Travelzoo's 'Send Me To St. Thomas' Sweepstakes

Travelzoo is running a sweepstakes to give away a grand prize to St. Thomas. The prize includes round-trip coach airfare for two from the nearest major airport to the winner's residence and five nights at the Frenchmen's Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort!  Sign up here before July 2, 2013 for your chance to win!

CruisesOnly & Marriott's 'City & Sea' Giveaway

CruisesOnly and Marriott are partnering to giveaway a hotel and cruise vacation for two here. The grand prize winner will receive a 4 night stay for two at the JW Marriott Essex House New York in a Central Park Suite with daily breakfast at the South Gate Restaurant, a 7 night cruise to Bermuda from New York on the Norwegian Breakway and $1,000 in spending money! Five first prize winners will also be selected and will receive a $250 voucher that can be applied to any cruise booked through mr.cruiseonly.com. The sweepstakes runs until July 31st, 2013.

My Marriott Million Sweepstakes

After hitting 1 million Marriott fans on their Facebook page, Marriott celebrating by giving away 200,000 Marriott Reward points each to 5 lucky winners plus some other goodies. To participate, all you need to do is to send in a picture of you favorite travel moment via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (you can submit 1 picture per method up to a total of 2 pictures per day) up until May 5, 2013. Then from May 6 to May 19, 2013, voting will commence and the 5 most popular pictures will be deemed the winners. So go fine your favorite travel pictures and submit them now! For more details and to submit via Faceboook, go here. Good luck to everyone!

Travelzoo Hawaiian Hideaway Sweepstakes

Travelzoo is running a Facebook sweepstakes here before April 30, 2013 for a chance to win a 7 day/6 night vacation on Oahu for two including round-trip coach airfare from nearest major airport and 6 nights at the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa. The potential grand prize winner can also take home $3,000 in cash in lieu of the trip so sign up now!

Two Amazing Marriott Vacation Club Sweepstakes!

Marriott Vacation Club is running two amazing sweepstakes currently. The 'Share the Rewards' sweepstakes runs until August 21, 2013 for a chance to win 250,000 Marriott Rewards points here! In addition, you'll win 100,000 additional points per friend for two friends and $1000 to give away to your favorite charity! Remember, you can get 1 entry per person per day so remember to sign up daily for more chances to win! While not as amazing as before given the recent Marriott point devaluation this year, 250,000 can still get you stays at some truly aspirational properties around the world.

The 'Dream Escape Indulge' Sweepstakes runs until March 31, 2013 here and offers the grand prize winner a chance to win United Mileage Plus miles enough for two Business Class tickets, a $2500 Visa gift card and one of the following travel experiences:

Marriott 30 Beds in 30 Days

Ever wanted to sleep in one of those nice hotel beds even while you're at home? Well, Marriott is running a very interesting sweepstakes where you could win a brand new Marriott bed package, including the mattress, box spring, down comforters, pillows, bed sheets and more. You can enter here once a day for the next 30 days here for your chance to win!

San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront

The San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront was a great airport hotel for an overnight stay.  As a Category 5 Marriott, I was redeeming my annual Category 1-5 free night award here and it was certainly well spent.  The prime waterfront location and its proximity to the airport make its location truly ideal especially if you're looking for a place to stay near SFO located between San Francisco and San Jose.

Marriott Travel Type Sweepstakes

Marriott is running a travel sweepstakes until August 31, 2012 that asks a few questions about your travel preferences to customize the right sweepstakes package for you!  There are a total of six different types of travellers   in which you will be categorized into based on your responses.  Each category get a respective prize as follows:

- Urban Explorer - 7 day-6 night stay at an AC hotel in Madrid and Toleo, Spain
- The Family Traveler - Ten 3-night stays stays at any US Residence Inn
- Weekend Wanderer - Five 2-night weekend stays at any US/Canadian Courtyard hotel
- The Individualist - 6 day-5 night stay at an Autograph Collection hotel at El Monte Sagrado, Taos, NM, USA
- The Discoverer - 8 day-7 night stay at the Renaissance hotel in Barcelona, Paris, Puerto Rico, Miami, New Orleans or Chicago
- The Luxury Lover - 6 day-5 night stay at any JW Marriott worldwide

The winners will also get between $2500-$3000 in cash, some other amenities/gifts and (aside from the Weekend Wanderer draw) 500,000 Marriott points!

To find out more, just like them on facebook and enter here!  Good luck!  (Sweepstakes only open to US, Canada and UK, except Quebec)

Hotel Loyalty Overall Program Comparison

For easier reading, I decided to create one overall post focusing on the loyalty programs of four of the bigger mid-upscale hotel players in the travel business - Starwood, Hilton, Marriott & Hyatt.  As Priority Club, Accor, Best Western, Choice, Club Carlson, Fairmont operate in a slightly less standardized fashion, I'll likely address those separately at some point in the future.

*Last updated in 2012 prior to 2013 program changes. Look for updates soon!*

Property Categories - Hyatt ( Coming soon! )
Free Night Redemptions - Hyatt (See analysis here)
Room/Suite Upgrades/Redemptions - SPG / Hyatt (See analysis here)
Cash & Point Redemptions - SPG / Hilton (See analysis here)
Earning points with hotel stays - Marriott / Hilton (See analysis here)
Point Conversion Partners - Hilton (See analysis here)
Airline Transfer Partners - SPG (See analysis here)
Credit Card Earnings Partners - Hyatt / Hilton HHonors (Coming soon!)
Membership Levels and Benefits - Marriott/Hilton (See analysis here)

Hotel Program Point Conversion Partners

Each of the hotel loyalty programs have multiple partners that allow for earning points or transferring to partners. Car rental partners are fairly common but the few total points involved in car rental transactions generally wouldn't push me to one program or another.

Aside from credit card earning opportunities, Hilton is the only program I am aware of which allows transfers from American Airlines miles here at a rate of 6,000 miles to 10,000 HHonors points. While this 1 air mile to 1.67 HH is generally less than the minimum 3 HH/$1 you get from Amex Hilton spending, it's still a decent enough transfer rate than you usually find.  Also, Hilton allows transfers from the points programs at Virgin Atlantic and Hawaiian Airlines at a rate of 1 mile to 2 HH which is pretty decent!

On the flip side however, you might need airline mileage top up from time to time and Starwood's transfers (at a 1:1 ratio) for a number of major carriers makes this program very valuable.  Here, I've done an analysis on airline transfer partners.

But aside from this, it appears the program with the easiest way to easily get additional hotel points via a conversion from other partners is the Hilton HHonors program.

Hotel Program Cash & Points Redemptions

One of the most flexible and cost-effective ways to use your hotel program points is using the cash & points redemption if there is one. As far as availability is concerned only Starwood and Hilton have a decent program available for this.

Starwood offers the Cash and Points program at the following standardized rates. This is one of the biggest differentiators between the Starwood program and the rest of the pack.

Starwood Preferred Guest ranges from Categories 1-7

Hotel Category:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

SPG Points for 1 Night:

1,200 + $25

1,600 + $30

2,800 + $45

4,000 + $60

4,800 + $90

8,000 + $150

N/A

Hilton offers a Points & Money Rewards program but the policy is not standard across their hotels and it can sometimes be difficult to find this offered. However, when it is offered, you can get some good value out of it depending on the regular room rates and what they charge in addition to the points. At the moment, there doesn't appear to be any way to redeem with a cash & points option for either Marriott or Hyatt.

In this case, both the SPG program and the Hilton HHonors program outpace their competition in this area with SPG generally showing more availability for the Cash & Points option.

Hotel Program Elite Levels

One of the most alluring parts of hotel loyalty programs is its elite membership status and all its benefits. The four programs (Starwood, Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott) we've been looking at so far all have a fairly consistent tiering system and we'll be comparing the key aspects of each program's tiers. I'll leave out an in depth discussion on elite bonuses for points earnings as those were already discussed here.

	Starwood	Hilton	Hyatt	Marriott
General Points earning rate	2 points / $1	10 points / $1 Double Dip allows an extra 5 points / $1	5 points / $1	10 points / $1 (at most brands) 5 points / $1 (at some brands)
Lowest Tier Point Bonus	Preferred (None)	Silver (15%)	Gold (None)	Silver (20%)
2 pm Late Checkout	N/A	Blue (varies)	Platinum	Silver
Free Internet	Gold (if goodies not selected)	Gold	Platinum	Gold
Room Available Upgrades	Gold	Gold	Platinum	Gold
Mid Tier Point Bonus	Gold (50%)	Gold (25%)	Platinum (15%)	Gold (25%)
Minor Goodies (Bottled water, snacks, etc)	Gold (if free internet is not selected)	Gold	Platinum (extra awards)	N/A
Lounge Access	Gold (if upgraded to executive/club floor)	Gold (if upgraded to executive/club floor)	Diamond	Gold
Continental Breakfast	Platinum (if other goodies not selected)	Gold (if not choosing 1000 HH points)	Diamond	Gold
4 pm Late Checkout	Gold	N/A	Diamond	N/A
Full Breakfast	N/A	N/A	N/A	Gold
Top Tier Point Bonus	Platinum (50%)	Diamond (50%)	Diamond (30%)	Platinum (50%)
Suite upgrades	Platinum	Diamond	Diamond (4 times on paid stays)	N/A
Gift	Platinum (if continental breakfast not selected)	Diamond	Diamond	Platinum

At the time of posting, these were more or less the privileges conferred upon elite statuses at each of the hotel chains. This table more or less reflects what is generally provided at most of the major chains although certain brands may have slight modifications to this. Individual hotels also have some leeway to interpret these at their discretion and while some hotels offer nothing for the optional fields (such as room upgrades), others might go above and beyond what their program terms dictate.

So just based on the above chart, if we don't consider other factors such as number of qualifying nights required to achieve tiers and various status match/challenges available for some of the programs, the best mid-tier (Gold) program clearly goes to Marriott with Hilton and the rest following behind. And with the top tier being more or less evenly matched, that means I'd say Marriott has the most generous elite program overall in terms of their privileges.

Chase Marriott Card Review

To be complete, I figured I should write about the lower fee Chase Marriott card as well, the lower priced sibling of the Chase Marriott Premier card I had applied for and was approved for previously. At the time I had also glanced at this Chase Marriott card and concluded quite easily that this card was not as valuable as its more feature-rich albeit pricier sibling.

Hotel Program Stay Point Earnings

Point Earnings Program Comparison

One thing to consider when deciding which hotel to stay at is the number of points you can collect for your stay.  Again, we'll look at the Starwood, Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt programs for comparison.

The base (entry) level Starwood Preferred Guest program offers 2 SPG points per $1 spent at their hotels.  Gold and Platinum members get 3 SPG points per $1 spent at their hotels.

Hyatt Gold Passport offers a much higher 5 points per $1 spent at their hotels to their base (entry) Gold level members while Platinum's get a 15% bonus on top of that (5.75 points per $1) and Diamond's get 30% on top (6.5 points per $1).

Marriott Rewards offers an even higher 10 points per $1 at almost all of their chains aside from a few that give just 5 or 2.5 points per $1.  For Silver elite members, 20% bonus is added, Gold members get an additional 25% while Platinum members get 50% bonus.

Hilton offers up to 15 points per $1 at almost all of their hotels (assuming the Points & Points option is selected) and offers an additional 15%, 25% and 50% to Silver, Gold and Diamond Members respectively.

Assuming the very base level for each program, a $1000 hotel stay would net 2k SPG points or 5k HGP points or up to 10k MR points or up to 15k HH points. Given the free night redemption options available for each program, the value of these points would be most useful with the Marriott or Hilton programs. Even with the added bonuses at the elite levels, Marriott and Hilton's elite programs retain their advantages over the competing Hyatt and particularly the Starwood programs. Obviously, the value of Starwood also lies in their flexibility in using Cash & Points redemptions and other valuable features but all things being equal, the Marriott and Hilton programs would probably be the most effective way to collect points for hotel stays.

Residence Inn San Diego Sorrento Mesa-Sorrento Valley

I had stopped for a stay in San Diego at the Marriott Category 4 Residence Inn San Diego Sorrento Mesa Sorrento Valley. While this was a decent hotel to stay at, I am often left puzzled at how Marriott determines their categories as I felt this was a huge difference from the splendid experience I had at the Courtyard Seoul Times Square, now a hotel in the same category as this one.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

With numerous valuable transfer partners, no foreign transaction fees and a waived first year annual fee, this is quite simply one of the most valuable cards out there in the market today . The Chase Sapphire Preferred card (referral link here) offers a great initial bonus (currently 50k points) which can be transferred to a number of valuable transfer partners such as Southwest, Hyatt, United Airlines etc. and you can get an additional 5k points for adding an additional cardmember.

While I wouldn't suggest transferring to partners like IHG or Marriott, the ability to transfer to one of the airlines in each of the 3 main airline alliances and also to Hyatt offer tremendous value. In addition, earning double points on airlines, hotels, car rentals and dining with no foreign transaction fees means this is pretty much the go-to card for travelling and eating out.

Chase Marriott Premier Card

I almost feel like I'm addicted to writing credit card posts!  But somehow, they're rather fun and satisfying so here goes with another one! The latest card I wanted to write about was the Chase Marriott Premier Visa card. I had applied for this card last summer in anticipation of my trip to Seoul and it was certainly not a bad credit card to have around, especially with the juicy 50k Marriott Reward bonus point offer after first use (although Chase has occasionally raised this bonus to a whopping 70k points!)

Marriott offers a wide selection of hotels around the world and the Courtyard Marriott Seoul Times Square was just one of the hotels I stayed at using Marriott Reward points. However, it is probably noteworthy that Marriott, like Starwood and Hilton, have recently undergone a round of point devaluation with their category changes thus making their points worth somewhat less than they did a few months ago.

Hotel Loyalty Program Room/Suite Upgrade Redemptions

Another aspect to consider between different hotel loyalty programs aside from free night redemptions are the point costs for room/suite upgrades.  For the budget conscious traveller like myself, this aspect of the program usually doesn't appeal to me.  However, for those looking for a little bit of extra luxury at a small premium, this might be something to consider.

Again, I'll be just commenting at the Hilton, Hyatt, Starwood and Marriott programs for now.

Hotel Loyalty Program Airline Transfer Partners

One of the things to consider when deciding which hotel loyalty program to go and build a stash of points with is the ability to use their points.  Of course, free night redemptions is likely the key aspect of the program that should be used to decide but assuming you're one of those people who don't stay at hotels too frequently or don't have enough hotel points to redeem for free nights, transferring to or topping off air mile balances might be a strong secondary consideration to take into account.

To help determine which program has the best transfer ratio to partners, we'll make use of the Universal Hotel Point (UHP) to help evaluate the value of the transfer programs.  The UHP conversion below is based on regular spending on the best hotel associated credit card for each program where 1 UHP is earned after spending $1.

1 UHP = 4.5 HH (Hilton HHonors)

1 UHP = 1 SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) 

1 UHP = 1.4 HGP (Hyatt Gold Passport)

1 UHP = 1.4 MR (Marriott Rewards)

Hotel Loyalty Program Free Night Redemptions

*Updated May 7, 2013*

One of the biggest difficulties in evaluating which hotel program gives the best value for its free stays is because the point values of each program varies. Hilton points are often seen as being worth less per point whereas Starwood points are generally much more well-regarded. So does that mean Starwood points are the best and Hilton points the worst?

To better understand this problem, it is probably best to look at a few examples.

Starwood Preferred Guest

Starwood's Free Night Award requirements, listed here, outline how many points are required for a free night at the different category hotels in their program. For example, the Category 4 Sheraton Kona Resort in Hawaii charges 10,000 points for a free night that would usually cost about $200 USD after tax. In this case, its fairly clear that each point has a value of $200 / 10k = 2 cents / point. Assuming there is no spending at Starwood hotels (for us non-business travelers), the Amex Starwood card earns 1 point per $1 spent, hence we earn approximately 2 cents value back per $1 (in other words, 2% cashback).

Marriott Rewards

Similarly, if we look at the Marriott award chart here, we can do a similar calculation with say the Courtyard Denver Downtown. This category 4 hotel, requiring 20,000 points per night, generally goes for between $150-$250 / USD per night (lets call it $200). This easily translates to 1 cent / point. Since the Chase Marriott card gives 2 points per $1 on travel/restaurants but 1 point per $1 on everything else, we'll average it out to about 1.5 points earned per $1 spent and hence 1.5% cashback.

IHG

For IHG/Priority Club, given the wide-ranging categories spanning category 1 thru 9, redemption values are a bit harder to quantify as the redemption rates sometimes don't quite equate to cash pricing. Taking the Holiday Inn Vancouver Center for example, we would have a cost of $125 or 15,000 points giving a rate of about 0.8 cents / point. Alternatively, the Crowne Plaza Osaka can go for $150 or 25,000 points giving a rate of 0.6 cents / point. As the variation varies quite significantly for IHG properties, we'll use an approximation of 0.7 cents / point. As the Chase Priority Club card has category spend similar to the Marriott card but with gas stations and groceries added, we'll also average it out to about 1.7 points earned per $1 spent and hence 1.2% cashback when redeeming.

Hyatt Gold Passport

Hyatt redemptions are likely the most valuable based on their award chart as a Category 2 property Hyatt House Austin costing 8,000 points per night can be had for about $240 in cash working out to 3 cents / point. However, higher end Hyatt properties like the Category 4 Park Hyatt Toronto charges 15,000 points or say $300 per night giving a rate of 2 cents / point. Given the minor variation, we can average this out to about 2.5 cents / point. And since both the Chase Hyatt and Chase Sapphire Preferred cards again have category earning somewhat similar to the Chase Marriott, we'll use 1.5 points earned per $1 spent thus giving us an astonishing 3.75% cashback! I thus worry about a potentially huge Hyatt devaluation (whether it comes tomorrow or 2 years from now, no one knows) and hence I would urge anyone with Hyatt points to use your Hyatt points for redemptions

Hilton HHonors

Hilton, after its most recent devaluation of its program and tweaks to its credit card category bonuses, has brought their program more inline with the competition. A night at the Category 6 Hilton Orlando costs 30,000 points in June at a rate of about $175 translating to about 0.58 cents / point. A night at the Category 9 Conrad HK in the same month can go for 80,000 points or $450 USD thus equating to about 0.56 cents / point. We could go on and on but for the sake of argument we'll use the lower 0.56 cents per point. Given that the fee-free Hilton Amex gives 5 points per dollar for gas/groceries/restaurants and 1 point per $1 on all else, we'll average out to 4 points per dollar for general spending. This gives a rate of 2.24% cashback! Surprisingly good considering the most recent devaluation.

Admittedly, we have only looked at a very small number of hotels for these sample comparison and they cannot obviously reflect the actual redemption value for the specific dates/times/locations/hotels you may be looking for. However, based on the current award charts and the price/point redemption ratios I've generally seen around, my estimation for the value of reward bookings would be as follows:

Hyatt: 3.5% - 4% cashback

Starwood: 2% - 2.5% cashback

Hilton: 2% - 2.5% cashback

Marriott: 1% - 1.5% cashback

IHG: 1.2% cashback

As you can see, Hyatt offers the most value in its redemptions followed by Hilton & Starwood (yes, Starwood has been slowly devaluing its chart to the point that I would equate Starwood and Hilton redemptions). Marriott and IHG clearly fall well behind the pack. In general, I would recommend you get at least as good value as the above before making a free night redemption to make your stay worth it but for me, Hyatt is my current favorite hotel program as far as valuable free night redemptions go.