In 2003, Priority Club Rewards broke out from its relative obscurity and charged to the forefront of business travelers' affection, as witnessed by the six shiny new Freddie awards that now rest comfortably at the company's headquarters.

Though Priority Club Rewards had certainly made respectable showings in the past at the Freddie Awards, last year's results marked a dramatic improvement. So, to what should we attribute this sudden rise in popularity? That remains unclear. The program has not undergone any major changes of late, nor have its competitors greatly devalued their own programs.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that in a sluggish (if improving) economy, business travelers have placed a higher premium on value than ever before. Money is too tight to spend in huge quantities for royal perks, but travel is too taxing to deal with endless nights at bargain-basement hotels.

Priority Club, with its wide array of brands and 3,500 properties, appears to have struck a solid middle ground.

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InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has grown considerably since 1946 when Pan American Airways decided to build hotels along its flight routes to provide quality lodging for the airline's crew and staff. The first hotel, the Hotel Grande, was opened in Belem, Brazil and the hotel group now operates over 3,700 properties worldwide. Members clearly appreciate the frequent guest program as shown by Priority Club winning the Program of the Year Freddie Award for the past two years.

Earning

Who would've thought a mom-and-pop root beer stand would blossom into a world leader in the hospitality industry? The A&W store started by J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott in 1927 was clearly the beginning of something big. Marriott's loyalty program -- Marriott Rewards -- is now one of the two largest in the world, boasting over 20 million members, and going on its 21st year.

The program's name has changed over time -- it started out as Marriott Honored Guest Awards and later added Marriott Miles as a 'brand' in the points vs. miles period of the program -- but by any name, this program has always been considered the grand dame of hotel loyalty programs. Maybe not as flashy as some, not as trendy, hip or gimmicky as others, but always consistent and steady.

Some more recent news...

On his blog last month, Bill Marriott writes that "people want to do business with companies that do the right thing." Throughout the month of April, Marriott demonstrated its commitment to doing the right thing to protect the health of the environment with a number of initiatives. Marriott employees participated in many projects that involved activities such as cleaning up beaches, rivers and parks and planting trees at sites around the world. Marriott will receive the EPA's 2007 Energy Star Award for their energy conservation efforts and has pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by six percent per guest room by 2010. Marriott has also stopped serving food that contains trans fats in its North American hotels and is now a 100 percent smoke-free environment.

How successful is Marriott at doing the right thing for members of its loyalty program? Marriott celebrates 50 years of being in the hotel business this year and the hotel chain has changed and grown tremendously from the initial days when rooms were offered for $8 a night. Marriott Rewards has developed a loyal following over the years and the program has much to offer its frequent guests.

Earning points

Consider this: Starwood Preferred Guest has only been around for four years, yet has already accumulated 28 Freddie Awards. You read that correctly. Twenty-eight. Apparently, these people have no shame when it comes to pleasing their customers.

The Starwood group -- Westin, Sheraton, Four Points by Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection and W Hotels -- offers over 750 hotels in more than 80 countries. And the 10 million members of SPG have made their fondness for those properties quite clear. But the rap on Starwood is that its awards are more expensive than other comparable programs -- something Starwood has worked hard to disprove. Credited with more than just introducing "No Blackout Dates," Starwood's "Free Weekends" has made even Marriott come to attention. One thing is certain -- the high points of this program reach where not many others have dared to go, but be careful -- the devil is in the details.

Some more detail... ;-)

Think Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. Or Notre Dame's football teams of the 1940s. Or Lance Armstrong and the Tour De France. Think winners. Then think hotel loyalty programs, and Starwood Preferred Guest instantly pops on the radar.

In the past six years, SPG has won more Freddie Awards than any other hotel program. It has virtually owned the Best Program Award since 1999.

The Starwood group -- Westin, Sheraton, Four Points by Sheraton, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection and W Hotels -- offers over 730 hotels and 135 resorts in more than 80 countries. And the 19 million members of SPG have made their fondness for those properties quite clear.

Industry observers will kibbutz about the details of Starwood versus other major hotel programs. Some might say award levels are too high, or elite benefits across brands are not as consistent as they should be.

We'll leave that to the individual. Loyalty is all about personal experience, and if someone feels more comfortable somewhere else, who are we to disagree?

We'll just say this: It's easy to argue over the fine print. But in the final analysis, it all comes down to results. And Starwood, like the Fighting Irish of yesteryear, need only point to one thing: the scoreboard.

It's hard earning with SPG...

Take 500 hotels, 147,000 rooms, and 13,000,000 active members, and what do you have? You have one big company named Hilton, one of the world leaders of the hospitality industry, and its loyalty program -- Hilton HHonors.

And if you are a certain publicity-hungry ingenue, you have a very, very large trust fund.

From its inception, HHonors has carved a unique niche in the frequent travel industry. It was the first hotel program to offer credit cards from competing companies, and was the first (and remains the only) program to allow members to earn both points and miles with every stay through the now famous "Double Dip."

Like all programs, HHonors has changed over time. Award levels have increased, elite perks have changed, and old-timers will say that points aren't worth as much as they used to be.

Perhaps. But the same can be said about almost any program. The fact remains that by today's standards, HHonors remains one of the strongest programs in the world.

More about HHonors:

Conrad Hilton entered the hotel business when he purchased the Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas in 1919. He formed the Hilton Hotels Corp. in 1946 and the hotel group has since grown from its Texas roots to include over 145,000 hotel rooms in cities around the world. Hilton brands include Conrad Hotels, Doubletree, Embassy Suites Hotels, Hampton Inn and Hampton Inns & Suites, Hilton Hotels, Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites by Hilton. Earlier this year, The Blackstone Group announced its acquisition of Hilton Hotels Corp., a transaction expected to be completed within the next month. Blackstone owns more than 100,000 hotel rooms in the U.S. and Europe and the merger almost doubles the size of the company.

The HHonors program is best known for its "double dip" earning style where members can earn both points and miles for the same hotel stay.

Earning capabilities

Of all the major frequent guest programs – Hyatt Gold Passport has always been the one to march to the beat of its own drum. It doesn’t (yet!) have its own credit card affiliation, doesn’t have many partners, earns an off-beat five points per dollar spent and has always seemed reluctant to even have a program of its own.

But with the announced addition of Hawthorn Suites in 2003, a new Diamond Membership and Passport Plus Awards, that drum beat may be slightly more up tempo than in years past. It’s lucrative "Faster Free Nights" promotion, which awards one free night for every two stays when paying with MasterCard has been re-instated.

2008 - Hawthorn Suites - SOLD! Amerisuites rebranded (most of em!) to Hyatt Place - much more expensive rewards. Thing i liked most about Hyatt's program is:

1/ faster free nights (when they run it...)

2/ 3,000 points redemptions for Amerisuites... hardly any left ;-(

Something more recent....The first Hyatt hotels were built to accommodate air travelers and were located near airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose. The Hyatt Hotel Los Angeles opened in 1954 and Hyatt expanded overseas the following decade opening its first international property, the Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, in 1969.

Over the last few years, Hyatt has added new brands Andaz (the name means "personal style" in Hindi), Hyatt Summerfield Suites and Hyatt Place to their existing brands, Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency. Hyatt recently jumped into the social networking arena and launched Yatt'it, a new online travel community where members can share travel tips and access expert information from Hyatt concierges around the world.

While Hyatt Gold Passport does not have as many affiliated properties as the larger programs of Hilton, Marriott and Starwood, it does seem to offer members what they want because we hear very few complaints about the program from them. Members like the recurring promotions and you'd be hard pressed to find a Gold Passport member who hasn't heard of Faster Free Nights (FFN), which earned the program a Freddie Award this year for Best Bonus in the Japan, Pacific, Asia, Australia region.

Earning...