=1

I think you can get easily get 4 to 5 nights out of all 4 cards.

Then there are non-standard awards:

Pointbreaks from PC for 5k/night,
http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/...rateCode=IVANI

and last minute rewards for 50% of usual rate
http://www.priorityclub.com/rewards/...-reward-nights

Pointsavers from MR which effectively drops the hotel category by 1 level

http://www.marriott.com/rewards/marr...PointSavers.mi

For extended stays, you get 5th night free with Marriott and SPG. Hilton elites and Hilton AMEX card holders have access to discounted rewards.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...hing-else.html

If you can shell out some cash while redeeming points, you can redeem for PC hotels for 5k lesser pts by paying $40 or 10k lesser pts by paying $60.

Hilton has the same option. You use 50% of the usual points and pay for the rest at the rate of approx $3.3/1k points
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyalt...ards-analysis/

SPG also has this option whereby you effectively buy points at the rate of 0.8 to 1.4c/point depending on the category.

You should really read this post below by Ric and maybe more stuff on his blog to stretch the value of the card bonuses.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyalt...count-rewards/

sun_aa

Does anyone know of a way to find the list of PC hotels by points required?

jonny1

did 4 cards aporama. citi thankyou premier with 50k approved. CHASE PRIORITY SELECT CARD said review called but no customer service this time. citi gold biz not instant approval but called and easy approval. applied for BOA virgin atlantic card 35 mins later but said review, called but not open this time.
update: got approved on phone for the chase priority non signature card with 4500 cl. difference?

KathinJax

No, they do not publish a list by hotel. You have a range per brand listed here:

http://www.priorityclub.com/hotels/u...e/rewardnights

GGE

http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/...ts.do#exchange

sdsearch

It also depends on where you'll go. Not every hotel program has hotels everywhere. If you're only going to "big" cities in the US, then chances are most of the hotel programs will work. Try medium sized cities in many other countires and only one or two of them (not necesarrily even the ones for which it's easy to get points from card signups) wll be there!

So I suggest you get at least several night's worth of points in several programs, and keep the alive by doing occasional "activity" to each points program.

For excample, once you have the no-annual-fee Hilton HHonors AMEX card, you should keep it, since it won't cost you anything, and it earns 6 HHonors points per dollar on gas/grocery/drug/phone providoers/internet providors, so it's a no-brainer to at least use it for some of those categories, and so your HHonors acount keeps growing even if you rarely stay there.

The Citi Hilton HHonors Visa could be a keeper too, but it's not as good as the HHonors card from AMEX. It earns a bit extra at gas/grocery/drug, but not as much as the AMEX. But itt's also free of annual fee.

Both HHonors cards (AMEX from AMEX, Visa from Citi) have a decent signup bonus. What makes the Citi one special is that it's churnable (in fact, you may be able to apply for 2 at a time with the "two browser trick"). See this thread for details:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...t=hotel+points

If you need a hotel stay at least a few times a year, then the Marriot Premier Visa card may also be a keeper, despite the annual fee (after the first year), because it gives you (cat 1-5) free hotel night certificate every year you pay the annual fee. And unlike most other hotel cards, it has 0% foreign exchange fees, so if you don't have another card with this feature, it may be good card for use overseas (since other cards are likely to charge you a 3% fee for foreign purchases). Thread here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...t=hotel+points

Anyway, each hotel program you join, figure out how to keep the points alive. The techniques may vary slightly from program to program. But obviously, for those programs where it makes sense to keep the hotel card "forever", it's simple: You just use the card in those situations where it earns more than other cards or costs less than other cards!

jonny1

wife got the chase priority card with 80k bonus but non signature but i guess benefits are same

lewinr

also if you travel internationally and have big spend away from home, be careful about the foreign transaction fees on some cards. You may find that you are paying 3% in fees to get points which are worth only 2%.

jimmy1

I just checked demo hotel reservation on the HILTON HONOR webiste choosing hilton points to pay but no matter what date i choose, which hotel ,which city or country it says,
“There are no HHonors Reward Certificate rooms available for 08 Aug 2012 – 10 Aug2012 at DoubleTree ”

why is that?