I am a Marriott Rewards Gold member, a Southwest Rapid Rewards member and a Hertz Gold Club member. I always use the Marriott discount and ask for Southwest Air credit when reserving a car. Since I have ALOT of Marriott points, I usually ask for Southwest Air credit at when staying at Marriott. Am I optimizing each entity's rewards program? Can I ask for credit with each rewards program i.e. get Marriott Rewards points as well as Southwest points from each Marriott stay as well as Marriott and Southwest points from each Hertz rental. Make sense? I want to make sure I am earning every point I can. Thanks in advance.

Welcome aboard, cmzimme!

I am a regular user of all three programs that you mentioned (Marriott, SWA and Hertz). My experience is that on any transaction with these you can only choose one reward program at a time. (Hilton has their "Double Dip" thing.) I usually go with SWA for my Hertz rentals since there have been lots of double and triple bonuses (1.0, 1.5 or as many as 2.0 RR credits per rental) lately, even on short rentals. You should check the Hertz forum for a discussion on using that reward program (search "ZE1".) When staying at a Marriott I always go for the RR credits as well (but then I have over 250,000 Mariott points right now). As you probably know, you're only going to get RR credits from SWA.

As an aside, you might have better luck posting this question on a more specific board (say Marriott). I suspect that one of our helpful moderators will do that for you soon.

Typically (but not always), you get maximum value when you earn the "native" points. For example, on a $300 Marriott stay, I would rather have the 4500 points than 1 SW credit. Obviously since the 1 SW credit is fixed and the MR points are per-dollar, there is a breakeven point on a cheap one-night stay where you might want the SW credit.

Hertz is trickier because ZE1 points have great value to some but little value to others. If you ever have a need for 1-day standalone rentals, the ZE1 points are valuable in that 600 pts = 1 free day with no strings attached. Again, I think Hertz SW awards are fixed, ZE1 is per dollar, so on a cheap rental you have a decision to make. (And triple credits is a pretty nice deal!)

I almost always choose to earn the "native" points to maximize the value I get. The exceptions are promotional offers (e.g., 5000 AA miles for 1 night Sheraton stay) or cases where a fixed partner earning is more valuable than a per-dollar native-point award.

Welcome to FT

I would recommend visiting some other sites that will allow you to maximize your points earning potential.

You can visit the S.P.A.M. Forum, in which we discuss how to do this.

Here is the newly, and just createdS.P.A.M. Guide to help you in getting points and miles.

Hope this helps

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Moderator: OMNI and S.P.A.M.

Welcome to FT! Pinniped has given you some excellent advice. I tend to favor hotel points over miles because I have had so much success redeeming at very expensive properties. (With planning one can usually find pretty cheap airfares) But, I do follow Pinniped's rule.

While hotel programs vary, many award hotel points based on money spent, but the airline mile option is per stay. That creates a cross-over value: below a certain spending level, take the miles; above it, take the hotel points.

Hilton, for example, offers (for now) either points & miles (the "double dip") or 1.5x points and no miles. Based on my values for AA miles and HH points, the crossover is about $300 per stay. For a one-night stay I'll double-dip. For a longer stay where the cost and points add up, I'll take the extra points bonus.

Second example: Choice Hotels gives 10 Choice Privileges points/$ or 250 miles/stay. Since a CP point is worth in the vicinity of 0.7-0.8� (you can get a free night at quite a few places for 6000 points, including the Clarion Claridge in Miami Beach) and 250 miles are worth $3-5 by most estimates, the crossover point is about $50. There, taking the miles hardly ever a good idea, unless you need a few for a specific purpose or place a higher-than-average value on airline miles.

[This message has been edited by Efrem (edited Mar 11, 2004).]

You are not necessarily maximizing your Southwest credits by only staying at Marriott.

If Marriott Gold status is important to you, then you should certainly do enough stays a year to maintain that. But you should also pay attention to promos from other hotel chains that partner with Southwest. For example, if you aren't getting 1.0 Southwest credits per stay already, well for the next couple months you can get just that at Choice (Comfort, Quality, Sleep, etc) hotels. And until the end of the month many airport Hiltons are giving 1.0 Southwest credits per stay when you book a special rate (which often is no more than the normal rate).

Similarly, you should pay attention to promos at other rental car companies that partner with Southwest. While often Hertz may have the best promo, there are other times when Dollar or Budget or Alamo might instead. While you shouldn't necessarily allow a promo to be the SOLE reason you choose a company other than your favorite, you should at least be aware of the fact that you can maximize the loyalty program of an airline by NOT being 100% loyal to any ONE of that airline's partners.