I am a retired, leisure traveler who rarely buys airline tickets anymore. I have managed to accumulate, mainly through credit cards, phone service and various and sundry promotions, about 1.25 million miles. So I feel that we are pretty well set for travel far and wide for quite a while (coach, of course).

Now I want to concentrate on getting hotel points. I currently use the Starwood Amex but only to get the extra 5k when transferring to an airline. I'll sign up for the Hilton and Marriott cards, again(!) but what I really want to know, from all you experts out there, is which hotel program can one most easily accumulate points with - Marriott, Hilton or Starwood. And are there ways (other than credit cards) to gather hotel points without staying at the hotel, much like one can do with airlines? My favorite chain has always been Marriott and, during working days, stayed there almost exclusively.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions that you may have.

Hilton has been having 50K promotions for the last couple years: stay 4 times and you get 50K bonus points. Search Hilton forum for CNTU for lots of details.

It is harder to accumulate Starwood points but I prefer to accumulate Starwood points anyways because they tend to have a category of hotels for redemption. I like to spend my hotel points on a hotel I could not afford to stay in otherwise.

If you are looking for the most bang for your buck I would go for Hilton. Points are easy to accumulate and there are Hilton properties in every price range.

Hotel points can be sort of like pinball machine points. Some give you billions of points, but you don't get a free game, and others, it doesn't seem like you have a lot of points, but you get a free game, and worse yet, you do get enough points for a free game but the machine doesn't work properly anymore and you can't play the free game.

For these reasons (and this pinball analogy just came to me, but boy is it true), SPG is my #1 program.

Another question - is the primary purpose of earning your hotel points for hotel stay redemption? Or for airline transfer.

For hotel stays. At this point, I have enough airline miles.

If you have more than enough miles, I would recommend Hilton Hhonors, since you can transfer miles to Hhnonors points at a 1 mile to two Hhonors points basis from most programs (you cannot transfer Worldperks and Aadvantage miles transfer only at 1:1).

Head for Hilton, they have run the 50,000 point promotion three times since last year.

Hotel stays booked using points probably will not help you earn any bonus points, as qualifying stays must have room revenue associated with them, so unless you are planning to pay for hotels stays with $$, you might not earn any bonus points. AMEX Membership Rewards also has hotel xfer options.

jk

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"Hang up my haishirt, put my scourge in place, and pray, Laurent, for Heaven's perpetual grace."

Moliere, "Tartuffe"

Unless you are sure you need to stay in more expensive 3/4 star hotels, I would suggest you balance the point value with what the rooms cost you.

The number of points you earn and the resulting rooms you eventually get is not a great deal in most cases. If you can stay in a less expensive property and spend 20,30,40 or even 60 dollars less per night, the dollar savings will be much great than the point value.

I stopped doing the Mariott/Sheraton/Hyatt/Westin thing when wide open expense accounts went away, and when I had choices. Have never looked back.

If you're looking at Hilton, a Delta AMEX card (with annual fee) may be a better way to accumulate Hilton points than a fee-free Hilton Visa or AMEX, depending on your spending pattern. The Delta card has the always-double-miles feature for certain types of spending (although some people say they have trouble getting the bonus to post - I've haven't had that problem with them yet). They've also run special promos: currently there's a triple miles promo this month (equates to 6 HH points per $), there was a double miles promo a little while ago, and there's a double miles promo for weekend spending coming soon.

It wouldn't take a whole lot of bonus spending to justify the annual fee. But get the Hilton Visa & AMEX, too: 10,000 and 7,500 bonus points, respectively, no annual fee, and you can cancel them once the bonuses post.

Since you already have so many airmiles I would go for Hilton HHonors: it is easy to transfer airmiles to HHononrs. A couple of 10K airmiles transfered to HHonors (depending on how many you can spare) can give you lots of free nights, especially if you use HHonors Pointstretchers which should be no big problem since you are retired and -I assume- you are flexible in your dates.

I do agree that the easiest program to accumulate points in is HHonors, and the hardest (without hotel stays) is probably Hyatt.

However, I think you might reconsider which credit card(s) you use to augment the points you accumulate from paid hotel stays.

Unfortunately, the Marriott Visa is the worst card for accumulating hotel points. You get only 1 MR point per dollar, but MR points are given out at 10 per dollar at the full service Marriott brands. Even with the 2 point bonus per dollar for a total of 3 per dollar on Marriott charges, its barely worth it, since 1 MR point is worth much less than one airline mile or one SPG point. (You might get it just for the sign-up bonus and the free first year, but don't use it too often, and cancel it before they charge you the annual fee. I have one, and just use it for elegible Marriott charges that give me 3 points per dollar.

So, I think you should consider one of the Hilton branded cards or the Starwood Amex. I know that there are 2 Hilton cards, and the Hilton folks should be able to summarize the pros and cons of each one.

Between HHonors and SPG, just to throw out a contrary opinion to almost everybody else answering you in this thread, Starpoints are the better currency, IMHO. In any event, either of them are better than accumulating Marriott Rewards points via there co-branded Visa card. Starpoints can be converted to most airline miles at the rate of 20k starpoints : 25k airline miles, so even if used for accumulating air miles, the SPG card is better than most airline branded cards because of the 5k bonus when transferring 20k SPG points at a time. Personally, I think the SPG points are more valuable for hotel awards.

-David


[This message has been edited by LIH Prem (edited 10-26-2002).]

56k starwood points buys 5 days at a luxury, top of the line Starwood, with no blackouts no capacity limit. How many HHhoners points does it take to stay 5 days in a luxury hotel? Do they have capacity limits/blackout.

It is important not only to look at how many points are required for a free stay or award, but also how easy/difficult it is to accumulate the points in the first place. I'm not familiar enough with *wood, but with HHonors, the frequent promotions and the easy conversion from airmiles, it is relatively easy to accumulate points.

slawecki has a good point concerning the black out dates: HHonors has black out dates, unless you hold their highest status (Diamond). The effect this has on your award travel plans depends on your flexibility and dates you want to travel. They are certainly something to take into account.