You basically just have to look at the hotel cards, the amount of spend you put through a card, the redemption values for their rewards programs, and compare. What kind of hotels are looking to be able to redeem for? Are you hoping for a free week at a top-level resort or at a basic category 1 hotel? Does your annual spend, and thus the amount of points you can earn from that spend, support those expectations?
I do like the cash and points redemptions through the SPG program. It lets you stretch the value of your points. I think Hilton has a similar feature.
Starting Score: ~500 (12/01/2008)
@Anonymous wrote:Thank you John.
I was hoping for something a little more flexible (perhaps use at Disney and other places). If there are no other cards for Disney other than the Disney Chase card, I can pass on any Disney rewards and hopefully get something more flexible.
You could stay at a resort property operated by one of the other hotel chains. I had a work conference at the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek this year and turned it into a mini vacation afterward. It was a nice Hilton and like many of the area hotels, it had free shuttles to the park. The shuttles ran frequently and were on-time. So if you were to get a Hilton card, you could stay at Hilton properties if you went to Disney. I haven't looked into it, but I would imagine Marriott, Starwood, and Hyatt have properties down there also.
@Anonymous wrote:Thank you Walt_K.
I am not looking for fancy hotels necessarily. When I go away, I am usually not in my Hotel room much, other than to sleep. I just realize that when I go on vacation, one of the biggest expenses is the hotel stay, so I think a card that can give me Hotel rewards is the probably the best option for me (probably even better than a cashback scenario....and ironically, almost all of my cards have cashback rewards).
I will probably spend around 2K monthly on the card. This is for general expenses.
I am unsure if I can even benefit from something like SPG or Hilton because, maybe I am wrong, but they seem geared for people who do a lot of travel and can rack up points by putting SPG or Hilton expenditures on the card. I don't frequent Hotels enough to "boost" point values. I just want to accumulate a lot of points so I can redeem when vacation time comes around.
Good point you make with Disney. I do not have to stay on one of their properties.
So, I don't know if getting a specified Hotel card will get me the best rewards. I looked into Sapphire which looks interesting (gives double points for dining which I do a lot of), as well as Discover Miles and Escape, and also Cap1 Venture. I guess I need a general card that will get me the most points redeemable for Hotel nights. I am willing to stay at any hotel that the card will allow me to, so I am flexible with that.
Everyone seems to love SPG. I am wondering what I am missing here.
I think you've hit the nail on the head for why you don't see the benefit of SPG; you don't do enough reimbursable business travel and stay in SPG hotels to get significant points. Check out Hilton Surpass. At least for a year. It gets you at least 3 points per dollar, 6 points on supermarkets, drug stores and stand- alone gas stations; and for service payments for home and wireless phone, cable, satellite TV and Internet service providers. Plus, it comes complimentary with Hilton HHonors Gold for the first year, and if you put $20K through the card annually, which you would at $2K per year, you re-qualify for Gold status. A really nice thing about Hilton's Gold status is that it comes with free breakfast. That's a pretty significant cost savings for a full week stay.
So let's say you put your $24K spend through the card and it was all at base level of 3 points per dollar. That's 72K points in a year. Obviously some of your spend is going to be in those bonus categories. Let's say a third of it. So you'd earn about 100K points in a year. That's enough for 4 nights at a category 3 hilton or 3 nights at a cetegory 4 hilton. Add in the 60,000 bonus point offer (that was what was on Amex's page, check around for better offers), you'd be close to a week in your first year. And if you don't like the card after a year, you can downgrade to the regular Hhonors Amex that has no AF.
If you go the Chase Sapphire Preferred route, consider coupling it with Chase Freedom. Even though Chase Freedom is a "cashback" card, if you have the Sapphire Preferred, you can transfer your Chase Freedom points into Ultimate Rewards points. So you can earn 5 points per dollar on the rotating categories, and then transfer those into Ultimate Rewards, and then into Hyatt at 1:1.
Hyatt's card would be worthwhile for you to consider at some point if for no other reason than the bonus of 2 nights in any Hyatt. If you and a significant other both got the card, you could go stay in one of their top properties, like they Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris for a long weekend combining your 2 nights that each of you would earn. Just checking a weekend in October, a standard room is $881 per night. You could stay there for 4 nights for free. I thought Hyatt's card used to waive the annual fee for first year, but checking it now, it doesn't look like it does anymore. Still, $75 for two free nights isn't bad, especially when it is two nights in any hotel.
Just saw this and thought you might be interested: http://thepointsguy.com/2011/10/chase-sweetens-marriott-credit-card-sign-up-bonuses/