Best Western has a new Low Rate Guaranteed policy for a $100 Best Western Travel Card if you find a lower rate on another online travel agency website within 48 hours of booking a hotel at BestWestern.com. The  lower rate is matched plus a $100 hotel credit for a future stay. Great Deal! Right?

Best Western says submit a claim when you find a lower rate for the Best Western hotel within 48 hours after booking on BestWestern.com. Best Western reservations made within 48 hours of hotel arrival are not eligible for claims.

The online travel agency room rate must meet these conditions:

• same hotel
• similar room type
• same dates
• same number of people on reservation
• same currency and at least US$1 difference in rates on other website.
• the rate must be bookable by the general public when Best Western customer care agent validates claim.
• opaque sites that do not reveal the name of the hotel until after booking, like Priceline and Hotwire, are not eligible for claims.

Points or miles earned are based on room rate actually paid after Best Rate Guarantee claim processed.

This Best Rate Guarantee policy is only for residents of U.S., Canada and the Caribbean when staying at Best Western hotels in the U.S., Canada or Caribbean.

Other international locations and residents of other regions are still only eligible for a 10% rate discount on the lower rate found on a third party travel agency for approved claims.

Loyalty Traveler analysis

A $100 BW Travel Card is a good value Low Rate Guarantee if you have a claim approved.

I still object to the fact that no hotel chains follow the terms of Starwood Hotels and Hyatt Hotels who allow guests to file a Low Rate Guarantee claim before making a reservation on any site.

What good is a Best Rate Guarantee when I see a lower rate on a competing website, and I am faced with the choice of booking the lower rate or booking the higher rate on Best Western and file a claim?

He said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine” Eagles- ‘Hotel California’

While Kayak has lost its usefulness it once had when hotels could be filtered by hotel loyalty program, the fact that all Best Western hotels are in one brand means Kayak is still useful for filtering Best Western Hotels.

Kayak.com is a useful website for finding hotels eligible for Low Rate Guarantee claims.  On the left side of the page is a box for “Hotel Name/Brand”. Type in Hilton or Starwood or Marriott or Best Western and Kayak gives the selection choice to filter hotels for only “All Hilton brands” or “All Marriott brands”. I filtered this search to “All Best Western brands”.

EasyClickTravel,com is an online travel agency that I have used before for approved low rate guarantee claims. The $92 rate on EasyClickTravel.com listed is $17 less than the BestWestern.com rate.

EasyClickTravel.com has a rate of $105.75 after tax. BestWestern.com shows $125.90 for this same room after tax.

Bottom line: Best Western may approve my claim and I get a $100 gift card and the lower rate.

If Best Western rejects the claim for some reason I can’t see at this point, then I paid $20 more than I needed to pay for the same room.

Hopefully the Best Western Rewards points I earn from the hotel stay are worth at least $20 that I overpaid for the room.

For me personally, a Best Rate Guarantee that requires me to book the hotel room on BestWestern.com first is only useful if I have a rate that can be cancelled in case my Low Rate Guarantee claim is not approved.

When I really need a hotel room though, I don’t want to play booking games poker. In this post I have shown how easy it is to find a Low Rate Guarantee claim. I found this hotel in about five minutes. But I don’t want to gamble on whether the room shown in this post is an eligible Low Rate Guarantee with Best Western.

Now if I saw this with a Starwood Hotel or Hyatt Hotel, then I would be filing my claim and see if I could get a great rate deal for San Francisco. Starwood Hotels’ Best Rate Guarantee gives 10% off the lower rate, but I almost always take 2,000 Starpoints and a match of the lower rate. Hyatt’s Best Rate Guarantee will reduce the lower rate by 20%.

This is a good effort from Best Western and some guests are going to be excited to get a $100 Best Western Travel Card.

BestWestern.com Low Rate Guarantee.

The complete pdf Best Western Best Rate Guarantee Terms & Conditions.

Here is a spreadsheet with the ten largest hotel loyalty programs worldwide and all their airline partners for earning miles and points-to-miles transfers.

Hilton HHonors is far and away the biggest program for airline partnerships. That can be a major factor for a frequent guest earning miles from hotel stays in a frequent flyer program where there might be few opportunities to earn miles other than flying.

• Hilton HHonors = 57 airline partners
• IHG Priority Club = 43 airline partners
• Marriott Rewards = 36 airline partners
• Hyatt Gold Passport = 35 airline partners
• Starwood Preferred Guest = 34 airline partners

There are 8 airlines that only partner with one of these ten programs.

[click on image to see full-size in new window]

I will follow up this post with comments and details on airline miles differences in earning rates between different programs.

This seemed like a useful table to create as I work on my series of hotel points-to-miles exchange rates across loyalty programs for a selection of major airlines.

Loyalty Traveler – Airline Tables for Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates

United Mileage Plus hotel points-to-miles rates favor Marriott, Club Carlson, Wyndham(Feb 8, 2012)

Delta SkyMiles hotel points-to-miles rates in 9 hotel programs(Feb 7, 2012)

AAdvantage Miles for Hotel Elites with Credit Cards: SPG, Club Carlson, Wyndham and HHonors lead the pack(Feb 6, 2012)

American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates Compared for 9 Hotel Programs (Feb 5, 2012)

Personally I find hotel points more valuable than airline miles earned in points-to-miles transfers. I rarely exchange hotel points into miles.

Situations where I would consider exchanging hotel points into frequent flyer miles include:

1. To earn a hotel or airline loyalty program promotion bonus requiring partner activity.

I have picked up thousands of airline miles in frequent flyer promotions with a partner activity credit using Starwood Preferred Guest transfer of 100 or fewer Starpoints into airline miles. SPG Platinum members have no minimum transfer level for points-to-miles exchanges. SPG Gold = 1,500 Starpoints minimum transfer. SPG basic member = 2,500 Starpoints minimum transfer.

2. To secure the miles needed for an immediate airline reward redemption.

2003 was the only time I transferred 20,000 Starpoints into 25,000 miles. I was buying two First Class awards on British Airways from Denver to Melbourne, Australia with stopovers each way in London for 150,000 miles per ticket. I needed quick British Airways miles to beat the deadline for the price increase in BA Executive Club when the First Class US-Australia roundtrip award ticket increased to 420,000 miles.

There are many ways to get miles and I see trading hotel points for airline miles as a no net gain transfer for a leisure traveler staying in hotels. You save on airfare using hotel points for airline award tickets, but you don’t have points for free hotel rooms.

3. No plans to stay at the hotel chain frequently enough to earn points required for room reward nights.

The hotel points-to-miles tables show Wyndham Rewards and Club Carlson are two programs where you can earn points and transfer to miles at low levels. Club Carlson has a minimum transfer level of 2,000 points = 250 airline miles. Club Carlson members earn 20 points per dollar in hotel spend. Stay at a Country Inn & Suites on a stay costing more than $100 and you will earn more than 2,000 points. You can also just choose to earn miles for a hotel stay instead of points. Club Carlson gives 250 miles for Country Inn stays and 500 miles for a Radisson Hotel stay.

4. More hotel points than you need for hotel reward stays.

Some people have millions of hotel points.

Starwood Preferred Guest published statistics in December 2011 showing one SPG member earned nearly 20 million points in 2011 and another member redeemed nearly 12 million points (link to SPG pdfshowing stats).

I wonder how many of those redeemed Starpoints went for airline miles?

And hopefully not United Mileage Plus miles.

My question for readers: Have you exchanged hotel points for frequent flier miles? Was it better value than saving points for hotel stays?

British Airways Concorde outside London Heathrow First Class Lounge July 2003. The last commercial flights by BA Concorde were October 2003.

Loyalty Traveler – Airline Tables for Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates

United Mileage Plus hotel points-to-miles rates favor Marriott, Club Carlson, Wyndham (Feb 8, 2012)

Delta SkyMiles hotel points-to-miles rates in 9 hotel programs (Feb 7, 2012)

AAdvantage Miles for Hotel Elites with Credit Cards: SPG, Club Carlson, Wyndham and HHonors lead the pack (Feb 6, 2012)

American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates Compared for 9 Hotel Programs (Feb 5, 2012)

United Mileage Plus is the third airline covered in my series of posts comparing the points-to-miles exchange rates for 9 hotel loyalty programs. My research here shows Marriott Rewards, Club Carlson and Wyndham Rewards are the best hotel loyalty programs for earning United Mileage Plus miles.

The tables here compare the hotel points earned at different levels of hotel spend using base points earned for hotel stays, top-tier elite status bonus points and co-branded credit card spend at hotels.

Prior posts this week covered American Airlines and Delta Airlines. Many of the issues I considered in the format of these tables are discussed in these earlier posts. This post looks at the big picture of changing hotel points to airline miles.

Table 1: Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange rates for United Mileage Plus.

This table compares the basic points-to-miles exchange rate for each hotel loyalty program. Columns of hotel spend (in $1000s) and the base points earned for a member with no elite status or hotel credit card are included for each program. The second row for each hotel program shows the miles earned when those hotel points are converted into airline miles.

Hilton HHonors is an anomaly program due to the options for earning both HHonors points and airline frequent flyer miles for the same hotel stay. No other programs allow this with the exception of limited time promotion offers allowing both points and miles to be earned for the same hotel stay.

Table #1 Comments:

Wyndham Rewards has the best points-to-miles conversion rate of any hotel loyalty program with $1 in hotel spend earning 10 points and every 10 points = 4 miles. No other program comes close to that points-to-miles exchange rate at a basic level. Marriott Rewards matches that rate when transferring 125,000 points into United Mileage Plus miles.

Wyndham Rewards is an incredible miles earning program. The competitive edge offered by programs like Club Carlson and Marriott Rewards is the faster earning rate for points as an elite member. Wyndham Rewards is the only major hotel program in this survey that does not offer elite status and therefore no elite bonus points.

Best Western Rewards and United Mileage Plus

United Mileage Plus frequent flyer program had a recent change with the merger of Continental OnePass. Best Western and Continental OnePass were partners and allowed points-to-miles transfer. Best Western Rewards does not allow points-to-miles transfer with United Mileage Plus.

The good news is Best Western Rewards offers 250 United Mileage Plus miles per hotel stay. The bad news is there is no Best Western points-to-miles exchange option with United Mileage Plus.

The Best Western standard points-to-miles rate of 10,000 points = 2,000 miles is not a great rate anyway for points-to-miles exchange. 250 miles per stay is likely the better deal if your hotel stay average spend is under $125.

SPG and United Airlines Mileage Plus

The other point to note for these tables is the SPG Airline Direct Deposit program is the way to go if you want to earn United Mileage Plus miles from Starwood Hotel stays. All your Starpoints are earned in the regular way for hotel stays, elite bonuses and promotions, then the points are automatically exchanged into United Mileage Plus miles at a 1 point = 1 mile rate. This is double the points-to-miles transfer rate of 2 Starpoints = 1 Mileage Plus mile.

The main thing to remember is the 25% bonus received with SPG 20,000 point transfers does not apply to Airline Direct Deposit. Still, 20,000 UA miles from 20,000 Starpoints with Direct Deposit is far better than 12,500 UA miles from 20,000 Starpoints through a points-to-miles transfer.

Table 2: Hotel Points-to-Miles United Mileage Plus Exchange rates

• top-tier elite member earning elite bonus points

This table looks at the effect top-tier elite status has on points earning rate.

Wyndham Rewards drops in rank and Starwood Preferred Guest rises as the elite bonus points really stack up with high levels of hotel spend.

Table #2 Elite Status Comments

Brian Kelly, The Points Guy, posted an article last week on the recent SPG elite program changes and made the statement Hyatt Gold Passport has a poor points-to-miles exchange rate.

My comment on the post was Hyatt Gold Passport has the same points-to-miles exchange rate as SPG.

SPG $10,000 in Starwood Hotels spend earns 20,000 Starpoints = 25,000 miles in most airline programs, but only 12,500 miles in Mileage Plus.

Hyatt Gold Passport $10,000 in Hyatt Hotels spend earns 50,000 points = 25,000 miles in most airlines, including Mileage Plus.

The number of airline partners is comparable between SPG and Hyatt. 

The real difference between these programs is not the exchange rate for points-to-miles transfers. The competitive edge SPG has over Hyatt Gold Passport is the difference in the earn rate with elite bonus points and credit card points for members in those subgroups of SPG membership.

SPG members with either Gold or Platinum elite get 50% elite bonus points on hotel spend. Hyatt GP Platinum members get 15% elite points and Diamond members get 30% elite points.

SPG American Express card members get 2 points per $1 for Starwood Hotel spend and 1 point/$1 for other spend. That is a 100% bonus on the SPG base earn rate for hotel stays. Hyatt Gold Passport Visa members get 3 points/$1 and that is only a 60% bonus on the base earn rate for hotel stays.

And, of course, a major factor for big spenders is the 1 Starpoint per $1 for everyday spend on the AmEx card. That is 50% of the base rate Starpoints are earned for hotel stays. That is a huge credit card spend bonus!

Hyatt Gold Passport Visa earns 1 point per dollar in everyday spend. This is only 20% the rate of earning base points for hotel stays.

Bottom line is a Hyatt member with no status and no credit card who wants airline miles, and more specifically United Mileage Plus miles, will earn miles just as fast or faster with Hyatt Gold Passport hotel stays. Once you throw elite status and credit card spend into the mix, then SPG becomes the faster earning Mileage Plus miles program.

Table 3: United Mileage Plus Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates with

• Hotel co-branded credit card bonus points,
• Hotel Loyalty top-tier elite bonus points,
• Hotel Points-to-Miles United Mileage Plus Exchange rates.

Marriott Rewards blows away the other hotel programs for earning United Mileage Plus miles from hotel stays as a top-tier Platinum frequent guest using the Marriott Rewards Visa for hotel stays. Mileage Plus miles are earned at least 25% faster than other programs.

The real issue for Marriott Rewards Platinum frequent guests is determining whether their stay pattern earning preference should be miles or points with promotions like MegaBonus and MegaMiles.

The main thing I see in Table #3 is credit card bonuses earn as many or more bonus points than even top tier elite status with most hotel chains.

Club Carlson is the only major hotel program without a credit card. I’ll be in the Bahamas next week for the annual Carlson Hotels Global Conference. I am curious to hear if more details on a Club Carlson credit card deal will be revealed.

Related Posts:

American Airlines American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates Compared for 9 Hotel Programs (Feb 5, 2012)

American Airlines AAdvantage Miles for Hotel Elites with Credit Cards: SPG, Club Carlson, Wyndham and HHonors lead the pack (Feb 6, 2012)

Delta Airlines Delta SkyMiles hotel points-to-miles rates in 9 hotel programs (Feb 7, 2012)

Marriott Rewards members have a unique opportunity (compared to other hotel loyalty programs) to buy back 2011 elite membership tier status using points and reinstate your higher tier elite for 2012.

Marriott Rewards elite member can only buy back one level of elite membership that matches your 2011 membership tier.

• Platinum Buy Back cost – 40,000 points
• Gold Buy Back cost – 25,000 points
• Silver elite Buy Back cost – 7,500 points

Marriott Rewards Elite Buy Back offer is available through April 2, 2012.

Members can buy up to 50,000 points in a calendar year from Marriott Rewards at the rate of $12.50 per 1,000 points.

How to Do It: Two Ways to Buy Back Your Elite Status

1. Simply call Guest Services at 1-800-321-7396 (toll-free in the U.S. and Canada),
   or
2. Email us at Marriott Rewards with your information.

• If emailing us, include your name and Rewards number, then copy (or cut-and-paste) one of the three options below:
• Switch my Elite status from Gold to Platinum status for 40,000 points
  or
• Switch my Elite status from Silver to Gold status for 25,000 points
  or
• Switch my Elite status from Basic to Silver status for 7,500 points

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games just returned back to hoteliers 20% of its reserved room inventory blocked for the games opening July 27, 2012. Out of curiosity I checked Priority Club for reward room availability.

There are loads of Priority Club reward rooms available right now in London for Priority Club points. I found reward rooms for the opening ceremonies at Holiday Inn Kensington Forum for three nights Friday-Saturday-Sunday July 27-30 at the Points & Cash reward rate of 15,000 points + $60 per night for a room with a published rate at 305GBP or US$485 per night.

I found reward availability at multiple hotels in London for hotel stays throughout the Olympics dates.

25,000 points or 460GBP per night. Better yet is 15,000 points + $60 per night. That is a $670 value for 15,000 points. Buy points at $6 per 1,000 points from Priority Club and redeem for $45 per 1,000 points in hotel rate savings.

The image below shows Holiday Inn London Kensington Forum available for a 3-night points reward on the weekend with the London Olympics 2012 opening ceremonies  Friday, July 27, 2012.

Act Fast!

Hotel rewards using points for the London Olympics 2012 have been a rare find. I checked Hilton HHonors today and there was one hotel with Premium Room Reward availability at 195,000 points per night. Starwood Preferred Guest has reward night availability at Sheraton Heathrow Airport for 10,000 points per night on some dates. The availability of reward nights at a variety of IHG hotels in London is a real bargain during the Olympic Games from Friday, July 27 through Sunday, August 12.

Rates at most brand name hotels are over US$500 per night.

Priority Club members can buy 50,000 points in a calendar year at the rate of $11.50/1,000 points or $575 per 50,000 points. Priority Club members may also gift a member 50,000 points in a year. This means a couple can purchase 200,000 Priority Club points in all buying 50,000 points maximum purchase for yourself and as a gift to your partner. Your partner does the same. For $2,300 you can buy 200,000 points.

Typically buying points might not be a good deal, but when hotel nights are US$500 or 15,000 points and $60 for each night in London during the Olympics, then you are paying $232.50 for a room night buying points and redeeming for a Priority Club Points & Cash reward.

A hotel reward night is 15,000 points + $60 for several IHG hotels in London during the Olympics. These reward nights might be around all  week or may not last the day before reward night availability is gone.

And remember hotels like Hotel Indigo London Paddington can be booked for the old 25,000 points rate through March 18, 2012 by calling Priority Club customer service.

Here is a sample of IHG hotels in London with reward night availability for 8 nights from July 27-August 4, 2012.

Delta is the second airline in my series of points-to-miles exchange rate tables for members earning frequent flyer miles from hotel stays. Delta Airlines Skymiles members will earn miles fastest from hotel stays with Wyndham Rewards, Marriott Rewards and Club Carlson as a basic hotel program member. Throw in elite status and a credit card and SPG matches and exceeds Wyndham Rewards for earning miles. 

Delta Skymiles members have an advantage over members of the other major U.S. airlines in that eight of nine major hotel loyalty programs allow points-to-miles transfers at each program’s best exchange rate.

Read More…

Starwood Hotels released its 2011 Q-4 financial report for investors February 2. My interest is seeing the number of hotels in each Starwood brand and the average rates globally. Starwood Hotels has grown to 1,090 hotels worldwide.

Aloft brand has the lowest average rates at just over $100 and Four Points hotels are slightly more at $114 average daily rate.

Sheraton still squeaks in at under $150 ADR as a hotel brand. Westin and Le Meridien still come in under $200 per night.

W Hotels, Luxury Collection and St. Regis are in the $300 range.

The hotels in the lowest priced brands of Four Points and Aloft are concentrated in the USA making North America average room rates lower than other regions. Latin America has seen the highest rate increase of almost 10%.

Europe had no rate growth in 2011 and this is primarily due to the stronger US dollar in the region. This is good news for American travelers since Starwood Hotels in Europe already had the highest average daily rates at over $200 per night.

Marriott Rewards adds Aeroflot Bonus as an airline partner for points-to-miles exchanges and for members who prefer earning miles for hotel stays. Aeroflot is the 34th airline partner for Marriott Rewards.

Aeroflot is a SkyTeam Alliance member.

Marriott Rewards members earn –

2 airline miles per US$ spent on all qualifying charges:

• JW Marriott®
• Autograph Collection®
• Renaissance® Hotels
• Marriott® Hotels & Resorts
• Marriott Vacation Club®

2 airline miles per US$ spent on room rate only:

• The Ritz-Carlton®
• EDITION^SM

1 airline mile per US$ spent on room rate only:

• Courtyard by Marriott®
• AC Hotels by Marriott®
• Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott®
• SpringHill Suites by Marriott®
• Residence Inn by Marriott®
• TownePlace Suites by Marriott®
• Marriott Executive Apartments®

Members can earn more miles by choosing points for hotel stays at Courtyard, AC Hotels, Fairfield Inn and SpringHill Suites brands.

Marriott Rewards Points to Aeroflot Miles Exchange Rates

• 10,000 points = 1,500 Aeroflot miles.
• 20,000 points = 3,500 Aeroflot miles.
• 30,000 points = 7,000 Aeroflot miles.
• 70,000 points = 17,500 Aeroflot miles.
• 125,000 points = 35,000 Aeroflot miles.

$1,000 in hotel spend earns 10,000 points = 1,500 miles when exchanging points-to-miles. This rate improves at higher point transfers. At the 125,000 points exchange rate every 10,000 points = 2,800 miles.

Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites earn 5 base points/$1 and this is a lower rate than earning miles at these brands unless you are at the 30,000 points transfer level or higher. 

Members are better off earning Marriott Rewards points when staying at any Marriott International brand except Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites, unless you have no expectation of earning 10,000 points for a minimum points-to-miles transfer or there is a bonus miles promotion for Aeroflot.

Club Carlson, SPG, Wyndham and Hilton are the best hotel chains for earning American Airlines AAdvantage miles from hotel stays. SPG is the best earning for the top elite, well-traveled Super 75 Platinum. Still, even if your lifestyle is only Super 8, Wyndham Rewards will get you there on an AA or partner airline flight by earning miles nearly at the same rate of hotel spend as SPG.

My Loyalty traveler series on hotel points-to-miles exchange rates for frequent flyer miles continues with a look at 9 major hotel loyalty programs and points-to-miles exchange rates. These tables look at the miles earned at set levels of hotel spend. Top-tier elite hotel status and the best earning hotel cobranded credit card for hotel stay payment are additional factors in the miles calculations.

Table 1: Comparing Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates in 9 major hotel loyalty programs for American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

This table shows the actual exchange rate based on hotel spend for hotel stays. Credit cards and elite status are not considered.

Table 2: Top-tier elite membership factor when comparing Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates in 9 major hotel loyalty programs for American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

This table shows how top-tier elite membership earning rate alters the total number of points earned at each level of hotel spend.

Table 3: Co-Branded Hotel Credit Card with hotel loyalty top-tier elite membership when comparing Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates in 9 major hotel loyalty programs for American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

This table shows the influence of top tier elite and credit card spend.

Read More…

One of the most common fallacies I see across Miles and Points travel blogs is the claim that the SPG competitive advantage over other hotel programs is its terrific points-to-miles exchange rate at 25,000 miles for 20,000 Starpoints.

That is truly a good points-to-miles exchange rate, however, that is not the best points-to-miles exchange rate among hotel loyalty programs. Several programs have better points-to-miles exchange rates when comparing hotel programs using the base rate a member earns points for hotel stays.

Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates Table Notes:

Wyndham Rewards has the highest exchange rate for points-to-miles transfers of any hotel loyalty program on the simple basis of comparing the rate points are earned for a member staying at Wyndham brand hotels and without consideration of elite status, promotions or cobranded credit card spend. All but one brand in Wyndham Rewards earn 10 points/$1. Hawthorn Suites stays earn 5 points/$1.

Several programs like Hilton HHonors, IHG Priority Club, Marriott Rewards and Choice Privileges have a subset of their hotels in brands that earn points at a lower rate than their other hotel brands.

The competitive advantage of Wyndham Rewards drops when elite status is factored into the rate for earning points due to the fact that Wyndham Rewards is the only major hotel loyalty program that does not offer elite tiers and elite bonus points for its more frequent guests.

Club Carlson has an excellent points-to-miles exchange rate and a high rate for earning elite bonus points. Club Carlson and Marriott Rewards are the two programs with variable exchange rates for points-to-miles transfers whereby the exchange rate improves when transferring higher levels of points to miles.

Starwood Preferred Guest

An SPG Gold elite member (10 stays or 25 nights in calendar year) earns 50% bonus points. The table here shows 20,000 points at $10,000 spend earns 25,000 miles. The elite bonus 50% points on $10,000 in spend earns 30,000 points for 35,000 miles. Wyndham Rewards loses ground in the points-to-miles matchup when elite bonus points are factored into the earning rate across different programs.

Two advantages SPG has over other hotel loyalty programs in points-to-miles exchange:

• SPG American Express credit card has higher points earning rate per dollar relative to other hotel program credit cards. SPG AmEx spend earns 1 points/$1 for all purchases and 2 points/$1 for Starwood  Hotels spend.
• SPG Gold elite earns 50% bonus points and this is highest elite bonus at low level of stays (SPG Gold elite = 10 stays or 25 nights). Most other programs earn only 25% or lower bonus points at mid-tier elite.

I will follow up this post with a look at the comparative effect of earning points from elite status bonus points and hotel program cobranded credit cards. SPG will move up in ranking on the points-to-miles exchange table when these factors are considered.

Hilton HHonors offers the best exchange rate it has for hotel points-to-miles exchange for American Airlines at 10,000 points = 1,500 miles. This exchange rate matches up better to other hotel loyalty programs when considering AA points-to-miles exchanges into AAdvantage. The HHonors program drops quite a bit when looking at Delta, United and most other airline frequent flyer programs for points-to-miles exchanges where 10,000 points = 1,000 airline miles. I will follow up this post with comparative tables for several other airline frequent flyer programs.

Hilton HHonors primary competitive advantage to other hotel loyalty programs for miles earners is “Double Dipping” – the ability to earn both points and frequent flyer miles from the same hotel stay. A person with frequent stays earning 500 miles per stay can pull in high amounts of miles from Hilton HHonors and collect hotel points too for free night rewards or points-to-miles exchanges.

Hilton HHonors is the most difficult program to evaluate in this hotel-points-to-miles table comparison.

This table shows three options for the Hilton HHonors member:

• HHonors Points and Fixed Miles is an estimate based on 500 miles per stay and every HHonors stay at $200. The miles earned from full service stays quickly add up. The miles total shown in the HHonors Fixed Miles row is one estimate. Your actual earning is highly variable when choosing fixed miles. Your hotel stays might average $100 (even more miles earned than shown in table) or $500 per stay (variable miles is better earning option).  Your miles may be far fewer miles if your stays include frequent Hampton Inn or Homewood Suites brand hotels where only 100 miles per stay are earned with the Points & Fixed Miles earning option and any stay costing more than $100 favors the Points & Variable Miles earning option.
• HHonors Points & Variable Miles looks at the combination of earning 1 points/$1 and points-to-miles exchanges. This is a more accurate comparison to other programs in the table since the rate of earning miles is a set 1 dollar in hotel spend = 1 mile.
• HHonors members can also choose to earn miles from hotel stays and keep their points rather than exchange points to miles. An HHonors member can earn 130,000 points after $13,000 in spend and potentially still earn 32,500 miles from 500 miles per $200 stay. The more you spend per HHonors stay, the lower the fixed miles earning will be overall, but you also have the value of points for free hotel stays. Other hotel programs almost always require you to earn only points or only miles. Hyatt, SPG and Choice have had limited time offers to earn both miles and points over the past couple years.

IHG Priority Club and Choice Privileges

The miles shown in the table will be lower if you include stays at hotel brands in these programs earning less than the standard 10 points/$1 for hotel spend. IHG Staybridge Suites or Candlewood Suites earn 5 points/$1. Choice Privileges has four hotel brands that earn 5 points/$1 with Rodeway Inn, MainStay Suites, Suburban and EconoLodge.

The table in this post is a simple comparison of points-to-miles exchange rates for American Airlines AAdvantage miles without consideration of a member’s elite status, credit cards or hotel loyalty promotions.

This is the first post in my Loyalty Traveler series examining hotel loyalty program points-to-miles exchange rates. I will follow up this week with tables for Delta Skymiles, Southwest Airlines, and United Mileage Plus.

Readers might be surprised at how some of the programs change ranking with these other airline frequent flyer programs when looking at the Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates.