If you're staying at a boutique hotel where there's no loyalty program, there's no elite status, it might not matter as much. But if you have a lot of status and you want to earn points at Marriott, you might not want to book a Marriott stay through any of these programs.

But there are some really lucrative options to earn points. And if you go to Rocket Miles's website, as an example, has some pretty decent ways to earn points. I just did a really quick search right here. I'm looking in New York City for a couple of nights, and I chose that I want to earn United Miles.

You can obviously choose Aeroplan Delta Southwest. And it says, OK, I'm going to book this hotel stay for two nights. It's fourteen hundred dollars. And I'm going to earn fifteen thousand miles for this day. Not a bad redemption if you value United points at two cents. That's a three hundred dollars back.

Three hundred dollars out of one hundred fourteen hundred dollars is like a 20 percent return.