• Much more simplified method of adding and managing your programs. Based on user feedback, we realized it took too long to add all of your programs to your rewards summary. We now sport a pretty slick way to add all of your programs at once, from one page. No more annoying 3 step process for EACH program, no more having to refresh the page to see the changes.
• New approach to password security. In the past, you could choose to either update your program balances automatically, or update them manually if you’d rather not have us store your password. This last option is going away, but its being replaced by something even better. Now, to add a program to your rewards summary you must type your username and password. However, now we give you the option of whether you want us to store your password or not. If you choose yes, updating your balances will simply be the click of a button. If you choose no, we present you with a handy list for you to re-type your passwords each time you update. Takes a little longer (and you have to remember all those passwords), but for some people this will provide the peace of mind they need to become an acruw user. We still stand behind our bank-level security and recommend the default “acruw remembers” option because it makes for a snappier user experience, but the choice is yours.
• Nicknames. For those that have more than one account for the same program (e.g. an account for each family member), you can now assign a customizable nickname to each program. Type it in while adding, or edit it later by clicking your member number in your rewards summary.
• Sort your rewards summary. Previously the rewards summary displayed your programs in the order that you added them.  Now you can sort the list by program name or by your balance.
• General bug fixes and improved reliability adding programs. We’ve improved our method for fetching your data from the third party websites. Many of the bugs you’ve noticed have been fixed, such as not pulling in complete information or getting errors while adding or updating your programs.

We hope you like the changes. Keep sending that feedback!

p.s.  we’ve had our head down working on an update to the site. Expect something soon!

In the very near future, we’ll be adding the remainder of the major U.S. loyalty programs (Choice Privileges, Goldpoints Plus & National Car Rental). After that, we’ll start to add international programs, based on your requests. To give you a sense of where that is going, the requests to date have broken down as follows:

• British Airways – 18% of all requests
• Flying Blue (Air France/KLM) – 18%
• Luftansa Miles & More – 16.7%
• A few are tied at around 4%
• A few with 1 or 2 request

Based on that, you can expect support for at least those first 3 in the near future as well.

P.S. we filter the results so that we only count a request once per user, so no sense in requesting the same program multiple times.

Using the values we calculated for airline miles and hotel points, we are able to easily compare credit cards tied to specific rewards programs. We tried to include the flagship card for every major U.S. rewards program in our analysis (no bias for cards that we get credit for people signing up for through us) The results are summarized in the table below:

acruw | comparing credit cards

The list is sorted by the value of rewards received per $ spent on “all other purchases.” Also shown is the value of the initial sign-up bonus (i.e. 25,000 miles for signing up), the annual fee, the value of rewards received per $ spent at the applicable hotel or airline, and the value of rewards received on another category of spending (i.e. more points for spending on Gas, Travel, etc.).

The Starwood American Express card is the clear winner here, but not entirely for reasons reflected on the chart above. What sets it apart is flexibility, demonstrated by comparing cards in the following 3 scenarios:

Using the card to earn hotel nights: If you plan on using your points for hotel stays, then clearly the Starwood card is a good option, providing a value of 2.3 cents per $ spent, as is the Hilton American Express card, which provides nearly the same value for “all other purchases” and even higher value for spending at the hotel and on good “everyday purchases” categories like grocery stores, drugstores, gas stations, restaurants and wireless phone bills.

Using the card to earn free flights:  The Starwood card retains much of its value, even if you use the card for free flights rather than hotel nights (by converting 20,000 SPG points to 25,000 airline miles). In this case, the value per $ spent is 1.8 cents, which is still higher than nearly every airline on the list, and you get flexibility of being able to redeem on multiple airlines. For comparison, the Hilton card value sinks to 1/2 cent if you use the points for free flights. Airtran and Southwest also offer good value as a flights card (the “annual perk” for southwest is 2 bonus Rapid Rewards Credits each card anniversary). Additionally, the Delta Platinum card includes a free companion ticket each year.

Using the card for cash back: Even if you decided to curtail your travel and use the card to simply provide cash back, Starwood remains a viable option, unlike virtually all other rewards program cards. (You can’t redeem for actual cash, however you can get an amazon gift card, which is essentially the same thing).  The value in this case is 1 cent for each dollar spent, on par with most basic cash back cards on the market. You could do better with a cash back focused card, but then you give up the option to redeem points for nights or flights at higher valuations.

If you found this post or the acruw site useful and would like to help us out, we get credit for people who sign-up for the following credit cards through us (this list used to be longer, but apparently some of them expired 12/31/08). Just click the appropriate link below:

• Starwood American Express
• Delta Platinum American Express
• Northwest Visa Signature

• Marriott: 2.5k bonus points per stay from 2/1 to 4/30 up to 25k
• Hilton: double base points from 1/6 to 4/6
• Starwood: 500 bonus points per night plus 5k bonus every 10th night from 1/7 to 4/30
• Priority Club: 3k bonus points every 3rd night up to 30k from 1/12  to 4/30
• Hyatt: escalating up to 20k bonus points for 8 nights from 1/9 to 4/30

Using our estimated values, we can put these bonuses in better perspective (the dollar values represent the value of the bonus amount):

• Marriott: $33 per stay up to a max of $325 (for 11 stays)
• Hilton: 7.5 cents per $ spent. assuming $100-$200 rooms, $7.5 – $15 per night. Would have to stay 30 nights at $150 to earn more than Marriott’s max of $325
• Starwood: $11.50 – $23 per night. 19 nights would get you over Marriott’s max of $325 and the 20th night would bring total bonus value to $460
• Priority Club: $23 every third night to a max of $225.
• Hyatt: $14 – $35 per night up to $280.

Seems to me that SPG comes out on top here in most scenarios, but it all depends on your staying habits. If you’re staying exactly 8 or 9 nights, I’d say Hyatt wins. If you’re staying at a very expensive hotel, Hilton could be your best bet. Short but frequent stays and Marriott looks good.

Remember, you must register for these promotions to take advantage. The links above will send you in the right direction. Happy Hoteling in the new year!

We calculated 1 SPG point to be worth 2.3 cents, much higher than any other hotel program we analyzed. However the value per point is only half the story. To complete the picture, you need to consider how many points you earn by staying at the hotel. In the case of SPG, you get 2 points for every dollar you spend at the base level of membership. So, in total, for every $1, SPG gives you points worth a total of 4.6 cents. Compare that to Marriott where you earn 10 points for every dollar spent, each of which are worth 1.3 cents for a total of 13 cents in rewards. That’s a big difference. Similarly, Hilton offers 15 points per dollar, each worth .75 cents for a total of 11.3 cents in rewards.

I was surprised by this, so I looked at it at a different angle, taking into consideration SPG’s reputation for great conversion ratios to airline miles. If your goal was to earn miles for your hotel stays, then surely SPG must be your best bet, right? It does better, but its not the best. The value of an SPG point if you used it exclusively on conversions to airline miles (assuming the 20k -> 25k conversion) is about 1.8 cents. So, for every dollar you spend at a Starwood hotel, you get 3.6 cents in “air” rewards. Wyndham comes out best here at 5.6 cents and Marriott not far behind at 5.0 cents for every dollar. SPG does provide more value in this case than Hilton, which does not offer very valuable point to mile conversions and as a result its rewards for every dollar spent are worth 2.5 cents if used for conversion to miles.

Lastly, we ran a similar analysis if your goal was to convert your points to cash. Wyndham, Best Western and Hilton came out on top in this regard. 

It’s worth mentioning that this analysis doesn’t consider the value of customer service or ease of point redemption and assumes that hotels are similarly priced among the top 3 chains (SPG, HH, MR). The full results of our calculations can be found at the hotels analysis page on acruw.com

• no blackout dates;
• increased Platinum Elite bonus from 30% to 50%; and
• changes to the award redemption chart.

First, the change to “no blackout dates” is a welcome one, and brings Marriott Rewards more in line with SPG and HHonors in this regard. However, capacity constrains remain in tact, making it still possible to be denied redeeming points for an available room. Overall, this change should make it easier to redeem points for hotel nights, and that of course is a good thing.

Ditto for the increased bonus for Platinum members. No complaints there.

However, the changes to the award chart find some winners and some losers in terms of per point value.  At the time of our research (a few months ago), there were 2,977 hotels across 7 categories in MR. Under the new rules, Marriott is moving 14 of the category 7 hotels up to newly created category 8. Assuming they maintain a similar distribution of hotels among categories, an estimated 67 hotels in total will be moving up in category (I’d take the over) or 2.3% of the 2,977 and therefore will require more points for a stay. This calculation is summarized in the following table:

acruw | estimated effect of adding 8th category

Although the 8th category only effects these 67 hotels, Marriott is also restructuring its hotel award chart, effecting all hotels and generally resulting in better value per point for a 1 night stay and worse value per point for a multi-night stay. The table below compares the value per point under the old and new rules, taking into consideration the “5th night free” feature accompanying the new award chart in January. The block is highlighted in red if the changes result in worse value per point and green if the changes result in better value per point (values are in cents).

acruw | changes in estimated value for MR hotel awards

Bottom line: As you can see, there’s a lot of red in the table above. If you’re eyeing up an award in one of the red squares (or if you think the hotel might be moved up a category), you’ll want to book it before January 15, 2009.