Questions and Answers

My travel paterns make it hard to be loyal to any single hotel chain so for most of them (HHonors, IHG, Marriott Rewards, Club Accor), I selected the option to earn Aeroplan miles instead of hotel points. Is this a good strategy? I understand I am probably not maximizing value by doing so but am avoiding gathering a handful of points in several programs which would be hard to redeem anyway.

I am especially interested in hearing opinions about earning Aeroplan miles instead of IHG points because that is by far the hotel chain that I use the most.

Jasdou – are you based in Canada or fly Air Canada (or other Star Alliance carriers) a lot and that’s why you picked Aeroplan?

In general if you are not interested in hotel programs you might consider using sites like pointshound or rocketmiles to book hotels. You can earn significant amounts of airline miles depending on the property. Keep in mind that depending on the chain you may not get any elite benefits or other benefits.

You only get 500 points per STAY with IHG/Aeroplan which might be good for a 1 night stay but not multiple days. [USER=79]@Gaurav[/USER] has a much better solution, however Rocketmiles is the only Aeroplan credit partner.

You can transfer hotel points to Aeroplan from the following chains: (these are typically poor conversions sans SPG and IHG is not one of them although they transfer to many other airline programs)

SPG 1:! plus 25% bonus on 20K
Best Western Rewards 5:1
Choice Privileges 5:1
Hilton Honors 10:1
Le Club Accor 2:1
Marriott Rewards 5:1 to 2.8:1 based on transfer amount
Wyndam Rewards 6:1