Another reason to go with Hilton is they have a big footprint and a wide variety of choices. For example, I often travel to Tallahassee, FL. I am not aware of a Starwood property there. There are a few Marriott Courtyards. Hilton has a downtown Doubletree and several Hampton Inns.

On the other hand, if you demand luxury accomodations, its hard to beat Starwood.

For leisure travel, consider Hampton Inns. A good value and generally very new properties. I had never stayed at at HI until recently and was impressed.

I concur with the Priceline suggestion, although I prefer Hotwire. It seems a bit more expensive but you have a better idea where you will be staying IMHO. For example, I recently stayed at the Ft. Laud. Embassy Suites for $69.

Also, check out the Hilton Amex which has no fee, pays 3 HH points per dollar spent, and 5 points on dollars spent at Hilton. There is also a Hilton Visa that pays 2/3 points.

If you go with Hilton, visit the Hilton forum. Getting gold status is not difficult, and with silver or gold you can redeem the ALON and GLON awards which are the best bang for the buck.

I also prefer Hotwire, but it is generally not an either/or thing. When I know that I need to go to a certain city on a certain date (or range of dates) I check first with Hotwire, and that site gives me a quote. I make sure that I add into that price the taxes and fees and then use that figure as my ceiling for my bid on Priceline, after taking into account Priceline's surcharge.

Hotwire does not have hotels in as many locations as Priceline, so sometimes I cannot do this. Also, it is important to also check hotel prices with several other search engines (eg, Expedia, Quikbook, Travelweb, etc.) because sometimes they offer prices that Hotwire and Priceline can't match, especially to cities with many leisure travelers, such as Las Vegas and Orlando.

If you want to increase the predictability of what you are bidding on at PCLN, go to the biddingfortravel.com board to do some research before you bid. Immediate benefit #1 is that you can view a vast repository of winning and losing bids by city, zone, and class of hotel. Therefore, your first Priceline bid won't be way too high. Benefit #2 is that you get to see exactly what hotels people are getting by class and zone. You can find some zone-classes where you know EXACTLY what hotel you are bidding on before you even start.

If you go to this board and then plan on making a post (for advice or whatever), carefully read the FAQs and search all related boards to see if your topic has been covered. Otherwise, put on your flame-retardant suit, because they will rip you a new one. The posting community there is a LOT different than this mellow bunch of FT'ers.

Back to my original question. Which hotel program is easiest to accumulate points?


As everyone pointed out, it is easier to accumulate Hilton points than Starwood or Marriott.But today when I did a little search of properties, I saw that what I had surmised turned out to be true. The Hilton list of properties, where I travel, is woefully limited. They just about don't exist in Europe. Marriott and Starwood have it all locked up. And in the US resort areas as well as major cities, they just don't compare. For example, Marriott's Camelback Inn and Starwood's Phoenician in Scottsdale vs. Hilton's two Phoenix resorts (I can't remember their names). I've stayed at both and trust me, there is a MAJOR difference.

Starwood has some excellent value awards especially now that they added their nights and flights category. But it is harder to accumulate. Ditto for Marriott.

I still don't know just which way I will go.In the meantime I am signing up (again) for every credit card with lots of bonus points and looking around for timeshare tour bonus points. Since we are not traveling currently, (while searching for a new home), I'll have time to ponder the hotel points picture.

For HHonors VIPs, each of these hotels can be had for 150,000 points for a six-night stay.

Mike

Well, when you find your new home, if you take a mortgage loan on it, you can get points for that too.

United partners with eloan and lending tree. I'm not sure who the other majors partner with.

I don't know of any hotel programs that have mortgage partners.

-David

Which is about 2-2.5x the Starwood point count for a similar hotel.

What is a HH VIP? does that require some number of paid stays or days?

What happens if one is not a VIP?

At starwood, the rate is the same for all, upgrades come with status.



[This message has been edited by slawecki (edited 10-31-2002).]

VIP = any elite status in the HHonors program. Review the HHonors.com website for official stay requirements for each elite level. Review the HHonors board here on FT for fast-tracks to elite status, including ways to reach Gold without a single stay.

If you aren't a VIP, you don't have access to the six-night awards that everybody talks about. However, I don't think there is a Flyertalker who ISN'T a VIP. Again: read the HH board and you'll quickly see why.

Pointsgalore, I have a recommendation if you decide to go with Marriott.

You had mentioned earlier in the thread that they were your hotel chain of choice at one time. Because of that, you might want to investigate whether or not you qualify for Emeritus level status with Marriott. I don't want to get into a long description of the advantages and qualifications, but basically, you can earn any status level (silver, gold, platinum) for life. You can, of course, have a higher annual level (if you were, for example, Gold Emeritus, but had earned Platinum for that year), but Emeritus guarantees that you will never fall below that status level again.

If you drop by the Marriott board, a simple search should reveal several discussions of Emeritus qualification standards and benefits pertaining thereunto.


[This message has been edited by Just Passing Thru (edited 10-31-2002).]

Comparing absolute point counts between programs is useless: you earn points in totally different numbers/rates between different programs. Its like comparing Kilometers and Miles: 3 Miles is not a longer distance than 4 Kilometers, because 4 is larger than 3, but because 1 mile equals 1.609344 kilometer... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
Similar: 1 *wood point does not equal 1 HHonor point.

If you compare programs on the absolute point count you'll probably make the wrong decision.

[This message has been edited by ql2112 (edited 10-31-2002).]

The same award being "2-2.5x" less at Starwood doesn't take into account the ease by which Hilton points can be obtained, as opposed to Starwood. With the numerous amount of 50,000 point promos that Hilton has, combined with 10 points/$ and airline:HH redemption of 1:2, it doesn't take a whole heck of a lot to get to 150,000.

To say that Starwood awards are cheaper because they require fewer points is, IMHO, analagous to saying that an item that costs US$65 is cheaper than the same item that would cost $100 Canadian, because you're not looking at the value of each currency in relation to the other.

Hilton VIPs are Silver, Gold, and Diamond - which do require minimum stay/night requirements. However, keep in mind that Silvers, who only need to stay four times in one year, are eligible for the VIP awards as well. (If someone has the points to redeem for it, I'd assume that they've at least stayed four times.)

If someone is not a VIP, they likely won't have the number of points required to meet the 150,000. If they happen to, they can always sign up for a fast-track program (just like Starwood has), or they can make the four stays to get to Silver.

Mike

Here is an example of how easy it is to earn points at Hilton.

Just stayed at a Doubletree at a $159 rate. With taxes/room service it was $176.00. 1,760 points for the stay, plus 25% bonus for being gold plus 500 DL miles as a double dip (=1000 HH miles when converted) plus 5*176 for using the Hilton Amex plus 20,000 bonus for it being my 4th stay as part of the CNTU promotion = approx. 32,000 HH points.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pinniped:
If my travel profile was LEISURE ONLY, hotel points wouldn't even enter my mind. I'd use Priceline.com every single time, without question - regardless of the quality level of hotel I was looking for. A top-level elite status MIGHT cause me to think twice, but most top-level statuses are outside the reach of a leisure-only traveler.


Let's hear it for Hyatt. They'll count Priceline stays toward elite qualification, and provide elite amenities for Priceline stays by qualifying Gold Passport members (e.g. evening food amenity, free continental breakfast, and room upgrade at Diamond level). And Hyatt often comes up on Priceline. So with this program, you might be able to have your cake and eat it too, but you won't accumulate many award points on Priceline stays.

I guess the basic answer to this type of question is, as always, that it depends on your travel patterns. If your travel will generally take you to cities with populations of 50,000 or more, go with Starwood. They have the easiest program to reach top elite status and the Amex Starwood card is probably the best affinity card available. Additionally, Starwood maintains an active, official presence here on FlyerTalk. This individual AKA the Starwood Lurker has been a great help to members here in resolving problems and providing insight and information about the Starwood program. The downside with Starwood is that you generally not find their properties in the hinterlands.

If you think that a significant part of your travel will be to more rural areas, then your best choices are Marriott or Hilton. I am a top tier elite with both programs, Based on my experience, I would suggest using both, keeping Marriott as your primary choice. As others have noted, it is easy (based on what now appear to be annual promos) to obtain and maintain Gold status with HHonors. That's great because you do get some upgrades at the Gold level and it gives you access to their VIP awards which include their GLON and GLONP awards. If you manage to reach their Diamond level, there are some nice extra benefits. There are no blackout dates for awards and they have a dedicated customer service unit just for Diamonds (which is quite good). The downside with HHonors is that it seems like everyone is Gold and the hotel staffs know it.

Several people here have made much about the 50K promos that HHonors has almost annually, but no one has mentioned all of Marriott's free nights promos that they have and are currently running. The most common (and current) type has been the 'stay 3 times and get 2 free weekend nights'. If you had participated in HHonors 50K promos over 2 years, you would have accumulated 100K points through them which is enough for 6 free nights using a GLON award. However, over the last 15 months, my spouse and I have accumulated 11 (soon to be 13) free nights with Marriott using their promos. That's 13 nights vs 6 nights; a significant difference to me. In fairness, I must note that free nights with Marriott are for hotel categories 1, 2, 3 and 4 while the GLON award is any HHonors property except their Premium properties.

I think that Marriott has two other advantages. First is the Fairfield branded properties. I travel a lot (on my own dime) and use them frequently. They offer good clean, basic accomodations in a price range lower than any HHonors property. Stays at Fairfields aren't luxurious, but count just as much as those at premium hotels when it comes to earning status. Another advantage with Marriott is their Travel Package Awards. Depending on hotel category, you can get an award for 215K-250K points that will also yield 100K airline miles in addition to 7 free nights. Those 100K miles can be deposited with Delta. These 100K Delta miles can then be transferred to 200K HHonors points which is enough for 2 GLON awards with them. So for 250K Marriott points, you get an award for 7 free nights at any Marriott worldwide and 12 free nights at most HHonors properties!!

Note that Marriott has started improving benefits for their top tier Platinum members. They have just established a separate phone number and staff for dealing with Platinums. Additionally, they are now guaranteeing smoking/non-smoking and bedding preference for their Gold and Platinum members. However, they still have award black out dates for their Platinum elites.

Overall, my suggestions:
More Urban Travel: Starwood
More Rural Travel: Marriott, keeping HHonors as a secondary (and staying with HHonors enough to meet their promos regarding Gold status and 50K points)

Edited to fix pesky URL's.

[This message has been edited by BillMorrow (edited 11-01-2002).]

Thank you, BillMorrow, for your very thoughtful response to my question. This valuable information is exactly what I was looking for.

If you could, I'd like your opinion on the relative merits of the Starwood Nights and Flights award vs the Marriott combination awards.

Also, you mention how easy it is to achieve elite status with Starwood. Could you explain a little about this please?