Okay...

I got beat up pretty good in the Clueless People thread regarding hotel programs. If I stay at a hotel less than five times per year, pay out of my own pocket, and want to earn USABLE hotel stays as quickly as possible, which program and credit card affiliate is best? I pay for hotels out of my own pocket, and probably charge $5,000 per year on CC's. I really, truly am as stupid about hotels as the guy who flies once a week on CO and wonders why the guy ahead of him in line got an upgrade...

Another poster has informed me that yes, it's possible to spend less than $500 (he says he did it for $250!) and get several nights free stays at high end hotel properties. So, enlighten me on the best hotel/cc program for cheapos like me.

TIA,

DHAST

The best deal, for me, on hotels right now is Hyatt and a Mastercard (any MC) under their Faster Free Nights program (FFN).

Yes, but I find the rates to be higher than other hotels.

DHAST,

If I were you, I'd sign up for the Starwood Amex card. It's free the first year; then $30 annually. The first 10 times you stay at a *wood property, you get 500 points per visit, for a total of 5000 points the first year. And that's on top of the points that are earned for each stay.

Category 1 properties can be had for as low as 2000 points on the weekend / 3000 points per weeknight . If you go to Asia, there are a wealth of these hotels. Starwood even has a few cat 1 properties in the states.

Also, for every $ you charge to the card, you get 1 point...
Earn 20,000 points and it can convert to 25,000 airline miles (if you wish). Starwood participates with multiple domestic and intl carriers. If you go this route (a good way to top off an account), you effectively get 1.25 points per $1 spent. ^

Choice Privileges (Comfort Inns, Clarion, etc.) has a promo through Nov. 30 where you get a 6,500-point bonus for every two stays. Since two stays, at 10 points/$, are likely to earn another 1,500 points, and since there are quite a few properties where you can get a night's award stay for 8,000 points, that's a fast a way to earn stays. You can use CP points at some high-end places, too, though not for 8,000 points/night.

You can't book their award stays more than 30 days out, but at 30 days, if they have a room you'll get it. I've had excellent results getting award stays.

Yet another opinion. Priority Club (serving Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, etc). gives massive amounts of bonus points. Most of us Flyertalkers in the IC forum earn well over 200K points per year. That means we can stay in high end $1000 per night suites many times per year for free. It is also the easiest program to earn top honors in. Also if you mix in some IC stays you can earn the ultimate elite perk of any program. FREE MINI BAR! PC also has their own credit card, however I use the Starwood Amex since I earn plenty of PC points just on hotel stays.

OK - here's a higher end way to do it.

1. I assume your credit score is good enough to get a Hilton AMEX. It's free of annual fee, and you get 10,000 points as a sign up bonus.

2. The card gets you 3 Hilton points/dollar spend, and 5 points/dollar at grocery stores, gas stations, and drug stores.

3. You direct your spend at gas stations and grocery stores to this card. Let's suppose you spend $150/week on groceries, and $50/week on gas. That's $10,400/year for which you will get 52,000 Hilton points.

4. You run other normal spend through the card, say $10,000 worth. That gets you another 30,000 Hilton points, and also gets you Hilton Gold.

5. With two years of this (you're Gold the second year), you have over 150,000 Hilton points, good for an AMEX AXON award (4 nights in a Cat 6 property for 125,000 points). So, you spend some of those miles and, instead of taking your spouse to Aunt Daisy's place for a vacation (?), you surprise him/her with a nice week in, say Paris, with all the Gold perks and so on , and you have never set foot in a Hilton hotel!!.

It's not free hotel nights, but Southwest Airlines provides the best effective rebate rate on hotels. Half a credit for Hampton is excellent value (each Rapid Rewards credit is worth close to $20). The Choice hotel thing works great too, because you can use the Choice credit card and then shovel those points over to Rapid Rewards, which now has 24-month expiration of points, up from 12 months.

Ah, yes...but also capacity controls.

Keller giveth and Keller taketh away.

Let's suppose you spend $150/week on groceries, and $50/week on gas.

$50/week on gas? You don't get out much.

Within the parameters listed, I would go with SPG Amex. With the sign-up bonuses and the $5k annual spend, you'll have a few free Cat 2 nights coming your way. Sheraton is a typical Cat 2 brand, but occasionally you'll see a Westin in Cat 2. (I don't think I've ever seen a W, though.)

HH Amex is a nice card if you do $20k annual spend, because Gold status actually does have some value. Small numbers of HH points are not worth much because the program is heavily built around the multi-night, high-category rewards.

Marriott Visa is an uninteresting credit card unless you are doing a lot of Marriott stays or can hit it when it comes with free Gold status instead of the usual Silver (this is rare, but it is what I currently have).

Priority Club is probably fine - but it's up to you to find the nice, clean properties in PC. I tend to prefer the greater reliability you get with Marriott: if I'm staying at a Marriott, I know it's not going to suck, and I don't have to do a bunch of research to make absolutely sure.

Love Hyatt's FFN promos, but that is a limited chain. Are there Hyatts where you both do your paid stays and your desired award stays? If so, that's a quick & simple promo that doesn't require grinding out an elite status somewhere.

By far the best deal on usable hotel stays is priceline Since you can usually get rooms at a 50% discount, you are effectively getting 2 nights for the price of one. No hotel program or promotion can top that, particularly for someone who stays 5 nights per year.

If priceline doesn't work for you, and assuming prices are the same at all chains then Hyatt's FFN program will probably yield the most free nights. However, Hyatt's prices are often far higher than some of the competition.

If you are really set on accumulating points in a program, and you don't want a hotel credit card, it will take you a long long time to earn free rooms in most of the major programs (@ 5 stays per year). In that case you should just choose the chain which has properties available at all of your destinations.

Final note: Even with your travel pattern, you can get low level elite status with Hilton or Hyatt. It's not worth much, but often times it will get you a better room and sometimes even free breakfast.

'Twas a time I went three years without buying gasoline. Even now, I live in the SF Valley of Los Angeles and I spend less than $50 a month in gas. No typo. My grocery bill? About $100/mo. And no, I don't live at McD's or Applebee's -- I spend more on groceries than I do on eating out.

$3/day for food?

Begging your pudding, but that's 16 gallons at today's prices. With my car, 16 gallons is 500 miles. Enough for me, thanks - I'll do mileage runs for FF credit, but driving doesn't count.

That varies widely by chain, location, circumstance, etc.

For example, nearly all of my 2005 Marriott stays have been at sub-Priceline rates thanks to all of the promos (mainly Premium Pounds, but also some EEO, which you need Gold to get).

Plus I didn't have to deal with Priceline treatment.

Priceline can be a valuable tool, but it's not a silver bullet.