4
Wow! that got me thinking!

3
I am not sure I agree

2
agreed, for points earned via hotel stays Hilton may be the best, per your calc in #4,

1
but for those of us who do it via cc spend, SPG has best value in redemptions on choice of airlines.

I too have a little spreadsheet somewhere...a little different from Guava's raw numbers but similar in conclusion.

Specifically, the conclusion: someone who actually does a huge number of actual hotel nights gets the biggest bang-for-buck from Hilton or Marriott. (In my analysis, these two were very close - perhaps because I was valuing the Travel Packages a bit higher.)

I've done a similar analysis for credit cards: someone who does few actual hotel nights gets their biggest value from SPG or HH Amex, with the two being very close. (I still give SPG the edge.) Marriott is a very distant third here, although the aforementioned Free Night Certificate still makes their card worthwhile.

The value of hotel points ebbs and flows. 2005-2007 was a prime period for me. Travel demand was up, so paid rates were high. I was able to hit a few special event and peak season redemptions that I could have never done without hotel points. The U.S. dollar was (and still is) weak in a lot of my destinations, further elevating the value of paying with an alternative currency like points.

The problem is that every prime period is followed by a big round of Category Creep, and in this case we also have an overall slowdown in travel demand worldwide. So 2009 is (in general) a lousy year to use hotel points - cheap rooms are too easy to find.

I'll continue to hoard in 2009 and redeem in 2010-2011. That's longer than I usually hold hotel points, but there seems to me to be little risk of a major Category Creep this year. Next year, when demand has rebounded, incredibly good paid promotions will be harder to find. Plus, I don't see the U.S. dollar suddenly getting wickedly strong against other world currencies. Our hotel points will be worth more in that timeframe...

Ack! :eek: I know SPG has a bazillion airline partners, but I'd only do those 1:1.25 transfers as an absolute last resort - as in, you are redeeming an int'l premium cabin award now and you have no other source for those miles.

The points are worth so much more as hotel stays...

Difference in the quality of hotels and service is a significant factor in any traveler's decision making process and should not be ignored in lieu of points and miles. The spreadsheet I posted is merely a narrowly defined view of the miles/points model I kept for hotel points decision making process and does not go into any depth to try to quantify the difference in the quality of hotels in general because such discussion would too complex for a FT discussion, not to mention personal as well. On that, I tend to agree with most FTers in that SPG hotels tend to have the highest quality and service against Hilton or Marriott. Service wise, with two dedicated reps on FT is hard to beat as seen by the vivacity of the SPG forum on FT, simply unbeatable.

It does come down to what your preferred habitat sort to speak. Some people are value oriented and therefore, they tend to like the Hilton brands more with free breakfast, lounge access and etc. Others enjoy the extravagance of SPG with its Suite upgrade and VIP like treatment more when you are a SPG Platinum or VIP. I am more a value oriented person, hence extravagance does little for me. YMMV

The HH AMEX offers double points (i.e. 6 pts per $ spent) on everyday purchases such as groceries, gas, wireless/home phone, cable/satellite TV, drug stores and internet. I love this card and it's also fee free if you choose the standard AMEX, not the Surpass card. SPG AMEX doesn't have similar features and there is an annual fee.

At 6 pts per $ spent on everyday purchases, this beats the SPG AMEX hands down.

I feel obliged to mention the caveats of the posted spreadsheet. The calc shown were done with some narrowly defined assumptions which may or may not apply to your personal situation. Would you ever spent $100,000 on hotel stays and if so, within what timeframe? If you choose to double dip on an airline partner with HHonors, would it necessarily be BD? The $100K assumption was used to demonstrate the calc, it could have been $10,000 but then the number would be too small for computing Marriott travel packages, hence making the comparison incomplete. While BD offers 1,000 miles per night up to 3 nights within a stay and its miles have some of the best value for money - for someone who doesn't ever leave the country, its value may be under-appreciated. Someone told me recently his double dip partner is Southwest, an airline that I have personally never set foot on and likely never will, so again, YMMV. From a financial standpoint, choosing BD makes the most sense numbers wise, from an objective standpoint but some folks may not appreciate that due to their personal circumstances. For me, even if you live in the U.S., you can make great use of BD miles by getting award tickets on UA and US, hence I don't understand why someone would want to put miles to Southwest instead but then again, not everyone likes the Marriott travel package either since it reduces the number hotel nights they can have and they may not want airline miles at all because they have more than enough already.

Or perhaps your HH double dip partner assumption wasn't BD, in which case, it would reduce the value of your HH awards overall quite significantly. In the past two months or so, I racked up over 60,000 BD miles thanks to the HHonors Q2 promo on some 20 hotel nights only. This translates into roughly 5 return trips within North America and the Carribbean/Mexico in First/Business class award on UA, US and AC (11,250 miles + 75 GBP cash for each trip + a total of rougly 20~40 GBP in taxes/airport fees per trip). Clearly, you need to have experience with BD in order to appreciate the amazing value it can bring and this cannot be learned overnight. It's not just what's on paper, it's also how to deal with BD's ICC which is an art form on its own. ;)

I don't agree with this, the SPG AMEX's lack of double point features on everyday purchases + an annual fee signifcantly cut against its overall attractiveness.

While the 6 pts/$ on everday purchases might be better for some/most people, I spend about 25x-50x more each month on items that don't qualify as everyday purchases. Basically I'd be earning mostly at the regular 2 pts/$ level for the majority of my spend. And when you compare point redemption for free stays it appears that SPG requires less for a comparable hotel (I used Hawaii as a starting point and saw that it would take about 20k points with Hilton as opposed to 12k to 16k for a comparable SPG property. That said, I'm still inclined to pick up a HH Visa as a backup/diversification to my everyday SPG Amex. But for me at least, SPG still looks like the best bet.

Actually, it's 3 pts/$, not 2 pts/$. If you can use SPG AMEX with a merchant, to be fair, the comparsion must be used against the HH AMEX, not the HH VISA which very few people on FT even bother with that card.

If the redemption is for a single night, the SPG Cash and Points, if available would indeed provide better value in most cases. Otherwise, the cost of a SPG Cat. 5 award which ranges between 12~16K SPG points as you stated is equivalent to 36~48K HH points. However, in most cases, you will not need more than 40K HH points for a one night stay with HHonors on Hawaii. So if you spend $16,000 on your SPG AMEX that gives you 16,000 SPG points; by spending the same amount of money on HH AMEX on the standard 3 pts/$, this will give you 48,000 HH points. Therefore, I am not sure how you come to your conclusion re: Hawaii. Plus, the HHonors VIP awards give you 6 nights in Hawaii for 175,000 HH points or the equivalent of spending $58,333 on regular non-double points purchases. SPG's 5th night free for a Category 5 requires a spending between $48,000~$64,000 on your SPG AMEX. Note, the SPG award is actually one night less than HH. Hence, on a per night basis, the opportunity cost is $9722 for HH AMEX or between $9600 ~ $12800 for SPG AMEX.

Hence, re: Hawaii, my answer is I think the two are quite comparable in terms of cost of award redemptions.

I mistakely assumed that the HH Amex had the same earning power as the Visa...I did a search for HH Honors Credit Card or similar and the info on the VISA came up. Glad to hear that the Amex version offers 3 points/$. That does indeed make it comparable to the SPG Amex. Wonder why the VISA has a lower point earning rate?

Citi issues the HHonors VISA and must share the processing fees with VISA. American Express operates its own processing network -and- charges higher transactions fees than VISA.

Ok, that makes sense. It's too bad though, as a HH Visa (at 3 pts/$) would have been a great 2nd card to carry along with my SPG Amex. All too often I get rejected (by the vendor) when I try to place an order on my Amex...and as of now I go to my Citi AA MC. It kills me when I lose out on 50k or 100k Starpoints in one shot. So the HH Amex won't work as a backup, but rather another option to diversify my spending with. Nothing wrong with that.

True, but "everyday purchases" end up representing a small fraction of my total spend. If I used the HH Amex for everything, my blended earning rate would probably be 3.2 or something.

Of course, I do carry both cards in my wallet, so there's no reason I couldn't do HH Amex for the right categories.

All of that said, the annual fee represents a tiny fraction of the overall value of the card in any given year. For HH, I'm moving up to Surpass in late '09 to begin using it as my primary card on Jan 1, 2010. Diamond status at HH is very much worthwhile.

My original point was that I generally get slightly more value out of 1 Starpoint than 3 (or 3.2...or even 3.5 or whatever) HHonors points. Don't get me wrong - I love HHonors points - it's just that I can get big returns out of very small SPG redemptions, whereas HH points are generally utilized in 175k+ chunks.

In this case, you may want to consider the Charles Schwab 2% cash back VISA. You get 2% back straight from all your purchases.

http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/...?#cash_rewards

The 2% cash back is roughly equivalent to the real cost of 1 SPG point or 3 HH points IMO, plus as cash earns interests while points don't, it may work out better for some people. Plus, this card has the benefit of charging 0% transaction fee on foreign amounts, which is another plus in the view of many people.

With this card, what you can do is when you decide you need some HH points; or SPG points for that matter, you can go to the Coupon Connection section of FT, posts an offer for HH/SPG or whatever by offering a FT approved giftcard in return. You will find that most transactions will take place around $0.02 per SPG point or $0.0067 per HH point. However, due to inconsistent liquidity and the timing of the trade, this may or may not hold true and you may be a little patient with such an offer.

Thanks. That card seemed like a great option when I first heard about it. But then someone posted the terms and conditions which stated that it was not eligible for business purchases. Now I am curious to know whether they actually enforce that...but I guess they could certainly assume that $50k in circuit board assemblies, thermal flashers or similar is likely not intended for personal use. :)