Best Hotel Elite Status | Hilton vs Marriott, Hyatt, & IHG

what hotel chain has the best elite status i'm chris this is yellow productions i do travel guides that are fun in form of entertaining and on today's live stream we're going to be comparing hilton versus marriott versus hyatt versus the intercontinental hotel group to see which one is the best for you why am i doing this video well i get a lot of questions from people that say chris what hotel has the best benefits if i'm going to be loyal to it and so that's what we're going to go through today in particular we're not talking about what hotel has the best rewards program meaning we're not talking about what hotel has the best rooms you can book for free but we're talking about what hotel gives you the best benefits for staying at the hotel a lot and being loyal to it and the way these loyalty programs typically work is there are some tears based upon how many nights you stay and then based on how many nights you stay you get more perks at that hotel and it typically resets on an annual basis and so in today's video we're gonna walk through these four different programs i'm gonna dive in detail in them and if you're on the live stream and you've got thoughts about which one you like and why you like it i would definitely love to hear it as we're going through it and you know there's already some people in the chat uh eddie saying chris just say hilton and i don't know we're gonna have to see what i say about hilton and these programs and so let's go ahead and go to uh some pictures because pictures are worth a thousand words and we're gonna start with marriott the marriott uh elite program is called bonvoy and marriott is the the biggest hotel chain there is they've got 8 400 properties and 131 countries and if you look on this screen right here these are all of the different brands that marriott has they're obviously most well known for having the marriott brand but sheraton weston all merged with marriott definitely my favorites are some of the jw marriotts and you know elite recognition varies at these different brands but when you do get good recognition i think it's pretty good now with marriott you can earn a few different levels of status these are the different status levels you can earn with marriott again based on nights per year so the member it's junk they just want to give you something like you signed up congratulations they'll silver status at 10 nights gold at 25 nights a year platinum at 50 nights titanium at 75 nights an ambassador at 100 nights by the way at the end of this video i'm going to share with you some shortcuts about how to get to elite status in these different programs so if you're like chris i don't know how i'd ever get 75 nights a year at a marriott well stay tuned because i'll be talking about ways to make that shorter and easier so that you can get titanium without having to stay 75 nights a year um all right so this is a little bit of an eye chart but this goes over what the different benefits are for those different tiers and what i want to point out is like basically it's silver status you get 10 more bonus points that you can book hotel rooms that's about the only benefit at silver uh which is that 10 nights at the 25 night tier which is gold you get 25 more points so a little bit more points uh for booking uh but you also get better rooms and i think this is a good perk of these loyalty programs you get better rooms but the gold benefit is just better rooms within your class meaning that they might give it to you on the same floor but they'll give you one with a view of the the beach instead of a view of the air conditioner or something like that but they're not going to like upgrade you to substantially bigger rooms at that level now if you're at the 50 night tier which is platinum elite with marriott that's where it starts to get really beneficial that's the sweet spot in the marriott rewards program that's when you start to get free breakfast that's when you start to actually be offered a late checkout of 4 pm which is really nice to have that's when you get lounge access and access at lounges at marriott's at the at the brands that have them marriott jw marriott's renaissance hotels it's really nice to go to some place and have snacks all day get breakfast get breakfast three times in the same day if you want to pretty good dinner food in the asian merits as well in those lounges and then the next tier up is uh titanium elite which is 75 nights the great spot about 75 nights is you start to get upgrades to sweets and while they say you get that at gold you know really because there's all these titanium elites that are getting it for you and then there's this ambassador level uh you don't get all that much there other than like a dedicated phone line things like that though you do get a lot more points to redeem as you go up this chain now uh they've also got this program called the elite annual choice benefit and the annual elite choice benefit you get to pick some of these things you can get like five more nights you can save money on a bed you can give marriott bon voy gold stats to somebody else you can get five sweet night awards and this is definitely one of the sweet spots in this program when you can earn the sweet night awards then you can confirm upgrades to sweets ahead of time [Music] and marriott also offers a lifetime status that you can earn these different levels after a certain number of nights you've stayed in your lifetime with marriott and also a certain number of years so if you want free breakfast for the rest of your life at marriott's then uh you need to stay 600 nights and uh have 10 years at that status and then your points never expire that's pretty good i think okay so we're not going to go on hilton yet because i want to share with you just some more thoughts about the marriott program so the marriott bonvoy program is my go-to program u.s news and world report also ranks at number one in their ranking of elite programs marriott hotels are everywhere they're very consistent side note there's 30 brands i avoid domestic courtyards like the plague and i talked about lounges the lounges in asia are amazing uh domestically in the us they're they're okay uh you know one of my favorite lounges is the one at the jw marriott in hong kong phenomenal breakfast it's like a basically a full dinner if you go their dinner time and all free because you're staying there at the hotel i also particularly like at these different elite tiers being able to get early check-in um when i went to the park uh park lane marriott in london you know i got there at 6 a.m and was able to check into my room which is something they'll give to the elite members it wasn't ready they had to clean it for 30 minutes but they're like hey go to the lounge and get breakfast which is nice to have that lounge access you know hotels where you typically get free breakfast you never get free breakfast on your check-in day at six a.m because they're like you're not small chicken no three your free breakfast is tomorrow you are crazy um the 4 p.m late check out having that is really game changer because now if you've got a late night flight you got an 8 p.m flight not a big deal because you don't have to check out till 4 you're not like going around the city getting all sticky and yucky you can come back to your room take a shower do your final pack with 8 000 hotels it's quite easy to make titanium that 75 100 night tier i also find award availability quite good with marriott and if you book four nights then you get the fifth night free if you're booking it with award things uh and yes they also give out sweet upgrades on awards a few tips i have for you um on earning marriage award status before i go on to hilton is get the marriott credit cards so if you want to get that 75 night tier well you can get the marriott bonvoy credit card it's issued by chase and by having that credit card you'll get 15 qualifying nights towards your elite status if you also have the business credit card that will give you 15 more nights to your status than so you're already at 30 nights and then you just need to stay actual stay 40 nights uh and if you host a meeting at a marriott you will get 10 more nights towards your status so um you know you can book meeting rooms at some marriotts for like a hundred dollars uh and so you figure those two credit cards there maybe like ninety dollars each annual fees so for 290 dollars you can already get yourself 40 nights in to your uh 79 threshold and if you stay hotels a lot and you get free breakfast you do the math 300 for some of those things is well worth bumping you up and being able to hit those higher status tiers to get your suite upgrade for a week to get your free breakfast uh trip hacks dc asks if i've lost any status because of reduced travel in the past year uh for me i haven't uh because my merit status i've got lifetime titanium which they don't offer anymore but when they merge with sheraton and bonvoy they were doing one last year where they're like hey you can get lifetime in this so uh because i've stayed at marriott's over a thousand nights and then with united i've got million miler status on the airlines we're not talking about that and a new status i earned at the beginning of this year is actually hyatt globalist status we'll talk more about uh hyatt later my united status i've got the premier platinum which is roughly like 75 000 miles flow now it's points and dollars and so it's all weird but that might be one this year that i might not hit because this here isn't uh looking super great for travel uh either eddie's favorite asks about the park hotel in new york city what program do they have i'm not sure i can tell you about the park hyatt in new york city but i'm not sure about the park hotel itself uh scotland agrees he says i have their credit cards been great i've learned a lot of points as someone with a credit card is worth it thanks for that report and cal says i have lifetime gold and if you know people at the hotel they can work out upgrade late checkout even if it's not with stat absolutely not everybody has a hookup with somebody at every hotel but that's a great tip and zachary says also look out for promotions they have one where you can get a double knight credit and double points for stays of two nights or more those are also great ways to help you get those status tears and by the way i love it when you all leave those kinds of tips in the comments and in the chat because what i love about doing these live streams actually hanging out with y'all and i think we have a great community here and so i just wanted to say i always learn things uh from from you trip hex dc does not like the park hyatt in new york city i think that's is that a or is a dollar sign that's like a smiley face with dollar signs and then fire it's expensive if you pay cash it's like 750 cash so yes it does get quite uh expensive um all right and uh let's see turn it up world is in the chat uh welcome turn up world thanks for joining today really great to see you both and we've got a few more people in the chat welcoming them tanya and dave so thank you for welcoming that the last question i'll take about merit before we move on to hilton is trip hack ccs if i like the name bon voy i don't like the name bon voy i preferred marriott rewards it just made more sense to me i don't i don't know what bon voy is i guess they're trying to make it a word but it's not okay so let's go on to the next program which is hilton uh the elite and rewards program for hilton is called hilton honors i think hilton honors is the most advantageous program for business and luxury travelers who often stay in major cities in the u.s europe and asia because that's where they have a lot of their big presence and that's where they have a lot of their good hotels they don't have quite as many hotels as marriott we said marriott had eight thousand hilton has six thousand four hundred they have a few less brands they have 18 brands instead of 30 brands and so let's go on to see their different levels i need to make my big head go away so you can see all of those silver gold and diamond are what hilton calls their levels less than marriott a little simpler program and so let's go ahead and go and through these different tiers and see what you get so the silver tier by the way a lot of these programs this year because of covid and people traveling less are offering shortcuts to status so the numbers you're going to see up on top of the screen i took these screenshots from the hilton website recently and they've halved the usual requirements so silver usually takes 10 nights but this year it only takes five nights to get there hilton also has an option of stays instead of nights and it also has the option of how many base points you've earned which basically equates to how much money you've spent with hilton so the silver tier which is usually a 10 night uh tier you get a few more points you get 20 percent more points uh and you and you get two free bottles of water hey for two free bottles of water when you check in that's not every day that's that's when you check in uh at the gold tier which is uh 20 nights uh this year um but typically would be 40 nights then you get 80 points reward so you get more points per stay that's pretty good they'll give you upgrades if they're available which in actuality doesn't work out all that much at the gold level they'll provide free continental breakfast continental breakfast not a full breakfast hilton is like pretty stingy about this where like a lot of hotels may have full buffets and they're like oh you're entitled to the continental breakfast which is just the cold things if you want the hot things that'll be ten dollars more uh but hey at least it's food uh and then every 20 nights you stay um well if you stay 20 nights then you'll earn 10 000 more points and you get more of those as you stay more the diamond tier is really where hilton gets interesting because you get executive lounge access i talked about the lounges being great at the hilton chain the lounges at hilton's are good but the lounges at conrad are amazing conrad hilton right name of the founder of hilton um so the conrad's their highest end hotels well the waldorf stories as well but conrad's have really good lounges i really love the one uh in singapore at the conrad in singapore another one of those places where you know the breakfast is amazing dinner type foods served there and kind of the weird thing is that if you get the gold status the breakfast that you get isn't the same as the lounge breakfast and then also typically if you have diamond status they'll often give you the option of hey you can take your breakfast in the lounge or you can take a full breakfast in the restaurant so you get a much better breakfast that's where it's also interesting to me um and uh here then you can get uh upgraded to uh suites as well right since you know if we have them available uh jackson says gold status a hilton in tokyo gets you a crazy free breakfast yet for sure there are some hilton chains japan's pretty good about it that you know feel like everybody should have a good breakfast instead of just a couple people uh but i would say that's not a that's more of an exception than it is a rule um okay some other things uh that i want to share about hilton they also do a lifetime status but only for diamond uh and the lifetime status for diamond is earned after staying a thousand nights uh with the hilton honors program or earning a total of two million base points meaning you just spent a ton of money i think um hilton gold i'll call it a solid mid-tier status uh but you know the continental breakfast not that great um and one of the things i do really like about hilton i think they have one of the best mobile check-in options where if you have your phone and you do mobile check-in you can actually see maps of the hotel and you can pick your room on a map i like this because i like to stay in corner quiet rooms away from elevators away from noise and so i can pick those before i get there and secure a room that i actually like richard mccarley side note says thank you for doing a show not about las vegas my pleasure richard this is not a las vegas channel but many people love to hear about las vegas but i love to talk about things other than las vegas too some tips i want to share with you on earning hilton status one of the best ways to get hilton gold is actually not by staying any night to hilton's it's by holding the credit cards if you hold the amex platinum card you get hilton gold status just for having the card now there is like a 550 annual fee for the amex platinum so that isn't cheap uh or if you have the hilton honors american express surpass card has a lower annual fee but you can spend twenty thousand dollars a year on that card and then you'll get gold status for cheaper because the annual fees not as high you have to put more spend on the card this diamond status uh that we were talking about here you can also earn that by just holding a credit card if you have the amex hilton aspire card which has a 450 annual fee then you'll get diamond for just having it so if i stay at hilton's a lot then i just i go get that card right now i'm not so i i don't have that card but if you're trying to focus a hotel to be like where should i spend a lot of nights to earn that elite status it's not worthwhile to earn diamond status when you can just buy it with a credit card okay travel adventures with eric b agrees with me uh that eric loves picking the room from the app uh that is good good minds think alike let's take a few more comments from the chat before we go on to the next chain which is hyatt uh jt walker says we have hilton gold and the amex card and they're really taking good care of us even without much traveling we've not lost our stats yet most of these chains want to keep people in status because they know that people who have good status often stay more and their loyalty is because they have the status and if they took the status away then they might not stay as much and so um hotels are being more generous and extending it and not trying to you know kick people away uh i am thirsty i've been talking for a while what's chris drinking today chris today is drinking pepsi japan cola caramel flavor by the way i purchased this from mitsuwa marketplace a japanese supermarket and the thing that japanese supermarkets often do is put these little stickers on it to be like hey this was paid this is a project of japan what does it taste like the first taste is like pepsi when it touches your lips it's pepsi but then when it goes down your throat and you get kind of that bubbles and the thing that comes through your nose then it's caramel it's a really interesting experience to have a pepsi first taste and a caramel after bubble taste but if you see this around if you see the pepsi japan cola and you want an interesting drink definitely check out this one yes and it is in fact called caramel punch uh thank you for that it is indeed caramel punch i don't really know like if it's like a fruit punch or something like that but that's why i just call it the caramel flavor um and uh alex corrects me about the surpass card you get gold stats without any spend you can put 40k spent for diamond status thank you for that correction alex i don't i don't know where my bum info came on or like there is another card maybe it's the card with no annual fee that you get gold after that but then the surpass that has the annual fee gives you that without any spend and then you get 40 000 for diamond theft so thank you again another reason why i like hanging out with y'all in here and i think i think many of you can learn just as much from our community we have here as you can from me so let's go on to the next program we have covered marriott we've covered hilton how does hyatt stack up to that and then we're going to talk about intercontinental so hyatt significantly smaller than merritt hilton hyatt has only 900 properties marriott had eight thousand hilton had six thousand hyatt has 900 properties the 900 properties are across across 20 different brands in a lot of countries 60 different countries i think some of the notable ones are the park hyatt hotels uh all the grand high high regency hyatts the on doses are pretty nice at the hyatt centric are they're kind of height centric hyatt place high house lower ended heights and then they've been recently expanding into these all-inclusive things often in latin america pay one price you know get all the food and alcohol and all those sorts of things the world of hyatt program has four different tiers they have a discoverist explorist and globalist status well three main tiers they also have a lifetime globalist uh which you can only earn lifetime at that highest tier and it's not based on nights at all it's entirely based on spend a million lifetime base points which means you have to spend a lot of money at hyatts to get that globalist status and then we can see here they've got three ways that you can earn these different levels you can earn them based on number of nights you can earn them based on number of base points how much you spent or you can earn them based on meeting and events that you've hosted if you want to see what that is for globalist and so i get my head out of the way that is 20 for globalist status okay now what do you get for these different tiers in the world of hyatt program well at discoverist status you get some ball water hey hey sounds like hilton there you get up slightly better room we've heard that before you get a special check in line which can be nice and that's often typical of a lot of these programs they pointed out here you get 2 pm late check out which is good and then uh if you go to explorer status you'll get actually upgraded rooms um but not including rooms with uh club lounge access so just because you have explorist in this case with haya doesn't mean you get free breakfast the free breakfast here is at the globalist here this is also where you'll get upgrade to suites and a 4pm late checkout hyatt does a lot better about guaranteeing that 4pm late checkout than marriott does there's a few more things that you get just with globalist status i'm going to make my big head go away again so with globalist as which is the 60 nights a year you get club access or breakfast it's actually typically both in hotels but if there's not a club then they say you get free breakfast if you book an awards day you get free parking and it has this interesting guest of honor benefit the guest of honor benefit if you have global status you can book rooms for other people and they will get your global status as well so that's a pretty nice feature and something that then maybe you don't have global status but your friend does that you can inherit some of their benefits with that global assassin also comes with a few other things because they've got uh similar to marriott they've got like their um sort of elite choice program off the top of my head i forget exactly what world of hyatt calls this but as you get to different nights you can pick different things so after you've earned 20 nights you can get two club lounge access awards so if you haven't hit that globalist status at 60 nights but you're at a lower tier you can earn these awards that you can then redeem for a stay which then you can redeem for access to the lounge up to like seven nights for your stay for each one of those that you redeem if you stay 30 nights uh then you can choose do you want two more club lounge access awards or do you want a free night at a lower tier hyatt uh as you get to 40 nights then you can pick some bonus points as you get to 50 nights you can get these confirmed sweet upgrades just like we talked about at marriott's and i think hyatt's have some of the nicest suites around of any of the chains and then as you go to 60 70 80 90 you can see you get more points uh or sweet upgrades awards though at the 60 night tier you do get uh basically a free night at like any height anywhere which could be pretty valuable because we talked about the park high at new york city which is one of my favorite hotels in the hyatt chain uh regularly goes for 750 and you can see that free night is then worth quite a bit um okay so we're not going to go on intercontinental yet because i want to share some more thoughts with you about the hyatt program another great benefit if you have this globalist status is that you also get two free united club passes that come with it if you're booking awards days then they'll waive resort fees you'll get like free parking with the awards day as well we talked about that 4 p.m checkout and then once you have globalist status you know it doesn't take 60 nights to get it again it takes 55 nights again i think high globalist status is the best status there is of all the different programs uh park hyatts are amazing anywhere the one new york's amazing the one in dc is amazing the one in tokyo is amazing the one in san diego is amazing i've not been to a park high that isn't amazing and one of the great things about staying at hyatts is the staff who work there actually seem like they want you to be a guest at the hotel how many of you have stayed at a hotel where uh you felt like the staff didn't actually want you to be there they're like ah a customer that has to check in you know but when i stayed at the park high at new york city when i would walk in and out of that hotel they would all greet me by name the people at the front would greet me by name the people at the front desk would greet me by name not just when i check in but when i'd come back they'd be like welcome back mr rainey i'm assuming the hotel didn't have many guests and so they like remembered names but it was it was just really amazing and i know not everybody likes small talk uh but um you know there is something nice about being in a foreign place like oc girl and i we were in tokyo when we were staying at the the um hyatt place in tokyo ginza and the front desk agent was like hey what are you interested in where do you want to go gave us some really great advice we found some new neighborhoods that we hadn't found before and we love tokyo we feel like we're kind of tokyo experts but actually because it felt like he really genuinely enjoyed us being a guest there uh it makes us all so much more amazing for us to stay there i talked about sweet upgrades um you know the sweet upgrades awards are good for seven day stays and you can get upgraded to you know thousand square foot amazing suites and i think even at hyatt's lowest tiers their hyatt place and high house options they're solid business hotels they're not as lame as the courtyard marriotts they're not as lame as the hampton inns which basically provide nothing now the biggest con about the hyatt program is that it's hard to earn globalist status with only 900 hotels in the network now if you travel to vegas a lot all the m life hotels have a partnership with hyatt and so you can earn status easily that way also hyatt status matches to m life status and so you can get different perks at the mgm hotels based on your hyatt status now my tips for you for earning hyatt status is to get the credit card this all goes back to credit cards right credit cards are easy ways to get jumps and status the world of hyatt credit card issued by chase uh automatically gives you five elite nights just for having the card uh and every five thousand dollars you spend on the card you can earn two more elite nights when you have the card you automatically get discoverist status which was kind of that 10 night lowest tier stats doesn't give you a whole lot it's better it's better than nothing um but if you spend a lot on a credit card you can earn global status entirely with credit card spend uh mingo says the park height in dc is super dope it is i one of my favorite park hyatts is definitely the park hyatt in dc and we love the breakfast there when hyatt says you get free breakfast as a globalist they're not like a lame free breakfast they were literally like hey go to the restaurant and order anything you want off the menu and we're like okay we'll have the crab cakes and we'll have the bone marrow and we'll have the orange juice and at the park height in dc when you order orange juice it it is fresh squeezed orange juice like they just squeezed those oranges some of the best tasting orange juice i've ever had crab cakes bone marrow for breakfast yeah sure no problem it is all good eric agrees that hyatt is definitely my favorite and alex uh says they changed it even globalist needs 60 nights each year i don't know where i read that but thank you alex for the update on that one uh though this year uh it's only 30 nights that you need to achieve globalists because they're trying to make it easier for people and chuck points out that that 60 night award doesn't work on the small luxury hotels because those are a category above that thank you for that mr means to travel really like the park high in chicago i've not been there um but uh thank you for that tip i would like to go to that one um and eric says one thing i like about hyatt it's the only one of these casual it's the only one of these hotels a casual traveler can easily get to the second tier without the credit card yeah because it's it's not as high it's not the it's not as many number of nights to get to that uh tier um and uh means to travel said we also stayed the high eccentric and it's definitely felt nice more like a regular urban hyatt in the us yeah that's another one of those you know you go outside of the u.s and the lower tier hotels just feel like a higher tier that's been my experience um and uh question if you can convert m life to high up points and get globalist that way uh not now you can't really convert em life to high at points but you can earn high points by staying at mgm hotels okay let's go on to the next program which is the intercontinental hotel group also known as ihg ihg intercontinental hotel group is a british chain uh its headquarters is in england so different than the other three which are american headquartered chains the intercontinental hotel group has 5964 uh with 1800 in the pipeline so they're building tons of hotels in the intercontinental portfolio these are the brands in intercontinental in particular the intercontinental they recently purchased kempton and hotel indigo crown plaza and of course i feel like probably the most famous is holiday inn holiday and is part of the intercontinental hotel group which gets them all those locations because holiday inn has a ton of locations now my quick bottom line summary for the intercontinental program is like it's better than nothing but it's definitely the least valuable of all the programs uh for example you don't get free breakfast in any of the intercontinental tiers these are their three tiers gold elite platinum elite and spire elite which you can get after a certain number of points or a certain number of knights you can see the spire elite 75 nights so similar to the top end status in these other programs this is the eye chart that shows you all the different things that you get at these levels but in particular and this is like you're like chris i can't see you anymore you know at the platinum elite level you get the complimentary room upgrades uh at the spire elite level you get some of the choice benefits you get some things with hurts you get like early chicken but no free breakfast uh not a lot of the perks that we talked about the other things that i feel like are really valuable in elite programs they also have this ambassador status with intercontinentals it's a status that you buy into you pay 200 a year you get this status and then you can get like 20 food credit per stay if you're staying in mainland china then you can get free breakfast with your intercontinental ambassador status okay i want to give you a few more tips about getting that shortcuts to status that we talked about uh and i mentioned them before but just uh just a quick re-summary of these with marriott uh i think the merit program also is the best for worldwide elite perks because they have the biggest brand your shortcuts to that uh get the merit personal card get the mario business card and host one meeting 15 15 nights and 10 nights so you only need a few more nights to get you up to the titanium elite status which is the 50 night stats which is the sweet spot for marriott for most people hyatt get the world a higher credit card uh spend on that and every five thousand dollars you get two nights take a look for the promotions as well i was able to earn high global aesthetics this year by only staying at hyatts for eight nights because they had double night promotions and promotions for the credit card so do be on the lookout for those hilton honors diamond dive in get the hilton honors america's press aspire card 450 that'll give you top status and hyatt and then if you uh are staying at intercontinental hotels you know it's a good chain for budget value conscious travelers um and uh you can get ihg platinum simply by having the isg rewards premiere card it has an 89 a year annual fee on it fellow explorers it is now q a time if you've got a question i've got an answer alright it is q a time if you have asked a question before and i didn't answer it go ahead and ask it again uh and if you haven't asked it because you've been holding the question well now is your time i will take any question from uh you know things about rewards programs to things about chris what did you what did you have for lunch today we already know what i'm drinking which is the pepsi japan cola caramel punch this is the asmr section of the video as i drink that and go you know the funny thing funny side story our traveling princess our 15 month old daughter um she likes to she likes to imitate papa as i drink my drink and i do that then after i do that then she'll go ah which is just kind of fun one of those fun family moments coaster passport says hello greetings from ohio great live stream coaster passport uh thank you for joining and greetings to you as well mr means to travel loves the inner continental hong kong the intercontinental hong kong is an amazing hotel intercontinental does have some really amazing locations often harbor front oceanfront yeah the one in hong kong has amazing views of like the light show at night but the programs aren't aren't that great for the elite status honestly bridgette wants to know what did i have for lunch today that's a great question bridget i had uh a fish taco and a steak enchilada pinto beans rice and some guacamole uh that's what i had for lunch today pretty good can't beat the fish tacos in california aaron wants to know if any of these hotel programs provide status matches from one over the other many of them do but it depends on the time of year so yes there are often status matches or if they're not doing a status match accelerated programs because of covid they're all sort of different and they've changed and so i don't have the latest numbers for you but i would absolutely look into those status matches sometimes they come and they go the the first way i earned high global status the first time four or five years ago was via a status match uh but sometimes you just have to pay attention for it because they're not always there mr means travel asks what's the best rewards redemption you've pulled off we were able to book the on dos maui as a rewards redemption which if you're a hyatt aficionado you know that's like an impossible hotel to book his points we stayed there for uh like six nights on points you know typically it's like five or six hundred dollars a night to stay there so that was pretty good uh also the park height in new york city was pretty nice also the andaz in tokyo was amazing we booked that on points and the andaz tokyo typically books at like a thousand dollars a night uh and that was uh amazing nate want to know if i'll cover the new uh windham business card and win him rewards program match to caesars um actually nate and jess you know i i didn't include windham in the big tears uh but thank you for bringing that up if there's any other information you'd like to share on that because i'm not super familiar with it drop it in the chat and i'll i'll put it up on the screen for everybody to see kell really like the new orleans hilton all right well thank you for that kel or should i say nollens nollins hector wants to know what's the best way to book with hyatt san diego via their website hyatt's website i feel like with all these major chains hyatt hilton marriott ihg the best way to book and get the best rates typically is via their website if you book via kayak or this that then you often don't get elite benefits or leak credit you start to diminish what you get and so i always book i always book direct um zachary says if staying at the manor motor lodge would you get at least ask for marriott would you stay the entire night at the motorman i think zachary means the circus circus manor lodge in the back um yeah i i have i've i would not stay there for any reason at this point though it's closed so unfor i i just i can't you can't make me so i can't stay there because it's not open anymore um john says what is my chain and what brand within that chain uh so i would say i i have like my priority chains um i like hyatt the most as a as an overall brand and in particular in hyatt's i like park hyatts and i like ondauses they're generally both pretty amazing assuming i have globalist status if i don't have globalist status then i don't like state park hyatts because i feel like i get nickel and dime for everything and the breakfast is too expensive but if i've got globalist status it's great obviously having stayed a thousand nights at marriott's hmm marriott is my major chain because marriotts are just everywhere so merit's pretty consistent then my third tier is hilton we often stay at hilton a lot in europe because they have decent locations in europe and like credit card status oc girl has the hilton cards and spends on the hilton cards so that we have hilton points when we go places and then i put a lot of my spending on the chase cards to earn um hyatt points and then paid rates we often stay at marriott's and then earn a lot of those marriott points this way alex says didn't merit stop giving elite night credits for hosting meetings they just give you you can only do it once per year so yes you used to be able to host eight meetings and get platinum status because everyone gave you 10 nights now you just get 10 nights for hosting a meeting your second meeting you don't get any points for uh travel adventures with eric b uh said he he looked up this caramel punch pepsi on amazon and it's 129 for a 24 pack that is crazy i i think i paid dollars and fifty cents for this at mitsuwa in costa mesa california maybe it was three dollars i might have splurged um because i specifically go to stores and places to be like that looks like an interesting drink to drink on the live stream all for you chuck says does any hotel program email you before you arrive at the hotel because of your status absolutely park hyatts do it all the time hyatts in general email you before you get there jw marriott's the same conrads uh as well so the like the top tier in these programs will email you before you arrive to be like oh mr rainey i see you're coming what would you like what can we do for you um which is great again it's one of those to be like i like to stay at hotels where i feel like they want me to stay there uh esther says i want to start my hotel rewards journey and use mostly chase should i get the marriott bon voy card if you're going to be staying at marriott i would recommend the mayor bonvoy card i have it i have two i have the personal one and i had the business one because it helped me get the titanium status and all those nights trip hacks dc uh rob says airbnb just ended their affiliate program so i suspect a lot of travel bloggers are about to fall in love with hotels you're probably right you're probably right that's it because every every travel blogger would be like you know where you should really stay as an airbnb and you should click this link right here i have there are no affiliate links in this video i get no endorsements this is not sponsored by anybody this is what i would tell my next door neighbor or my best friend because all of you are my best friends out there watching today if you're watching you are absolutely a really good friend um nathan just wants to know when is hayek going to bring back the good free breakfast i think like it you mean like hyatt place or this and that or some of those things yeah i don't know you know i think it depends by chain by place all those sorts of things so i'm definitely looking forward to um i'm definitely looking forward to it jackson uh gave a mess to the on dos maui my favorite hotel in the us jackson why did you give it a met do you have did you get free breakfast in the hotel i think the free breakfast is amazing but you have to have globalist status to do that um kathy wants to know if we should get rid of our ihg card and get another one if so if so which one high or marriott i think the single best value for your money are earning higher points um and staying at hyatts just based on points earnings redemption cost of the hotels assuming that there's heights in the places you want to stay there's marriotts in every place that there's generally ihg hotels so i would pick that instead of ihg but if there are hyatts in the places that you go then i would i would do hides because i i think hyatt has some of the best hotels chris asked is it not cheaper to book through third parties i hate that you can't get points when you do it could be a little bit cheaper but then all the elite benefits and things like that go out the window so for me uh it's not that great um jackson uh said the andaz in maui had mediocre service i i've been there a couple of times i've found the service to be pretty good so maybe it's just off for covid off when you were there sorry to hear your state wasn't great oslo el siete says if my chase sapphire preferred was approved on 316 and it hasn't arrived do you think i can get the 80 000 point or get the 90 day extended beyond i i think that you're um like i think you can make a reasonable argument about your new subscriber offer based upon maybe when you've activated the card you know like if you haven't got it you know column c just be like hey when does when does that start for me that's what i would do if i were you means to travel says how do you and your wife handle who gets the points when you stay i'm generally the points bank um so if we're paying rates i generally bank the points only because oc girl doesn't want to pay attention to spreadsheets and points and expiration dates and all those sorts of things so i think she likes it that way i generally handle booking hotels booking the flights all that stuff oc girl handles uh where are we going where are we eating uh and then often like how to get to those places so that's our uh divide and conquer nate wants enough i think chase and hyatt will ever do a hyatt business card i hope so it makes sense it seems like a lot of business people stay at hyatt's so i don't know i don't know why they don't jackson says the hold it meeting trick at mera is a great tip thanks jackson one note i will give is that because i've done that a few times sometimes it's kind of like the hotels don't do it a lot and so they don't know how to credit it a lot and sometimes you might have to follow up and just be like hey did you credit my points for my meeting like it's a little manual process sometimes for them to do it blob and asked me what's my favorite chain in vegas not a chain uh my favorite two hotels in vegas are the venetian and the win uh slash encore venetian palazzo number one for me win on court number two neither of them are chains uh mr means says i'm seeing an arbiter arbitr arbitrage process opportunity in costa mesa yeah yes caramel punch pack absolutely the shipping might might kill us on it uh grown-up gaming wants to know which hotel chain has the firmest beds any hotel in japan the beds in japan are really firm i don't know i don't know which chain has the firmest beds uh but fellow explorers on the chat if you're like i stay in a hotel chain and their beds are rock hard please let grown up gaming no help out a feller explorer zachary smith says i have not made your required in-n-out burger reference tonight chris you're going to lose their sponsorship if you aren't careful i okay so uh since i shared something about traveling princess uh we think one of her first words that she says after mama and dada is double double double double can we say double double a lot um tanya thinks uh she's saying in mandarin i don't i don't want it uh i think she's saying double double so that's our that's our argument uh and uh if you are on the live and you're really enjoying it i'd really appreciate it if you hit the like button eric uh thank you for the reminder really helps me out helps out the channel helps out the youtube algorithm lets youtube know that you've enjoyed this video and so they should share it with others um seoul wants to know the best hotel welcome gift i think one of the best uh gifts i've gotten at a hotel the park high in new york city i mean an amazing fruit cheese wine poll extravaganza i'm not a big wine drinker but it was it was pretty fancy that was the park height new york city um at a hotel in taipei that i stayed at it's like the royal something it's a pretty high-end hotel in taipei that now i can't remember the name of in taiwan uh i was staying there on my birthday they looked at my passport to tell it was my birthday when i checked in and they delivered a amazing cheesecake with cherries on it that on it said happy birthday chris it was pretty amazing so that's the best kind of like gift i've ever gotten at a hotel um and you know it's one of those hotels where everybody's like dressed really fancy except me because you know i like shorts and t-shirts so um ryan agrees a high for the win just not as many heights around the globe that is the uh that is the biggest uh problem and esther agrees i've got disillusioned with airbnb as i got older and lazier hotels for the win i'm with you tell us for the win uh wutai says i just got back from gatlinburg driving 400 miles finally some travel returning i hope you enjoyed your trip wutai uh and welcome to the live stream trip hacks dc says everyone should watch my video from the washington dc cherry blossoms from 2009 excellent are the cherry blossoms in full broom full bloom there rob and if you are going to dc if you haven't checked it out rob and i did a great podcast all about hotels in dc if you haven't heard it just search for the trip hex dc podcast and you can listen to rob and i chat about dc hotels for an hour and you'll hear about what my favorite hotels in dc are the place i go to quite a bit uh b farmer wants to know uh what countries can i visit without the vex that's a probably actually a pretty long list to go through um and it depends where you live so i actually i think if you put that into google i think there's actually a lot of like airline websites isn't that that are trying to put that together it's it's not an easy answer uh jq says i live in san diego what's your favorite hotel in san diego my favorite hotel in san diego is the park hyatt aviara which is in carlsbad but that's my favorite hotel in the san diego area uh question of why not courtyard stateside because courtyard marriotts in the u.s do not give free breakfast under any circumstance or reason and so i like free breakfast and so i avoid courtyards like the plague uh stephen says what about vegas for german travelers the latest scoop on the travel ban from europe to the u.s is that the biden administration is looking to lift that mid-may that is the latest rumor nothing promised but that's that um mr means wants to know what's my favorite mainland china hotel i've only stayed in one mainland china hotel uh it was the jw marriott in beijing it was really nice but i don't uh i don't have more for you on that one i've stayed in more hotels in hong kong and macau i really like she'll be married in the conrad uh in uh hong kong jq as if i'll ever review the best indian reservation casino hotels in california maybe maybe there are places i usually don't go stay at for the hotels and there's not as many like cool things at the um native american reservations um one of the ones i like a lot is uh viejas in san diego because it got like a neat outlet mall for the buffet i really like uh paula casino um and then on the way to palm springs it's like i think morongo or something that's next to the outlet mall those are some of my favorites and uh trip hacks dc says uh no cherry blossoms in bloom i guess that means they're not blooming yet one more week at least all right so if you're going to dc soon definitely check out uh those cherry blossoms uh and uh rob gives you a teaser that in uh the podcast i share that my favorite hotel in dc is the parkai it sure is that's the teaser um esther says i've gone to afternoon tea at the ritz tokyo in a t-shirt and shorts i was visiting disneysea right beforehand uh and did did they let you in was it cool you know speaking of t-shirts and shorts my funniest story related to that was when i was in hong kong my mom and i were in hong kong and we went to the four seasons hotel in hong kong and at the four seasons hotel there's a chinese restaurant that's a three-star michelin restaurant and they do dim sum on the weekends so we went there for dim sum we were in hong kong in the summer if you've been to hong kong in the summer you'll know it's hot and humid and so i'm in short and a t-shirt and we had a reservation when we got to the restaurant the staff at the restaurant looks at me with shorts and t-shirts and says okay excuse me sir um you know we have a dress code in this restaurant uh is there any way you you can change into pants and then they're asking me like look where's your hotel and i'm like i'm in the mirror it's kind of a way away they're like oh can you go back and change i'm like no it's really too far and we kind of go through this for like this two-minute song and dance about how i don't have pants on and then they go what size do you wear and i i tell them my size you know wear like a 38 and they go back into the back and then they come back with a bag that says four seasons on it and they say sir here's a pair of pants in the bag you can go into that room over there and change and put your shorts in the bag and then you can come and join us it was a four seasons pair of pants that i put on i have never anywhere else been offered a pair of pants that they gave me to eat at the restaurant and they wanted it back after i left i don't think i'd want to take their pants side note hong kong 38 a lot smaller than american 38 i think we have like vanity sizing going on here in the us probably um ariel wants to know if i've ever considered staying at the alara uh by hilton in las vegas i've considered it i've never stayed there i like the marriott vacation club that's just right across the street from it the alaris uh right behind the planet hollywood i see the pool all the time when i walk through there but i've never stayed there seoul wants to know my thoughts on the acor hotel chain which is a french brand i don't love it i have to say i don't love it i've stayed in a number of aqua hotels in france i feel like they're really they're really chinsy like if you want hard beds actually i think a core has uh pretty hard beds you know it's the kind of american i like ice those are the kind of hotels there's no ice machines because it's not a american chain you go to the bar and you ask for ice and they give you one ice cube and you ask for more and they give you a second ice cube right um all right uh yoshi wants to know is my favorite massachusetts hotel um i i guess i've been to boston massachusetts a few times i haven't stayed in all the hotels in boston so i'm probably not a boston expert i've stayed in like a residence inn there that was in i don't know what the south seaport district or something that was pretty nice but boston is a really expensive hotel place that was one another great redemption opportunity that residents in was going for like 500 a night and i used a you know chased credit card certificate the category one to four credit card certificate for the 500 a night so 89 annual fee for the credit card get the free night use it for 500 so easily uh savings and grown-up gaming says the hong kong restaurant is lung king heen awesome dim sum it is that is the name of the restaurant very good this is like this is an amazing community right like i'm like hey this fancy three-star michelin and grown-up gaming you're like this is it awesome love hanging out with you guys dd1 says why are you so cool it's definitely like the pandas the pandas bring the cool out i think um let's see uh ghost w keys s5 state at the bellagio hotel or mandalay bay uh both they're both different they both have pros and cons bellagio is great because of center strip um mandalay bay is great because it's quieter if you've got kids i think they would like the mandalay bay better because of the big wave pool um i at the mandalay bay prefer the the um the delano hotel it's the hotel that's next to the mandalay bay it has its own separate entrance off the parking garage so you don't have to like walk into a casino or anything like that um ryan asked the best ihg in la i don't have a good answer for you on that ryan living in orange county kind of in the middle of la and san diego i don't stay in a lot of hotels in la and when i do stay in l.a in downtown lakes i got something going on there i generally stay around uh la live i usually stay at the gw marriott la live um so i don't have an ihg answer for you [Music] and alex thought i meant 38 centimeters up american 38 i don't know is that inches is that something i don't know what it is that's the uh american pant size uh eric wants to know i've been in the baltics i have never been to the baltics uh scotman gives a uh massachusetts recommendation the residence inn in cambridge prices were pretty good when i stayed there scott thank you for helping out a fellow explorer uh kathy says i like you doing a live stream in this room better as we can see all the pen is yeah not as many pandas in the other room so maybe i should uh maybe i should just let you see all the pandas a little bit better i moved i should move the question mark there so i put i put how do i put this finger here i put this guy up here because i thought he i thought he goes right there i'm also trying out something different today i don't know if we can tell because the lighting or something like that i've tried to add like a hair light up there to put a little bit more definition on this side of me and get a little bit of separation from the background i'm kind of working on the lighting setup in this room now because you know in my editing studio i've kind of like tricked out the lighting in there so i think i need to i need to work on this lighting a little bit more yes it's the time you've been waiting for it's time for the giveaway fellow explorers it's time for the giveaway as always on these live streams i give out a yellow production screw short to someone who answers my question correctly and my question to you is what is my favorite hotel in washington dc if you're the first person to put that answer in the chat you'll win a yellow productions cruise shirt shipped to you anywhere in the world while people are doing that let me take one more question rob wants to know what's the best hilton property in las vegas that would be the waldorf astoria the former mandarin oriental it's in the city center it's pretty amazing i love it it's right on the strip great views comfortable big rooms so that's my favorite and jq asks what's your favorite beach in san diego my favorite beach is mission beach in san diego i like uh belmont park uh i like the roller coaster i like the whole vibe i also like the waves and the sand bottom so that's pretty good all right we have a lot of answers and now we have a winner winner chicken dinner and our winner is how do i how do i spell these letters out yeah uh j t i k e d i don't know how you pronounce that but our winner is uh j tycoon you know sometimes i try to pronounce these out and then people are like chris the way you pronounce this is this so um i'll just call you j for now and say jay you win congratulations you win the yellow productions crew sure you can either send me a message on facebook or you can send me an email to chris yellow dash productions.com you'll find links to both those in the description of this video let me know where you want me to send it and let me know what size you want and jackie just got here is her first live stream and i'm super late well jackie i want to thank you for joining i want to thank everybody else for joining the live stream today it was super great to hang out with y'all as usual i won't say goodbye because i'm gonna see you all in the next video [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Yellow Productions

Views: 43,364

Keywords: hotel status, hotel elite status, best hotel status, best hotel elite status, best hotel rewards, hotel rewards, hotel loyalty, hotel points, free hotels, hotel program, hotel rewards program

Id: H9A4kEM6G3M

Length: 55min 46sec (3346 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 23 2021