The_Bouncer

Airline-wise, Flying Blue going revenue based is probably most significant for me. The AS/AA split is a bummer too. Neither of these is a deal breaker, though.

Hotel-wise, IHG has to have overall the most significant devaluation over the last 12 months. No more BRG freebies, pointbreaks totally gutted and thumping points inflation. Although none of these changes alone would be in itself a deal breaker, all three together is making my feet a bit itchy.

FFlash

Hotel program changes affects me most:
Being Europe base, mostly Europe travel, this is how it lookes for me:

IHG Spire -> will ditch, since the enhancements unless I buy Ambassador and keep it
Hilton Gold (matched earlier to Dia but lost it) -> kept Gold and plan to stay Gold. But the earn-burn ratio is bad for me (I have no sign-ups etc difficult to "max" promos etc)
Carlson Gold -> zero, dumped it due to enhancements and removal of 2-4-1 booking
Scandic 2nd floor -> stays on 2nd floor by stays
Choice (nordic choice) Platinum (by matching) -> Silver, too low footprint to keep me higher
Marriot zero - never considered good for me due to footprint and unclear status&benefits&earnburn-ratio to my liking
Hyatt zero - same as Marriot, but even lower footpring in Europe
SPG zero - crazy expensive luxury for me where I use to stay.

So it looks very bad for me. I don't really know where I should put my butt nowadays. Hotes.com is bad IMO. Booking.com too.

The_Bouncer

I pretty much agree with FFlash.

IHG has been my primary program for nearly 20 years, but has been hit hard by recent devaluations.

That said, where else do I go? I have the Hilton credit card, which gives me gold (credit card pickings are slim in Europe), so the free breakfast is nice. But Hiltons are expensive.

SPG/Marriott: Too expensive and all non-smoking worldwide. Poor earn/burn rate.

Choice: If I lived in the USA and never travelled abroad, Choice would probably be my #1 program (yes, I'm an incurable cheapskate), but hopeless almost anywhere else in the world.

Club Carlson: Never really tried it. Worth researching?

Hyatt: Too expensive.

I still get decent Accelerate offers from IHG, so I'll still do those. But I don't see myself hitting platinum again this year.

I can see myself spending a fair bit of time in the lower scale Choice properties on a 3 week USA road trip later this year, simply because they allow me to smoke. I think I might give the Choice program another go.

sdsearch

Double-check each hotel individually if you need smoking rooms or smoking areas.

Many Choice hotels these days in the USA are 100% non-smoking.

If you want smoking rooms, another lower-end program to consider is WyndhamRewards. I've seen Super 8 hotels (In WyndhamRewards) with smoking rooms where the Comfort or Quality Inn (in Choice) down the street is 100% non-smoking.

The_Bouncer

That's a good point. I have noticed this recently. Thanks for the tip about Wyndham too - thinking back, I've found smoking rooms in quite a few Days Inns.

I don't actually mind non-smoking rooms if they are motel-style, i.e. with an outside entrance door I can just step out of (or a balcony of course). Tgat's a lot of the reason I lije places like Econo Lodge or Days Inn.

mahasamatman

So in other words, you just ignore the no smoking rule?

The_Bouncer

Not at all. I smoke outside. I prefer motels because I can get straight from the room to the parking lot in 3 seconds, rather than schlepping down in the elevator. That's why I'm beginning to prefer Choice Hotels and may very make it my primary choice, certainly in North America.

sdsearch

It's 3 seconds only if you're on the first floor. Many motels have two floors and no elevator, just stairs here and there, but you may have to walk by a dozen rooms or so before you get to the closest stairs.

And it's not considerate to other (non-smoking) guests if you smoke on the stairs or on the corridor between non-smoking rooms and the stairs.

mahasamatman

I have never heard of a non-smoking room that allows smoking on the balcony.

Doolyb

There are loads in Switzerland for example that allow smoking on the balcony.

eefor jfp

If you're Europe based, Radisson Rewards (the new name for the program) has a fair number of Park Inns and Park Plazas across Europe that are decent and affordable. Most European Radisson Blu properties are very nice but are just as expensive as Hilton. The rewards program itself is OK. It takes 60 nights or 30 stays for their top level which gives you free breakfast and a room upgrade. Technically silver (9 nights/6 stays) will give you an upgrade but in my albeit limited experience, upgrades to business class rooms only came when I was gold (30 mights or 20 stays). Take a look in the Radisson forum if you're interested in more info.

amo66120

Using Starwood to accumulate points is no longer a good deal with a 25 percent devaluation for airline miles Card will not be renewed

RustyC

I'm finally looking at other credit card programs where I had some points built up, as it dawned on me the things might expire or at least I needed to check.

Capital One really underwhelms. Most awards like gift cards convert at 0.5 cents a point. Bleah. After years I'll soon reach a point threshold where if I get some travel expense at just under $150 (can't go over - it's like The Price is Right), then I could redeem for close to a penny a point. Whee.

Membership Rewards on the Blue card isn't quite as bad (more like 0.7 cents on most things), but I might do a mile transfer to Avios (or other programs but would need a specific goal in mind).

I did get to use the Etihad miles...with 4 days before expiration I booked a South America open jaw (since taken) and an Alaska trip on AA that was 25K but also $66 in taxes (much higher tax load than AA, though fewer miles). EY Guest actually requires less miles and has more favorable terms in some cases than AA itself for flights on AA, but you have to book over the phone and availability is sometimes difficult.

My credit union used to have a point = 2 cents award for tickets booked via their agency above a certain threshold ($200, IIRC), where you could pay any difference in cash, but that keeps getting eroded and "enhanced."

I need to shake up the lineup, really, as in every single case the card made sense at the time for some benefit, but things have changed in the interim. Heck, I even still have the card that once earned WorldPerks miles.

mia

Details matter. There are many Blue American Express cards. Unless you have "Blue Business Plus" you cannot transfer to airlines without also holding another card that has the transfer feature. If you do not have a suitable card there are free solutions, just ask in American Express forum.

pinniped

Now that the details are revealed, the SPG/Marriott merger is by far the biggest impact to me.

The good: under the combined rules, I'll move from Gold in both programs to LT Plat Premier across the combined portfolio. Marriott Gold was okay, but I had no easy path to Starwood Platinum. Now I will have basically that across the whole Starwood universe of hotels, which I've always liked better than Marriott hotels. Increased earnings, recognition of status at resorts and most brands in the portfolio, and (likely) a Star Alliance Silver comp. All of those are great.

The bad: I've historically generated a ton of my points supply from the SPG Amex. That card gets nerfed 33% on August 1, leaving my 2019 general-spend credit card strategy in limbo.

The ugly: Marriott Travel Packages were significantly nerfed - especially if you want to redeem a high-category hotels. And the raw math tips the balance towards more hotel-weeks and fewer airline miles, which is the opposite direction I wanted to see them go. (I already have more than enough ways to get free hotel nights.)

The unknown: the first publication of category conversion showed that most of my past 10 and 5 "likely" future planned redemptions stayed mostly flat in terms of points required. But the Peak vs. Non-Peak designation is a big wild-card, with Marriott ominously suggesting that hotels would be able to designate half of the entire year as "peak", something that is wholly untrue in reality for the vast majority of hotels. Implementation of this could mean that nearly *every* hotel award has been devalued.