Questions and Answers

I travel a fair amount, but don’t often stay in big chain hotels, I prefer smaller more unique boutique hotels. When I have to travel for business, maybe 10 days a year, I have to stay in the chains so I do have loyalty cards for all, and because of my Amex Platinum I am gold at most of them.

I have realized that unless you stay a ton of nights at these mega hotels, the loyalty program really does not do anything more for me, I get a upgrade due to gold status but that is about it.

So my question to all you hotel pro’s is this. Should I just choose the miles option for one of my airlines instead of collecting the hotel points. I will still get my gold upgrade and late checkout either way.

Thoughts?

You’ll usually get better returns in the hotel’s own currency but in your case if you’re not going to use those points for personal travel I’d agree taking miles would be the better option.

Thanks, yes, when I got on pleasure travel the last place I would stay is a chain hotel, and most of the time I am in an international location so I want to stay in a fun local place. Thanks

If I might add airline points are infinitely better than hotel points when redeeming for premium class. I have 2 ideas for you,

Watch for bonus redemptions when crediting to the airline. Often you can get 2-3 x

Book your boutique hotels through sites that pay huge points. For example I stayed 2 nights in Melbourne at a boutique hotel booked with rocket miles and got 11,000 Alaska points. 9,600 AA points for 3 night stay in Singapore. If you use Booking.com go through Americans shopping portal and get 2-3x AA points. Granted if you do this you won’t get the points from the hotel but often it works out to be more. Just be careful on the no cancel reservations. Good luck!