Questions and Answers

Dear Lucky and OMAAT Team,

So Hyatt has made me sad. As an Australian, I was fiercely loyal to Hyatt even though their spattering of hotels around Australia while nice, is pretty dismal (and rather expensive), though I had hope with the new Sydney Hyatt (beats $1000pn while in Sydney), then they changed their program. When I travel to the US and Asia, Hyatt was always a great bet with decent rooms, airport pick up and pretty decent recognition of my yearly Platinum status, and so here is my problem. As a consistently low tier Hotel member, should I stay with Hyatt and aim to retain the lower status with 10 nights, OR should I turn to SPG, IHG, Hhonors and Le Club, all who have more hotels in Australia with multiple options and budgets that also contain something special when travelling overseas. Which would you choose as an Australian who’s credit card options for hotels are limited and whose airline Loyalty is currently one world (Qantas Gold)? Is there a better bundle of hotel and airline partnerships that would make the most of my some work some holiday year in hotels.

Just FYI I am learning;

SPG – With a great portfolio and decent benefits, they seem to be an alternative to Hyatt, though earn rates are quite low (I push most of my points to airlines as Australia is an expensive airline point destinations)

IHG – Simply because Intercontinental Ambassador can be bought yearly (though their range of hotels are small)

Any thoughts would be great!

Dave

Well, if you are looking for mileage conversions then SPG would be my first choice.If you are looking for status benefits, you might want to consider HH. In the US you can get Gold through a variety of cards and it offers a decent set of benefits. Not sure what the Aussie alternatives are but I would see if there is a comparable option down under.

If you aren’t sure that you will get to the lowest level, then Marriott is best. They give you quite a few benefits for just joining. Otherwise, I think that HHonors or SPG would be best