The recent posts on View from the Wing and Points, Miles & Martinis focus on hotel stay elite status benefits. My focus is more on the value of points earned from Marriott stays for high value redemption opportunities. My analyses reveal Marriott Rewards has some competitive advantages to other major hotel loyalty programs; particularly for the truly frequent traveler with the ability to amass tens of thousands of points.

Here are six Marriott Rewards program strengths (besides Ritz-Carlton Hotels):

1. More hotels in lower categories than comparable market segment hotels in most other chains. 

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80% of Marriott Rewards hotels are in the bottom four hotel categories. Hilton HHonors distribution is skewed more to higher categories compared to Marriott Rewards.

This is easier to explain with an example.

JW Marriott Los Angeles LA Live is a Marriott Rewards category 6 hotel at 30,000 points per night and a AAA 4-diamond hotel.

Hilton Checkers Los Angeles is a AAA 3-diamond hotel and a Category 6 HHonors reward night at 40,000 points.

Marriott Rewards Silver elite member needs $2,500 in spend to earn 30,000 points. Hilton HHonors Silver elite member earning Points & Points needs $2,424 in spend to earn 40,000 points.

I would consider JW Marriott to be the better quality hotel for Los Angeles and it would certainly be a category 7 HHonors property at 50,000 points per night if it were a Conrad brand hotel.

In city after city a comparison of Marriott brand hotels to Hilton brand hotels will show Marriott has its hotels in lower categories along the scale of its eight reward categories compared to comparable market segment hotels in Hilton HHonors eight reward categories including Waldorf-Astoria. Most places where the Hilton brand hotel is a category 6 or 7 will have Marriott brand hotels of comparable market segment in Marriott Rewards categories 5 or 6.

Hilton HHonors has an advantage to Marriott Rewards for extended stay rewards with 15% to 25% discounts for any length of reward stay from 4 to 14 nights and even bigger discounts on 4-night stays for HHonors American Express card members. Marriott Rewards use to blow away the competition with its extended stay discounts, but dropped a progressively favorable reward chart for a simple 5th night free.

2. High Airline Miles Exchange Rate

Marriott Rewards has the best points-to-miles exchange rate of any hotel loyalty program for US airlines like Delta, United and US Airways. when exchanging 125,000 points into 50,000 miles. Unfortunately Marriott and American no longer partner for points-to-miles exchange.

The Marriott points-to-miles rate far surpasses Hilton HHonors. The value of Double Dip for HHonors Points & Miles earners is certainly a major route to earning airline miles aside from Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites stays and should not be overlooked.

Club Carlson is typically the second best program for points-to-miles exchange rates and perhaps is better for some international airlines than Marriott Rewards where 125,000 miles only earns 35,000 miles. Starwood is also a valuable program for airline miles, but its competitive advantage is predominantly through SPG American Express credit card spend earn rates rather than points earned from hotel stays.

Here is my Loyalty Traveler post for American Airlines point-to-miles exchange rate comparisons between hotel loyalty programs with links to posts for other US airlines.

3. Marriott Rewards Hotel + Airline Packages offer 1 point = 1 mile exchange rate.

Hotel + Air rewards take huge account balances of 200,000 or more points, but also offer the best value for points-to-miles exchange rates when combined with a 7-night hotel stay reward. My post from January 21, 2012 describes the range of hotel discount rewards in Marriott Rewards, Hilton HHonors and IHG Priority Club.

4. Marriott Rewards offers upgrades for 5,000 points per night at participating hotels available to all members. Some hotels also offer cash upgrades. The Marriott upgrade for points is probably a better value than most examples of HHonors Premium Room Rewards that generally have a relatively low redemption value (about $4 to $6 per 1,000 HHonors points).

IHG does not offer upgrades for points.

Hyatt and SPG have confirmed upgrade certificates, but these are limited to top elite members.

5. Marriott Rewards elite benefits often apply even when the hotel stay is booked through a third party site. Hilton HHonors counts reward stays for elite credit and that is generally a more valuable benefit for a loyalty member. But when a $100 Priceline winning bid puts you into a $300 Marriott hotel and you still receive benefits…that is what I call win-win!

6. Elite Nights credit with credit card and elite rollover nights and the ability for annual challenges lower the high bar for Marriott Rewards elite member tiers at 50 nights for Gold and 75 nights for Platinum.

Here is a post I wrote March 15, 2012 on Marriott Rewards Elite Challenge.

January 18, 2012 I wrote a post on Making Elite with Marriott, IHG and Hilton.

Most of my information about Marriott Rewards is based on comparative analysis of program features to other hotel loyalty programs and the experiences I read from high elite members.

I find there is good value for Marriott Rewards members even though I am not personally using Marriott Rewards much in my travels.

Related Post: Weighing in on the value of Marriott Rewards – Part 1 (3-26-12)

I feel compelled to issue a reality check based on the overwhelming pitch by bloggers for Starwood Preferred Guest being the primary program to consider when transferring hotel points for the US Airways points-to-miles 50% bonus from March 11-31, 2012.

Several travel blogs over the past 24 hours have discussed the US Airways hotel points transfer bonus promotion and most of the commentary suggests no other hotel program is worth considering besides SPG to get the best miles value from your hotel points. Read More…

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards was restructured last year from a program where 16 credits was a free ticket to a system where 6,000 points = $100 for the “Wanna Get Away” lowest fare types. Choice Privileges and Wyndham Rewards have a competitive edge fitting their hotel market segments as the fastest earning hotel programs for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards points at low levels of spend.

Marriott Rewards and Hyatt Gold Passport take the lead when elite and credit card bonus points are added to hotel stays.

Hilton HHonors and Priority Club ended their partnerships with Southwest Airlines in 2011. Starwood Preferred Guest eliminated the option to transfer Starpoints into Southwest Rapid Rewards in 2011. Club Carlson does not partner with Southwest Airlines.

Hotel Points to Southwest Airlines Conversion Tables

The tables are formatted to be read in columns. Each column shows the points earned for a set amount of hotel spend, elite status bonus points and credit card bonus points for hotel stay payment and converts hotel points into Southwest Airlines points.

These tables are formatted to compare the conversion rates of different hotel programs for points to miles. The amounts shown in the tables do not necessarily correspond to the amount of hotel points required to be transferred in any specific program. For example: Wyndham Rewards requires points transfers for most airlines in blocks of 8,000 or 17,500 or 30,000 points.

The standard earning rate across most hotel loyalty programs is 600 points for a hotel stay. This is a great deal for the midscale programs like Best Western, Choice and Wyndham. The 600 points per stay are not as good a rate when staying at full service hotels like Marriott, Starwood or Hyatt.

Choice Privileges looks like a great program for pulling in Southwest credits. Southwest is one airline where Hyatt Gold Passport rises significantly in ranking compared to the other major hotel loyalty programs.

Related Loyalty Traveler 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)

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

• 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)

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.

Update Feb 10, 2012 11:30am Pacific – the original posts for United Airlines and Delta Airlines incorrectly showed Hilton HHonors miles in Table 3 for credit card earning.  The data has been corrected.

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 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)

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…

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…