Best hotel program

After breakfast, proceed for sightseeing on the Leh — Srinagar Highway. After breakfast, proceed to Lamayuru the oldest monastery in Ladakh. Take some good snaps of the Moonlandscape Land which reassembles the lunar surface and enjoy the stunning views on the way.

Return back to leh for an overnight stay. After an early breakfast, visit sightseeing places like Shey, Thiksey, and then proceed to Pangong via Changla Pass 17, feet and the third highest pass of the world.

Pangong Lake is a salt water body of km in length and 6 — 7 Km broad at the longest point. One really feels very close to nature at Pangong Lake with its scenic surroundings.

On a clear sunny day, you can see seven colour formations in the crystal clear salt water lake. Overnight stay in Pangong. After breakfast, travel back to Leh. En route take a short halt at Changla Pass to enjoy a cup of hot steaming tea. Travel rewards programs are based on a simple concept: Rewarding frequent airline flyers and hotel guests.

Between interpreting what elite status perks you actually get, and calculating ever-changing point and mile values, knowing which airlines and hotels actually offer the best value for customers is no easy undertaking.

We at NerdWallet spent months collecting data, analyzing the fine print and generally nerding out to determine the best domestic hotel and airline loyalty programs in There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to these rankings. Some travelers might prioritize the thread count on their hotel sheets, while others might be particular about the quality of their coffee.

With this in mind, we prioritized elements of travel programs that offer clear, objective and measurable benefits. We then boiled these elements into a single overall rating across airlines and hotels. Elite status benefits. Basic economy. Pet policies. We rated each hotel brand and airline across all of these categories on a five-point scale, then used a weighted average of these ratings to determine an overall winner.

Use the links above to learn more about how we built these ratings. Unlike others, which stumbled in one or several of the rating criteria, Alaska notched above-average marks across the board. From the value of earned reward miles to best-in-class pet policies, Alaska has proved itself the most customer-friendly airline.

Of course, you might not have a pet. Or you might not care about elite status benefits. American and Hawaiian also performed well this year, though for very different reasons. Low-cost airlines Frontier and Spirit ranked predictably low, as these budget airlines offer cheap fares and little else. Some might be surprised to see United near the bottom of the list. Another result with a clear winner. Radisson Rewards Americas notches its first win in , and with authority.

You might not know much about this program, and you might be confused about its recent split from many international Radisson hotels. Most hotel brands got dinged for at least one category. This approach provides a quantifiable way of identifying how easy it is to use points at top-tier locations versus lower-tier ones. This makes sense as one of the main objectives in selecting a loyalty program is getting rewards.

Perks focuses solely on the published benefits given to all members who join the program. Most programs now include free Wi-Fi or offer member-only rates, while some allow you to freely share points with your spouse or household members. Individual properties in other programs may waive resort fees on free nights, but Hyatt is the only one with a formal company-wide policy.

Evaluating the Elite Status benefits of each program is exceedingly difficult, given that every hotel chain has different ways of awarding status and different benefits at each status level. After determining these values, we then extrapolated how much value an elite member would receive across four different thresholds — those who stay 25, 50, 75 or nights a year — given the set of perks offered at each level.

If you stay fewer than 25 nights, your elite-status benefits are either very limited or non-existent and are thus excluded from this analysis. Having and utilizing a Hotel Credit Card is a great way to extend the value of your stays, and thus warranted inclusion in our analysis. Here, we looked at several credit-card features — welcome bonus, earning rates, annual fee, status benefits, foreign transaction fees, additional perks like renewal bonuses and free night certificates and other options like a business version or multiple personal cards.

For each of these seven categories, we ranked the ten programs and then weighted those ratings to arrive at a final score.

The following list shows all the co-branded credit cards for each of our 10 hotel loyalty programs:. Looking at Promotions and Bonuses , each program tends to follow its own strategy and schedule when delivering extra rewards to its members.

In order to make an apples-to-apples comparison with these offers, we looked back at the promotions offered by each of the 10 programs over the last two years on a quarterly basis. Finally, we considered the Non-Hotel Benefits of these programs. Earning and redeeming points for free hotel stays and taking advantage of benefits are obviously critical, but some travelers prefer to earn or use points in other ways.

We identified six non-hotel attributes: transfers to airlines, airline partnerships, earning airline miles instead of or in addition to hotel points , redeeming for experiences, shopping portal availability and whether the program partners with a transferable point currency like Chase Ultimate Rewards.

And then we scored each program based on how it provides these non-hotel benefits. So after all of this number-crunching, where do the 10 programs land? Here are the overall results:. Starwood Preferred Guest takes the top spot with the best overall score.

In this particular analysis, the program excelled in a few notable categories, as it has the highest percentage of luxury properties and the most rewarding elite status program. However, the program made up significant ground thanks to how valuable its points are, as TPG staffers have experienced at hotels like the St.

Starpoints regularly top the list of our monthly point valuations , and for good reason. Wyndham Rewards clocked in at second place, just behind Starwood and well ahead of the next closest competitor.

You can redeem just 15, points for a free night at any Wyndham property worldwide, from the cheapest Days Inn to the most expensive Wyndham Grand resort.

Third place was a neck-and-neck race between two formidable programs, but World of Hyatt edged out Hilton Honors. This is quite impressive for Hyatt given their comparatively small portfolio of properties, with fewer than hotels and roughly 70, rooms. Hilton, by comparison, has more than 5, properties and , rooms worldwide.

It also provides some fantastic Elite Status benefits like suite upgrades and guaranteed late checkout, and scored well in the Co-Branded Credit Card category.

Finally, Hilton also takes the top spot for Co-Branded Credit Cards, in large part due to the wide variety of current cards and new upcoming compelling options like the Aspire. As a result, be sure to consider whether this program is a desirable option for you given your typical travel patterns. Marriott Rewards takes sixth place, with top marks for Geographic Spread thanks to locations in countries and solid performances in Co-Branded Credit Cards and Promotions.