I spend about 25-30 nights a year at various four star type properties.
I've always used hotels.com for the effective 9% discount. I can't seem to ever find a better price going to the chains website, price is always the same.
I do belong to SPG, Hyatt, Hilton, and several other programs but only get a few hundred points each stay from hotel room charges and such, not enough to earn any rewards.
As an example I just spent $1500 on five nights at westin key west. I will get the equivalent of $140 welcome reward from hotels.com, and best price through westin was the same.

I typically pick a hotel based on 70% location 30% price among four stars with no brand loyalty, although I do prefer big chains over boutiques.

As an avid frequent flier cc churner, SW companion pass via credit card sign ups, etc - I feel like I am missing some deals on the hotel side of things by using only hotels.com.

I'd be willing to be brand loyal to maybe Hyatt or SPG and maybe get the credit cards but in the end would I be doing better than the 9% I'm getting now?

Thoughts?

I travel for work, some urban and some rural. It makes it really hard to stick to any specific brand. I personally find hotels.com as kind of the good midway but there are other tricks to getting status (Delta Plat = SPG Status, or a HHonors gold hack for example).