Well, for those interested I have chosen to go with Starwood as my second choice behind Hyatt. Based on my oblective comparisons, and some phone calls to check award availability, I was leaning towards Marriott. But they were not interested in giving me a comp to elite status, even though I have spent as much as $50K/yr on hotel rooms!

Somebody asked me about lifetime Diamond at Hyatt, which is given to those with 10 consecutive years as Diamond, and over 1 million base points.


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United UGS
Hyatt Lifetime Diamond
Starwood Platimun

Hedo, I won't presume to speak for Cygone but I share his views. Priceline is often a superior alternative. One is at great risk placing faith in so-called loyalty programs when the sponsors routinely devalue their outstaning points. True, there have been great changes in the industry recently, but a sponsor might have taken a less intrusive response such as simply awarding fewer points in the future. I try not to be bitter or emotional about it, but I do try to act rationally. Any discussion to the effect that this program is 3% better than this one is extremely short sighted when your points balance can be devalued by 50% almost overnight. One is foolish to accrue an un-redeemed balance of a million points or more because you will have a hard time spending them quickly enough when the rules change.

Somehow, points and miles hasn't been brought up... if you make 50 stays at a hilton property, you'll have 25k airline miles ON TOP OF your hhonors points.

Just curious: what makes you think that the Priceline model will go away? From what I can tell, more hotels are making inventory available to Priceline every day.

The one thing that I believe will happen is that Priceline rates will creep up as the economy grows. As room supply and demand starts to move back into balance, hotels won't be as eager to dump excess inventory for quite so little in return. And I can see where bidding certain zones will be very hard in a bull market. (For example, I got a $65 three-star room on a Tuesday night in Silicon Valley earlier this year. In a strong economy, bidding that zone for a midweek stay might not be possible.)

But even in 2 or 3 years, hotels will still look to discounters to dump weekend rooms or rooms at other off-peak times. The cost will creep up, the availability may creep down, but Priceline will still be a win-win for hotels with excess capacity and travelers that are a little more flexible than most.

Did I say anything about Priceline going away? We're all saying pretty much the same thing. Right now, Priceline is often the best value. PL YTD bookings: 46 And I'll still keep top level in three programs. No company or other individual is paying for my hotel rooms/travel expenses.

Okay, why don't you think Priceline will still offer deep discounts in 2005?

I'm not a stockholder or a heavy user - I'm just curious. I use PL for about a half dozen hotel stays per year.

That's a valuable point. There is a kink in multiple earning levels, with the plentiful hamptons only earning 100 miles. (However, with Southwest all hhonors hotels give the same credit, with 32 stays being enough to earn a free trip.)

And it also goes with elite qualification. Hilton lets you qualify for elite by stays, nights, or revenue. Marriott is just nights. Priority club is nights or points. Thus, with Hilton, you could hotel hop, and achieve gold status in 16 nights, with diamond taking a little longer.

Nobody has mentioned the Radisson yet. Their goldpoints program is more of a general awards program than a strict hotel program. However, they do have plenty of ways to earn points, as well as hotels in Hawaii.

Miles are credited based on stays so you would pick up 16*500 = 8000 FF Miles, however with 200 + nights for the last two years hotel hopping is the last thing I want to do

No one is bringing up HH because they just screwed over their most loyal customers with a serious devaluation. The brass ring was the ALON award which HH bumped from 100K to 150K.

One thing that is left out of the equation (and the webflyer program comparison site that was linked) is the treatment of elites on priceline stays.

I am close to elite in both Marriott and Hyatt programs. From what I can tell so far, Hyatt provides far superior treatment to me on priceline stays (e.g. better rooms, club access) and sometimes even miles. Would be curious to hear how one is treated by the other programs.

Anytime discussion turns to HHonors, the increase in the ALON award is the only thing mentioned. Granted, the increase of 50% on this particular (and perhaps most popular) award was very steep. But it seems to me the award was too good a deal for too long. The award was at 100K for at least the last 7 years (back to 1995 when I joined the HHonors program), maybe longer. Most other hotel programs have devalued at least once during that time frame, with many devaluing twice or more (Marriott Rewards comes to mind). The ALON award at 175K is still a decent, though not great, value. With the availability of the Hilton Hawaiian properties (HHV and HWV) on Priceline over the past few years, perhaps the award was never as great a bargain as many people believed it was.

My experiences with prepaid travel agent stays (in my case, either Priceline or Expedia). I am Gold in all three programs.

Marriott: I have always gotten a decent room and no complaints, but never an upgrade on these rates. No lounge access.

HH: occasionally, I will get a minor upgrade by showing my Gold card at the front desk. For example, I might go from "garden view" to "ocean view", but never room to suite. Most Hiltons won't put me on the concierge level with a cheapo rate, but most of them will give me the keycard to enter the lounge, which is all I really ask for.

SPG: I don't have a good cross-section of hotels, so this won't help much. I only use prepaid rates for one Starwood: the 4Points in St. Paul. (~$35 on Priceline) They always treat me very well. Breakfast certs, drink coupons, a slight upgrade (high floor, as far away from the indoor pool as possible), and always get my bed/smoke preferences right the first time. I worry that this hotel will go out of business because nobody is ever there!! It's a great place for us when we are in St. Paul...

LH 738 created an excellent overview for top and middle tier frequent guest programmes. As an add on, he developed a point calculator to compare different FGPs.

Hotel programs matter but status matters even more.

Personally, with all its shortcomings, I rate SPG better than HH without status. BUT, if you have HH Diamond status, SPG Plat pales in comparison. HH Diamond is "pure" anytime anywhere and not the standard room availability one that SPG has.

The point calculator is an interesting tool, but it is like comparing Japanes Yen to the US Dollar with no knowledge of the exchange rate.