Who currently has the best Hotel FF Program
 

About to begin traveling again and was wondering who has the best 2006 Hotel Frequent Stay program going now? I usually use Marriott but have a lot of choices between Comfort Inns, Holiday Inns, Hiltons, Some Embassy Suites, Sleep inns in the area I will be traveling.

Would appreciate suggestions and a few comments about why a program is better than others in the 2nd half of 2006. :confused:

It's all up to what you are looking for in a hotel. Opinions on the programs are subjective. If it's not coming out of your pocket, I'd suggest staying away from the Comfort/Sleep Inns, only because the Hiltons and Holiday Inns seem nicer. If you're looking to earn points, and don't care about upgrades, you may be better with Holiday Inns, as they tend to run more promos, that while not necessarily intended to be open to all, most can register. If you want upgrades, you're probably better with Hilton, IMHO.

That said, I don't think the Hotel Deals forum is the best place for this. It might be better in one of the other forums. :)

Taking into consideration the value of points, I would say SPG is the best!

SPG just said they're increasing points for free hotel stays. Am not sure when it'll be implemented. I am happy with Priceline.

I don't know that SPG is an option for the OP, since he didn't mention them.

I'm going to move this to the MilesBuzz forum where it's more appropriate.

Thanks!

bhatnasx
Mileage Run Moderator

Depends on whether you want to use the hotel program as a way to get airline miles / points. If you do, the different hotel programs may be better or worse depending on which airline(s) you fly.

For example, if you use Southwest, the hotel point credit card described here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=564971

can be very valuable in that its initial hotel bonus points can buy Southwest points that take you half way to an award ticket. But on other airlines, the miles you can buy with the initial hotel bonus points are only about a fifth of the way to an award ticket.

Whoa whoa, where/when?

Also, it depends on whether you want free nights in a regular room, free nights in upgraded rooms, or suite upgrades.

From my looking, only Starwood Platinum and Intercontinental Royal Ambassador have comp upgrades to suites. Both require 50 nights, although with IC RA it might also include stays at Priority Club hotels toward the 50 req.

(The suite upgrade benefit is the one I'm personally most interested in.)

Unless I've missed something in the last few days, the accurate story is that SPG reportedly sent a survey to some people that asked for reactions to various schemes that might possibly be implemented, most or all of which involved some devaluation of SPG points. There's been no announcement of any decision to do this, but the fact of the survey at least seems to indicate that it's a topic under consideration at Starwood.

Ah, so it was sheer speculation? I have been watching the points required and it remains the same. I could've been wrong.. I wasn't sure if it was already implemented because I had been watching the points for the past 6 months and it was the same.

What is RR & SPG?
 

I am not familiar with RR and SPG. Is RR, Red Roof? I am trying to find a frequent stay program that will let me get a lot of free nights at hotels in say a quarter or 1/2 of a year if I become a true road warrior.

RR is Rapid Rewards , which is the frequent flier program for Southwest Airlines. Earn 16 credits for a free flight - credits expire 2 years from the date they were earned.

SPG is Starwood Preferred Guest, the hotel frequent guest program for Starwood Hotels.

Check out the SPG forum: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=429

If you have flexibility among the different brands: who offers the promo you like at certain times.

SimpleManToo,

From your list, there are 2 FF choices that are better:
Hilton - Has Hilton and Embass Suites. Also have Hamption Inn.
Priority Club - Holiday Inn. Also has HIX, Crown Plaza and IC.

If you think you are going to have more than 16 stays or 36 nights, I would say Hilton is probably better since getting Gold would often give you free breakfast, even on your free nights I think. You can double dip with Points and Miles or if your stay tends to be longer, then you can get 50% more points. If you put your miles to AA, you can transfer back to Hilton Honours. If Hampton Inn, you might want to put the miles to SW RR.

For less nights look into Priority Club to see if there are any decent Category 1 rewards that you would be interest since for those Cat 1 awards 10K can often get you something that are 80-100$ in room rates.

This is partially correct. Also... If you have 25 single nights , you qualify for Starwood Platinum.

Forgot to add,

Hilton has increase Gold benefit recently so the difference between Diamond and Gold is smaller. Gold can be get at 16 stays or 36 nights.

Additionally you can get HH AMEX which get you 5 miles for $ spend if you are in the US (not available to Canadians). I have been told that you can get Gold if you spend $20K on the card too.

SPG is good for Plats but Gold benefits are more inconsistent...

Hilton, you can get 50% bonus with Hilton versus 30% bonus with Marriott. marriott probably has better service/staff.

agreed...Hilton wins hands down in my opinion

For the best bang for the buck, I'll have to with SPG.

Not taking money into consideration, I would still take SPG. Gotta love those beds! :p

My simple suggestion is a bit basic, sorry if it appears dummy.

1) be clear and honest with yourself and have a realistic view of the involved stays and who pays for the stays. In this way you can have a fiorecast of the numbers of night and involved total stay cost

2) do your homework and discover which hotel chains are with no properties where you plan/expect to travel and exclude them

3) study the fine prints of the remaining programs, the basic are quite similar but the special perks are quite unique. Just a small example: Hilton has double dip (hotel points and airline miles) plus no black out for the top tier members. Marriott has very good value for travel package (something like spend 25K* USD and get 120K airline miles and a 7 free night certificate). Intercontinental Royal Ambassador has minibar usage on the house.

4) decide which ones are relevant for you

5) if you have a lot of stays/nights you can consider to go for the top level with one but also reach a medium tier level with an other one, it helps to have a backup.

0) read in FT about bonus promotions, they are incredible boosters for points, for example the mentioned example with 250.000 Marriott points it means 25.000 USD but also a lot less if aware of the double point with Visa, triple points with AMEX, Megabonus (like up to 35.000) and so on.

Excellent summary of analysis everone should conduct.
LWW