Airline Miles vs. Hotel Points
 

I had always worked for an airline so I never worried about miles. I am now out of the airline business. I stay in hotels quite a bit. Does anyone have any input on earning miles or hotel points. I have cards for almost every hotel chain and stick to points for now. I think that this might be better than miles because free nights don't cost the hotel chain much.

Any Input???
Thanks

Great question. I'm wondering the same thing. I recently decided I'm done collecting worthless airline miles, and will focus on Hotel points. I just got a new Hhilton Amex.

Though, it seems as if hotels are also devaluing their points by constantly raising redemption levels. Yeesh. Seems as if we just can't win with this reward game.

Thats precisely one reason these 1.5% and 5% rebate cards are drawing more attention these days. However I still beleive for those who have some kind of status with the airlines and hotels, even now do have an advantage in collecting miles.

FIrst of all, welcome to FlyerTalk, falcon1!

Second, my #1 input is do your own math. It depends a lot on what hotel chain, what elite level your are, and where/when/how you redeem your points as to how much they're worth IN YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES. And it depends a lot on what airline you fly, what seat you pay for, what seat you want to sit in, and your height :) as to how much miles are worth IN YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES.

On the latter first, since it tends to be easier: If all you'd use your miles for are "cheap" domestic coach flights, they're probably not worth much more than 1 to 2 cents each, and may not be worth as much as equivalent (in terms of earnings at hotel stays) points. But if you use them for upgrades or above-coach awards to overseas (say, because you're tall and can't stand sitting in 31" pitch economy for 10+ hours!), they could be worth several times that, and may thus be worth much more than hotel points to some people.

On the hotels, there's much variability. For example, it's easy (some months) to earn points worth TONS of free stays at Choice or Hyatt (both regularly run promos where two stays get you enough for a one-night award), but in the case of Choice there aren't any high-end hotels in the chain (if that's what you like to redeem on) and in the case of Hyatt there's relatively few of them around (outside of major city centers, in case your redemption travels take you far and wide).

With Hilton HHonors, OTOH, you have a wide variety of redemption choices, but you don't earn as fast (few promos), and the value of the redemptions varies WIDELY, and some great redemptions are only available at scattered locations and or for only a while. (Until this October, ALL Scandics are 10k points a night, no matter how much they cost in cash. But come October, they'll range from 10k to 30k points a night, and will stop being the #1 value in the HHonors system. Another popular award, a Kenyan safari, is being discontinued.) And for many hotel locations, people have trouble redeeming awards unless they have Diamond (or perhaps now Gold) status with HHonors or unless they book far far in advance.

And every other hotel chain is yet different. So IMHO it's very hard to generalize. Which brings me back to "you have to do your own math" (after you do good research on FT about how particular airline or hotel programs REALLY work).

Lastly, my #2 input (if you want maximum points OR miles return from your hotel stays) is to "follow the promos". At many chains (EXCEPT Hilton?), the earnings you get from promos can DWARF the earnings you get "normally", and thus comparing those hotel chains only based on "normal" earnings can be misleading (especially at chains like Priority Club and Choice which have one promo or another most weeks of the year).

I have a Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) AMEX card that I use for most of my purchases because of two reasons:

1.) I like the Starwood properties, particularly overseas so I find I get good value if I use points for free nights. They also don't have capacity controls for reward nights so I usually don't have nany problems redeeming my points.

2.) The points earned with this card can be converted to airline miles with most major airlines. If you convert 20,000 SPG you get 25,000 airline miles so if airline miles are your thing, you get 1.25 miles per dollar spent.

3.) I like the flexibility to decide whether I want the hotel points or the airline points whenever I need them.

I think other hotel cards may have similar benefits. Around here the SPG Amex seems to be the most popular card, at least for the time being.

Thanks for all the help so fast. I think I do need to get my calculator out and start doing the math. From looking since I made my first post I think that I'm going to stay with the hotel points. Im short 5'7'' and really dont need to upgrade to a better seat. And it looks like the point value is greater if I go for the hotel rewards.

I'll try to get some numbers posted this week on what I find out.

You may want to consider choosing a couple of hotel chains for points and getting miles from the others. Again, it depends on what you value most.

If you can accumulate hotel points quickly enough to cash in for free room nights at higher cost properties within reasonable intervals, then I would suggest accumulating hotel points because they tend to be more flexible -- (as others have said, in a number of programs they can be converted efficiently into miles anyway and in at least a couple of programs, you actually stand to gain more miles through conversion than if you took miles directly.) If, on the other hand, it takes you YEARS to pick up enough FF miles to be in a position to cash in for a ticket and you likewise accumulate hotel points very slowly, then you may be better off concentrating all of your earning in FF miles.

When I began playing the game in 1997, I found it easier to just concentrate on miles. As I learned more and traveled more, I began to accumulate hotel points independently and I found it to be a much better move.

I am with #5 on the SPG Amex and earning points that way for the same reasons. If I need the miles I can transfer them but usually the best value is to use them for the hotels with no capacity controls.

I also have an AA mastercard for the times that Amex is not accepted. Depending on your spending for a secondary card to backup Amex, you can also opt for a free HH visa or an airline card from a number of airlines that will give you 1 mile per $2 (instead of 1/$1) if you do not want to pay the annual fee.

Devaluation is happening everywhere in this points industry, that is why I think the best way to do it is to "earn and burn" with some prudence to get the best value for them. It is a waste (unless you have so many points that you do not know what to do with them) to "run on the miles bank" and burn them at every opportunity even if it is a poor value. I also do not use miles like a "travel 401k" and bank them for retirement. I would rather spend them to travel now (or save for a certain reward) since they will likely not get me as much by the time I retire. The points are always subject to the rules of the airline/hotel and can be changed at any time.

If all you're going to be redeeming for airline awards is coach tickets, the value of a mile may not be much more than 1c (likely at most 2c) to you, and thus a "cash" rebate card (especially one that gets you much more than 1% back at certain "everyday" kinds of merchants) may do more for you than a miles card.

You'll have to do your own math to figure out if the same is true for hotel points. Since I'm miles-oriented, I find hotel credit cards way worse at earning miles -- through conversion of the points to miles -- than mileage cards. (I only use the hotel points cards either when short-term promos make it worthwhile or because I need several no-fee credit cards for the different airlines' dining-spending-for-miles programs, through iDine/Rewards Network, to get around the "once-a-month" per airline limitations at some restaurants.)

With many midline hotel chains requiring 25k or more points for a hotel stay that only costs around $100 cash many nights of the year (booking direct, not even taking into account things like Priceline!), earning just 2 points per $ spent means I have to spend $12500 to get that award, but earning 1% cashback would mean I'd only need to spend $10000 to pay for the room outright (if I don't need on a higher-cost night of the year oin which I could actually USE an award)! Thus you have to pick your usage of hotel points just as carefully as your usage of airline miles to avoid getting in the situation where you've "wasted" them by get less value out of the process than cashback would have given you.

Au contraire my friend. Choice has a couple of things going for it.:

1. They have a lot of properties in Europe -- over 100 in UK and France alone, and some of them appear to be quire nice and worth the points they charge.

2. You can also spend your points at Preferred Hotels, which are a very upscale chain. That's what I'm doing with the points I'm accumulating with them.

Having said all that, I currently have a p1ssing contest going on with Choice, and I may discontinue my stays there except for promos. But you can spend points at very nice places.

In fact, there's a promo going on right now whereby you apply for their (BofA) credit card and get 24,000 points with first use. Between the card and a couple of relatively inexpensive stays, you'd have enough for a night in a very upscale property.

Doing your homework, of course, is probably the most important part of this whole game.

Thank you for mentioning this. Diners Club (USA) Rewards points convert 1250 : 3000 to Choice. I have never paid any attention because Choice hotels are not the sort where I would redeem an award, but the Preferred Hotels option is interesting.

dennis

I will limit my opinion to credits earned from hotel stays. I believe keeping points in hotel programs offers the best flexibility and sometimes larger rewards. Some hotels give fixed number of miles per stay. So for longer stays you are better off with hotel points than miles. For a one-night stays, you will get greater reward with miles.

As long as your hotels point do not expire, hotel points gives you real fexibility because they are efficientsly converted to miles for most airlines as stated in the previous posts. More importantly, it is good way to top off the orphan miles.

Finally, some hotel programs such as Hilton Honnors give their elite members great deals in remdeeming rewards.


Nancy

I can't think of any that ALWAYS do, but some hotel chains (at the very least Choice) periodically have promos which gives oodles of extra hotel points per STAY (not per night), and in those cases it works backwards from the rest of the time: At a typical Comfort Inn for $75/night and a one-night stay, normally you choose between 750 points or 250 miles, the latter IMHO being more valueable. However, once or twice a year they run a multi-month promo where for every two STAYS (no matter the length), you earn 8000 points (not 8000 bonus points, but just 8000 points total). In that case, you maximize it by doing NOTHING BUT one-night stays at Choice properties during that period, and yet choosing to earn points.

It's complicated, but more lucrative, if you study (via FT searches) the history of (untargeted) bonuses at each hotel chain you're considering, and factor that in, not just the "everyday" earnings. (Tho at SOME chains, most obviously Hilton HHonors, the untargeted promos are virtually nil, so in that case you would need to consider just "everyday" eranings most of the time.)

Also making it complicated (but more lucrative if you can make use of it): Some chains (such as Priority Club's Candlewood Suites) give a paltry 1 mile/$ with Western Hemisphere airlines or 5 points/$ (rather than 2 miles/$ or 10 points/$ as at Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, etc), but if you have one European airline in your FF collection, you can get flat miles (500 per STAY with BA, for example), or you can get a flat 0.5 credits with Southwest. This means the math changes not only with the property, not only with the length of stay, not only with the cost/night, but also WHICH airline FF programs you collect in.

I would really be interested in finding out how easy it is to actually do this and if there are restrictions and blackout dates for the redemption. Preferred Hotels has some great properties that would be a good and dare I say cheap option for Choice points redemptions.

I am eyeing a particular property in the hotel list that usually has rates in the $800+ per night range and if I can get this for 50,000 Choice or 20,833 Diners points (at the rate of 1250:3000 mentioned by mia) then it would be a bargain.

The same hotel can be had with a redemption of 65,000 AMEX MR points since it is listed as an Emerald Certificate hotel. What a Joke!! I used to be a huge AMEX fan but the more things like this that I find the more I dislike them!!