The Hilton Honors program also gives you extra points for your rental car. You have to remember to show your rental car keys when you check in.

Can you elaborate on this??? Is there a website that explains this?

Thanks!

Well, looks like you got plenty of good "road warrior" centric advice. I really couldn't think of anything more except 2 things - that being you should negotiate before each trip for a cash advance from your company.
Due to the fact you will be on the road so often, its a good idea to get an agreement from accounting to reimburse you one or two weeks after submitting expense report. Good luck and have a grand time traveling!

http://hhonors.hilton.com/en/hhonors...r_bonus_points


1. HHonors bonus points are awarded for car rentals with HHonors car partners which occur during the period of a particular hotel stay. Means of awarding bonus points vary by partner, as follows:

Alamo - For rentals during stays at any HHonors hotels, Members earn 250 HHonors bonus points. Members must present a valid car rental agreement or keys at hotel check-in.
Avis - For rentals during stays at any HHonors hotel, Members earn 250 HHonors bonus points for rentals. Members must present a valid HHonors membership card at a participating Avis rental counter to earn points.
Europcar - Members earn 250 HHonors bonus points.
National Car Rental� - For rentals during stays at any HHonors hotels, Members earn 250 HHonors bonus points. Members must present a valid car rental agreement or keys at hotel check-in.
Sixt - For rentals during stays at any HHonors hotel, Members earn 500 HHonors bonus points. Members must present a valid HHonors membership card at a participating Sixt rental counter to earn points.
Thrifty - For rentals during stays at any HHonors hotel, Members earn 250 HHonors bonus points. Members must present a valid car rental agreement or keys at hotel check-in.

My recommendations:

Hotel: In my opinion, Starwood has the best reward program. They are fantastic about upgrading platinum's to suites, no blackout dates and many hotels are available for 3000 - 4000 points. (You'll probalby earn that during 2 weeks travel using the Starwood Amex credit card). Some examples at that redemption rate include the Royal Orchid Sheraton in Bangkok (Conde Nast Gold list for 5 years), Le Meridien Angkor (closest hotel to Angkor Wat, Cambodia), many Four points (saved lots of money in Munich during Germany 2006 World Cup)

If you are traveling to cities with Sheraton, Westin, W, etc., I'd highly recommend Starwood.

If you decide to do the Starwood option, consider the United Ameniti program (search the United forum). Promotions offer something like 25K miles for $295 and you'll get Starwood gold status for accelerated point earning and room upgrades

Airline: If you are going to travel more than 200,000 miles per year, I highly recommended diversifying across 2 airlines to reach top status on each. You'll then have flexibility to choose by schedule when needed, have international upgrades on both airlines, have more options when you want to redeem miles, etc. I made the mistake of flying 240K miles on 1 airline during 1 year and regretted not getting top tier benefits on 2 airlines.

Credit card: Starwood Amex as suggested by others

Good luck adjusting to the constant travel.

I'm curious about this, how would a TA sponsor status? Are there previous cases on record that I can reference for my TA?

Your TA should know how to proceed. If the one I used to use knew about it, I'd think any competent TA would.

I just sent some clipped text to my TA, we'll see what the response is. I expect a non-commital response and claim of lack of knowledge honestly.

If there's a Hyatt or 2 where you'll be traveling, their Faster Free night promo is coming up soon (11/1-1/31). This would be an easy way to rack up some free nights for a nice vacation if you can charge the rooms to MasterCard.

here's my 2 cents:

Credit cards:

most programs offer a first year free with bonus miles or hotel points. might as well sign up for them all and then decide which one u like best. i now only have the hilton card as its free and gets me lots of pts.

hotels:

marriott: hard to get status as its only on nights but bonus programs are usually open to everyone. but good coverage in any city

hilton:

good coverage in any city but upgrades are harder and sometimes, getting reward stays are hard in popular destinations. i just was denied in vegas and had to use SPG pts.

spg:

coverage not great outside major cities. pts are slow to accumulate just from stays. but, i think the pts have the most value as if there is a room for sale then its available for redemption. as well, pretty good about upgrades for higher status.

airline: i always say go with one but the one with the best scheduling. i'd rather be home than waiting for limited flights from another airline because there bonus program is better. once u become a road warrior home time takes on a very high value

hope that helps...welcome to the world of mattress surfing

I wholeheartedly agree with all of worldcupfan's advice, except for the UA Ameniti program. I can't speak from experience and could be persuaded otherwise, but if you search the UA forum for Ameniti you'll find lots of negative comments.

Starwood definitely has the best program in terms of number of quality properties and upgrade (to suites, better rooms, etc.) opportunities. It sounds like you'll be on the road so much that you'll have no problem reaching the platinum level, which means free upgrades, which you'll definitely appreciate if you're on the road a lot for work and when you go on vacation (sorry, I can't recall the exact number of stays or nights necessary, but you can find them at spg.com, the Starwood Preferred Guest site). Plus to the extent there's a FT consensus (perhaps a contradiction in terms) about credit cards, it's that the Starwood Amex is the best one.

I suspect that you might find that for reasons of cost or convenience you might not confine yourself to one hotel chain. Especially if that's the case, you should get hotel credit cards for whichever chains you might frequent. Most are free or low-cost, plus paying with them at the hotels with which they're affiliated gives you bonus points. And you need Visa and/or MCs anyway to supplement the Starwood Amex.

The consensus (that word again!) at the FT credit card forums is that signing up for a bunch of cards might take a slight toll on your credit rating, maybe 30 points, but that it bounces back within several months. The only exception to this advice is if you're about to buy a house or otherwise take out a loan, in which case you want to guard your rating more carefully.

In signing up for any credit card, find the online offers that give you points or miles just for signing up or your first purchase. Starwood Amex is advertising one right now that has 10,000 points for your first purchase--enough points for a night at a very nice hotel. If you search the credit card and hotel forums you'll find more useful advice about this and announcements about online CC/milre/points offers.

I'd offer the same advice for any airlines you might fly at all regularly. Get the AA card since you'll be in DFW. But also get other airline CCs if you'll be flying them at all. Not all airlines offer free cards the way most hotel chains do, but some airlines do so.

I also agree with the advice about going for top status on two airlines if you fly enough miles. I assume that AA will be one of them, but that could depend on where your main destinations are, so before committting to AA you might want to check out which airlines fly non-stop to where you'll be going. I have top status on both AA and UA and am glad because I get lots more free international upgrades and other perks that way.

I think you'll find the specific forums for hotels, airlines and the non-Amex, non-Diners club forum good resources for further advice and info on this stuff.

OT, and you probably don't need this advice, but I'll offer it anyway. If this is your first job with lots of travel, be aware that it's a lot tougher on the spouse who stays behind than the one on the road. Frequent emails, phone calls and/or flowers can help ease the burden for your wife, as will the nice vacations you two will take with the miles and points you'll pile up.
Anyway, congratulations on the new job!

Agreed. My suggestion would be to stick and be loyal to a program that's accessible to where you'll be going.

Stick to one airline. Join all the hotel programs, use them while you travel. From there make up your own mind which hotels suit you best.. Starwood doesn't work for me because they only have hotels in major large cities.. If you have to travel to the pucker brush, you need that Hampton or HIE.

I'm not sure that's true. Why would the employer (who has paid for the travel through which the miles/points were earned) have to pay taxes to accept/keep the miles/points earned in the process?

What you may be thinking of is the ruling that if the employer doesn't keep them but instead allows the employeee to collect and use them, the miles/points are not taxable to the employee (unless he converts them to cash somehow). That's an entirely different situation.

This is a good point that I'd overlooked. I'd still recommend the Starwood Amex card because you'll build up a lot of Starwood points that could be used for vacations at some great hotels all over the country and world, or alternatively can be exchanged for miles on most airlines at a points/miles exchange rate better than other hotel chains. And given that you may be on the road 200 nights a year, I'd still suggest trying to get to Platinum status on Starwood (which requires 25 stays or 50 nights per year) if you can.

I'd prefer a cash back CC. Since you'll be earning enough miles by flying and staying.. you might aswell get some cash back.

Amex True Earnings will give you 2% flat on travel and 3% flat on dining.. and 1% for everything else.

I have both.. Hilton and Marriott.. and I think they are great.
Not a big fan of AA, but if it works for you.. great! check out the
platinum challenge...