The ability to earn 500 miles per stay with several major airline alliance members is an earning opp

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The second post in comparing the mega-chain hotel loyalty programs of Hilton, IHG and Marriott is a look at earning dallas tour 18 points dallas tour 18 and miles in each program. These three hotel chains are grouped together for comparative purposes based on their size, each hotel chain with more than 3,500 properties worldwide and a significant proportion of upscale to luxury hotels.
The primary competitive advantage of Marriott, IHG and Hilton in the hotel industry is their size with global geographic dallas tour 18 coverage as well as extensive coverage of the United States. Starwood, Hyatt and Carlson hotels will be compared in a separate series of posts for these hotel chains with 500 to 1,200 hotels dallas tour 18 globally. France-based Accor Hotels is another large global hotel chain with over 4,000 hotels worldwide, however, the chain has fewer than 20 hotels in the U.S. participating in the Accor loyalty program and is excluded from this survey.
complimentary hotel loyalty benefits received during the hotel stay like free room upgrades, free internet access, hotel executive lounge access, free fitness facilities access, free breakfast and late check-out.
These two factors are the area of competition between dallas tour 18 the major hotel chain loyalty programs. This post compares points and miles earning in Hilton HHonors, IHG Priority Club and Marriott Rewards. Separate posts will compare the hotel stay benefits of loyalty programs at different elite levels.
The rebate value of hotel loyalty programs is the factor that keeps many of us loyal to specific dallas tour 18 hotel chains. A good hotel loyalty promotion means the cost of a hotel stay is partially or fully rebated in the form of points earned from the stay.
Priority Club offered a Crack the Case promotion in August 2010 where I earned 102,000 bonus points for 10 paid nights at IHG properties by May 2011. Stackable promotions are the competitive advantage of Priority Club and I earned around 150,000 points with ten paid nights after all the promotion bonuses and regular points. That was enough points for 10 free nights at most Holiday dallas tour 18 Inn or Holiday Inn Express hotels where free nights are 15,000 dallas tour 18 points (at least until January 18, 2012 when new tier categories take effect).
Marriott Rewards MegaBonus offers a free category 1-4 hotel night for every two stays from February 1-April 30, 2012. This is a regularly offered promotion where two one-night stays earns a free night certificate that can easily be more than a 50% rebate on the cost of two paid hotel stays. dallas tour 18 Two nights at a Category 4 hotel is normally 40,000 points. The Marriott MegaBonus is essentially the opportunity to receive dallas tour 18 the equivalent of 40,000 dallas tour 18 points value with as few as two one-night stays.
Hilton HHonors members earn 10 base points per dollar at all hotel brands, except dallas tour 18 the newest Home2 Suites brand only earns 5 points/$1. This is a disappointing change in 2011 when HHonors introduced a lower earning rate for a specific hotel brand. There are currently only 6 hotels in the Home2 Suites brand so the effect is negligible for most members at this time.
Hilton dallas tour 18 HHonors is unique in the hotel loyalty world in offering members the choice to earn points and miles for the same hotel stay. In the past couple of years there have been several limited time miles promotion offers from Starwood Preferred Guest and Hyatt Gold Passport allowing members to earn both miles and points, but this was not common prior to 2009 and HHonors is the only program to offer points and miles as a standard hotel stay benefit they trademarked as Double Dipping .
Hilton HHonors Double Dipping gives members the choice of three earning preferences that can be changed with each hotel stay . Points Points is the default earning mode unless you have set your HHonors account to earn miles.
56% of Hilton properties are Hampton Inn or Homewood Suites and these are almost all in the USA. You do not want to ignore your HHonors account earning rate setting and leave it on Points Fixed Miles when staying at Hampton Inn or Homewood Suites or you may be losing out on a significant points earning opportunity. You earn 5 bonus points per dollar dallas tour 18 rather than 100 miles per stay by switching dallas tour 18 to Points Points earning for stays at Hampton, dallas tour 18 Homewood and Home2 Suites. dallas tour 18 Or change from Points Fixed Miles to Points Variable Miles earning if your total spend will be over $100.
10 points per US$1 is the base points earning rate for most IHG brands including Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday dallas tour 18 Inn Express and Hotel Indigo. InterContinental Hotels in the Americas will follow this earning rate as of February 15 , 2012.
The main thing to know about Priority Club is the ability to stack promotions. Frequent guests will run through many of the stackable promotions quickly, but infrequent guests potentially can earn three or more bonuses with stays. Over the past two years  I averaged about 5,000 points per $100 stay, excluding the Crack the Case 102,000 bonus points.
Priority Club has 15 different earning rates for airlines. This post only shows the two primary earning rates applicable to the majority of U.S. airlines and some international members of major alliances.
The ability to earn 500 miles per stay with several major airline alliance members is an earning opportunity for Priority Club members dallas tour 18 with frequent low cost stays. You need to spend at least $250 per stay to match 500 miles per stay when you have a major US airline as your earning preference.
Hilton HHonors has a distinct advantage over Marriott in earning 15 points per dollar or Points and Miles. Priority Club has a similar earning rate to Marriott Rewards with its extended stay brands earning only 5 points per dollar. The difference with Marriott though dallas tour 18 is the two brands of Residence Inn with 627 hotels and TownePlace Suites at 205 hotels comprise 22% of total Marriott properties globally. Priority Club has only 11% of hotels earning 5 points/$1 and Hilton HHonors is far less than 1% of hotels (only six Home2 Suites hotels currently) with a lower earning rate of base points.
Miles earning is less lucrative with Marriott Rewards than Hilton HHonors for low spend stays. Marriott full-service stays at 2 miles per $1 can be a better earning rate than Hilton HHonors for big spenders. Marriott Rewards stays earn a maximum 2 miles per $1.  Several hotel brands earning 10 points/$1 only earn 50% miles at the rate of 1 mile per dollar.
It is even more important to monitor your miles earning setting with Marriott Rewards since points can be more valuable than miles through points-to-miles exchanges. Marriott Rewards allows members to exchange 10,000 points = 2,000 miles for most US airlines or 1,500 miles with many major international airlines. You will likely get more miles overall by earning points at the majority of hotel brands and exchanging points for miles. The rate improves at higher point levels to max out at 125,000 Marriott Rewards points = 50,000 miles for US airlines or 35,000 miles for many international airlines.
Priority Club has a competitive dallas tour 18 edge in permitting members to stack multiple promotions and earn bonus points from several offers for the same stay. This can result in substantial dallas tour 18 points bonuses on stays that far exceed the 10 base points per $1. In my experience I have earned 40 to 50 points per dollar on several stays after bonus points post from different promotions.
Marriott Rewards has the highest proportion of hotels earning less than the standard 10 points per dollar with about 1 in 3 hotels in the U.S. earning only 5 points/$1 for stays at Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites. Marriott Rewards has not offered members an opportunity to combine earning miles and points for the same stay in the promotions of recent years. This is Hilton s competitive edge. Starwood and Hyatt have offered limited time promotional earning opportunities for both miles and points in the past two years.
Base earning rates shown in this post are really only one part of multiple factors to consider when comparing hotel loyalty programs. Every loyalty program has a base earning rate and this rate has been the most stable aspect of hotel loyalty programs over the past decade.
Hotel loyalty promotion offers are another major component to consider when comparing the earning rates in points and miles for hotel stays in different hotel programs. Promotions are variable and some are better earning opportunities dallas tour 18 than others. Your travel style determines dallas tour 18 what kind of promotions are most beneficial.
The hotel loyalty dallas tour 18 program s burn rate - the cost of hotel reward free nights using points is the other side of the equation dallas tour 18 when comparing hotel loyalty programs.  Earning rate by itself has no relevance to a consumer until compared to the cost of rewards in the hotel loyalty program.
100,000 points in my hotel loyalty account dallas tour 18 whether Hilton HHonors, IHG Priority Club or Marriott Rewards have no value until I spend them. In the case of Hilton they can be permanently lost if I go one year with no account activity.
1. Hilton, Marriott and IHG Hotel Brand Market Segments this post lists the different hotel brands, number of hotels in the brand, percentage of hotels in each brand and brand s hotel market segment.
IHG Priority Club has major changes taking effect in reward tiers for free nights January 18, 2012. I will compare reward cost for Hilton, Marriott and IHG free ni