Questions and Answers

I have upcoming business trip for 2-3 weeks of stay. I can either stay at Club Carlson hotel or SPG hotel as they are nearby.
Having SPG, club carlson and Citi Prestige credit card, what would give me best value? Ave. night cost will be about $115 with tax

A) Stay at Club Carlson and pay using club carlson credit card to earn 35X points.
B) Stay at SPG and pay using Amex SPG card. Collect SPG points at 4-5 points per $
C) Use Citi Prestige and stay at any of the two. In this case, how does citi firth night free work? Do statement show cost of forth night as separate reimbursement or will statement show cost of 3 night (with 4th is free)?
Also, will I be able to earn points on hotel program this way?

Welcome [USER=1598]@desikid[/USER] – you’ll almost certainly earn points for your stay. Are you using a corporate rate? Many (most?) corporate rates also earn points. That being said, if you want to use the fourth night free benefit, you must use a publicly available rate and book via the Citi concierge. [URL=’http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/01/20/fourth-night-free-hotel/’]See Lucky’s post about that process here[/URL].

Is your trip 2-3 weeks solid, including weekends? Or will you be traveling back home (or elsewhere) on the weekends? If your trip is booked as one continuous stay you’ll only get one free night from the Cit Prestige card. I’ve even seen anecdotal evidence that if you were to book, say, one week at the Club Carlson hotel followed immediately by a week at the SPG hotel that the second stay (at the SPG hotel) would not qualify as the second stay has to be in a different city. If you were leaving town on the weekends I’m not sure whether or not it would be allowed or not.

If you choose to earn SPG points they are certainly more flexible than Club Carlson points as they can be transferred to airlines in addition to being used for SPG properties and SPG special events.

But a big factor is going to be this: where/how do you plan to use the points you accrue? If you’re going to be traveling to places with plenty of Club Carlson hotels but no SPG hotels then perhaps CC is a better choice. Ultimately it depends on your travel patterns.