Hotels for Heroes is a program launching this year to allow Americans of frequent guest programs to donate their hotel points to assist the families of wounded veterans who need lodging while staying near the hospital. Marriott International, Wyndham Hotels Group and AmericInn Hotels & Suites are the initial three hotel companies to sign on as participants.

Hotels for Heroes was created with legislation introduced by Maryland Congressionman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and Senator Ben Cardin (both D-MD) in November 2011 and passed with bipartisan support in the “National Defense Authorization Act” December 2011.

“Hotels for Heroes” will be an expansion of the national “Hero Miles” program that provides free round-trip airfare to wounded warriors recovering at military or VA medical centers as well as to friends and family visiting them. Flights under the “Hero Miles” program, which was created by Congressman Ruppersberger in 2003, are made possible through frequent flyer mile donations made by individual airline passengers. The “Hero Miles” program is administered by the Fisher House, a non-profit organization that opens its homes to military families visiting their injured loved ones at hospitals across the country. Fisher House recently announced its 25,000th ticket issued through the program.

http://dutch.house.gov/2011/12/hotels-for-heroes-program-passes-congress.shtml

Hotels for Heroes launched this week with the announcement that Marriott, Wyndham and AmericInn have signed on to the program. Other hotel loyalty programs are asked to join the effort and agree to participate by Memorial Day when organizers hope to be ready to accept donations of hotel points.

The Fisher House Foundation which runs Hero Miles will also oversee the Hotels for Heroes program.

Best Western, Choice, Hyatt, La Quinta, Starwood, Carlson, Hilton and IHG… I hope that most or all of these hotel chains sign on to the program in the next two months.

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.

Related Posts:

• American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates for 9 Hotel Programs. (Feb 5, 2012)
• American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates for Elites and Credit Card members (Feb 6, 2012)
• Delta Skymiles hotel points-to-miles rates in 9 hotel programs. (Feb 7, 2012)
• United Mileage Plus hotel points-to-miles rates favor Marriott, Club Carlson, Wyndham. (Feb 8, 2012)
• Hotel Loyalty Program Airline Partners: 10 programs compared on one spreadsheet. (Feb 9, 2012)
• Why Change hotel points into airline miles? (Feb 9, 2012)
• Hotel points conversion into Southwest Rapid Rewards points favors Marriott, Choice and Hyatt. (Feb 10, 2012)

Miles earned per hotel stay for ten hotel loyalty programs and nine airline frequent flyer program partners are shown in this annotated spreadsheet. When a hotel loyalty promotion offers double, triple, and even quadruple miles as has been common for the past year, the promotional rate is a multiple of the base miles earning rate. Triple miles with HHonors can mean 3 x 500 miles in British Airways Executive Club for 1,500 miles per stay. But sleep in a Hampton Inn and your triple miles is just 100 miles x 3 = 300 miles per stay.

Virgin Atlantic offers particularly good value for hotel loyalty members interested in collecting miles with a higher earning rate than most airline partners for Hyatt or Hilton stays. Best Western Rewards members choosing Miles & More earn 500 miles per stay, double the normal rate of 250 miles for airline partners. The greatest intra-program value has to be HHonors where a 3-night stay at a Hampton Inn earns 3,000 bmi miles compared to the regular fixed earning rate of 100 miles per stay total for nearly every other airline partner. And if your travels take you to Wyndham Hotels, then you should definitely remember bmi airlines for one of the highest mile earning opportunities regularly available from a hotel stay.

¹ Program offers variable earning depending on hotel brand and/or elite level.

² Best Western awards 250 miles per hotel stay for all airlines with the exception of Lufthansa Miles & More at 500 miles. Miles & More is the highest earning Best Western frequent flier program partner.

³ Carlson goldpoints plus: 500 miles per stay at Radisson, Regent, and Park Plaza brands. 250 miles for Country Inn and Park Inn.

Goldpoints plus has a high points-to-miles exchange rate that often makes earning points, then redeeming points for miles a better miles earning strategy. Keep in mind that goldpoints plus has a high points earning rate at 20 base points per $1 in hotel spend at a Radisson or 15 points per $1 for Country Inn and Park Inn. Unfortunately the merger of two loyalty program systems between Europe and the Americas retained the earning formula for hotels in the EMEA region priced in Euros. Spend 100€ at a Radisson in Berlin or Amsterdam and you will receive the same number of points that you would receive for $100 in New York or Miami. This won’t be an issue if the dollar swings back to parity with the Euro, but it is an issue when the Euro is valued high against the dollar if you are an American tourist exchanging money from US dollars. Your points earning rate is 20 to 40% less for hotel stays in the EMEA. Promotional bonus points and elite bonuses may offer higher miles earning potential in a points-to-miles exchange rather than earning miles for hotel stays.

⁴ Choice Privileges does not partner with any of these airlines in the Europe, Middle East, or Africa region.

⁵ Fairmont President’s Club – General members earn 500 miles per stay. Premier elite earn 750 miles per stay. Platinum elite earn 1,000 miles per stay.

⁶ Hilton HHonors earns 20% miles for Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites stays with most airlines. Some airlines do not award miles for Hampton Inn and/or Homewood Suites. BMI airline (British Midland) offers the highest earning opportunity for miles at 1,000 miles per night for any Hilton brand, up to 3,000 miles per stay.

⁷ InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club – British Airways only earns 100 miles per stay at Holiday Inn Express. Air France/KLM Flying Blue earns 500 miles at InterContinental; 400 miles Crowne Plaza; 300 miles Holiday Inn and Hotel Indigo; 250 miles at Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

⁸Marriott  Rewards – Earn 2 miles per $1 at Marriott, Renaissance, J.W. Marriott, Autograph Collection, and Marriott Vacation Club International. All other brands: Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites, TownePlace Suites, Marriott Executive Apartments earn 1 mile per $1.

⁹Starwood Preferred Guest – Earning points rather than Airline Direct Deposit is a better miles earning method for most SPG airline partners with a 1 point = 1 mile exchange rate. The 25% miles bonus for 20,000 point transfers earns 25,000 miles with most airlines. SPG members may choose to earn Direct Deposit Airline Miles. Members earn points at the normal rate of 2 points per US$1. Elite members earn 3 points per $1. SPG points convert on 1:1 basis to airline miles automatically as earned. Airline Direct Deposit earns 20,000 miles for 20,000 points with airline partners using mile currencies.

¹⁰ Wyndham Rewards – bmi airlines (British Midland) earns 1,000 miles per night for Wyndham Hotel stays (5,000 max per stay); 1,000 miles per stay at Ramada, Wingate, Hawthorn; 500 miles per stay Days Inn, Baymont, Super 8, Howard Johnson, Travelodge (U.S. only), Microtel, or Knights Inn.

¹¹ Wyndham Rewards – Miles & More only earns miles at Wyndham and Ramada brands.

¹² Virgin Atlantic Flying Club – Flying Club earns miles with Hilton HHonors at double the normal rate. 1,000 miles per Hilton brand stay compared to normal 500 miles for most airline partners. Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites earn 200 miles per stay in Flying Club.

Hyatt Gold Passport awards 750 Flying Club miles per stay, 50% more than the normal earning rate of 500 miles. All hotel brands in Hyatt Gold Passport earn the same rate of miles.

***

Miles promotions have been particularly fruitful this year with Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, Best Western and others offering huge airline frequent flier bonuses from 1,000 to 5,000 bonus miles per stay.

Related post: Earning Miles from Hotel Stays Chart ofr US and Canada Airlines