During the past year, while others fretted about the woeful economy, schoolteacher Ric Garrido took advantage of a favorable exchange rate to travel throughout the world.

Not the currency exchange rate, of course. Instead, Garrido, author of the Loyalty Traveler blog (loyalty traveler.blogspot.com), was able to live large by trading points from his hotel guest rewards programs memberships.

“Starwood ran a promotion on its Le Meridien brand from December to February: If you had seven stays, you could take four free nights at any Le Meridien in the world,” said Garrido, who lives in Monterey, Calif. “Depending on where you were located, you could get seven stays for under $700 — and then redeem your free nights in a place like Bora Bora, where the nightly rate is $700 to $800.”

While the dollar continues to dance at a less-than-favorable level and cash-strapped airlines cut back on comfort, hotels are offering bigger and better deals — and business travelers, already hotels’ most valuable customers, remain a precious commodity.

“Most heavy users of our loyalty program don’t have the option not to travel,” said Don Berg, vice president of loyalty programs at InterContinental Hotels Group. “After 9/11, we saw a massive drop-off in travel for leisure and some business travelers, but not for our Priority Club members. Travel is what they do.”

Members of loyalty programs receive benefits just for joining — and those benefits increase as travelers reach elite status. At the highest level, members can receive automatic room upgrades, access to exclusive lounges and VIP treatment. In some programs, the perks are nothing short of spectacular.

“People who have been on the road for a while have already traveled everywhere. They’ve been to the nicest restaurants and the coolest nightclubs,” Berg said. “But they’ve never thrown out the first pitch at a Major League Baseball game, or played golf in a pro-am tournament with a PGA professional. You couldn’t buy your way into that, but you can redeem points for it.”

For all their value, however, hotel reward programs can be maddening in their complexity. The value of a “point” varies widely among hotels. Platinum is the highest level of elite status for members of Starwood Preferred Guest and IHG’s Priority Club, but is only the second level for Hyatt’s Gold Passport. And members enticed by the promise of “no blackout dates” may be unaware of the practice of “capacity control,” in which hotels limit the number of rooms available for reward redemption on a given night, requiring members to spend even more points to get the room they want.

“It’s a challenge for consumers,” said Adam Burke, senior vice president of loyalty programs for Hilton Hotels. “If you were buying a digital camera, you might spend hours researching all the different models. You’d agonize over the purchase. Yet few people apply that level of research to their loyalty program.”

Trying to compare the rewards hotels offer can be so challenging that some travelers avoid loyalty programs altogether, choosing instead to seek out the best rate. But those travelers are missing the point. In fact, they may be missing out on thousands of them.

According to Garrido, “There are two types of travelers. If all you want is three free nights, then you’re an opportunity traveler, and you’ll bounce around from brand to brand maximizing the promotions they offer. But if you want upgraded rooms and more perks and benefits, it’s better to work your way up through a single program to get elite status.”

Even working within one program can be confusing. Almost every reward program advertises itself as the fastest path to a free night’s stay. Yet the comparison charts they offer rarely reflect reality because they fail to take seasonal promotions and other deals into account.

“Radisson’s online calculator tells you that by staying at their hotels for 50 nights in a year, you can earn 10,000 points,” Garrido said. “But when you add in promotions, you could earn 150,000 to 300,000 points. It’s amazing what you can earn once you learn how the system works.”

So how can frequent travelers choose the program that works best for them? Three factors can make all the difference: location, rewards and relationship.

Location, location, location

The value of location seems obvious: Even a million loyalty points are worthless if you can’t redeem them where you want to go. That gives a clear advantage to programs like Starwood’s Preferred Guest, with access to 860 hotels in nine brands throughout 95 countries. Yet smaller groups like The Leading Hotels of the World and Kimpton are discovering there’s strength in numbers. Even smaller, independent hotels are banding together in associations to be competitive.

Location can also mean the opportunity to visit a place you never thought you wanted to see — until you were offered the deal of a lifetime. InterContinental, for example, regularly offers rooms at less than half its usual redemption rate in locations it wants to promote. According to its surveys, about 70 percent of Priority Club redemption stays are in hotels members might have ignored had a deal not been available. Some companies offer particularly rich deals when touting a new acquisition.

Making the most of your rewards

InterContinental’s “Any Hotel, Anywhere” plan tries to circumvent the location issue altogether. As its name implies, members can use Priority Club points, via an American Express card, at any of 500,000 hotels throughout the world. What members gain in flexibility, however, they lose in purchasing power, since they must spend many more points to purchase the “anywhere” card to book a room at an IHG hotel. The same is true for most programs that allow members to convert points to miles — a once-popular practice that has lost its luster in recent years.

“I’d rather spend 10 hours in economy and six nights in a luxury hotel,” said Loyalty Traveler’s Garrido. “I want to use my points in a hotel, where they’ll have much more value than they would in an airplane.”

Hilton’s HHonors program is the exception to the rule, allowing members to earn both 10 hotel points and either an airline mile for every dollar spent or 500 miles for every hotel stay. Those who aren’t interested in miles can receive 15 points per dollar instead. Members can switch from one plan to another at any time.

For many travelers, however, gathering miles toward their next trip is less important than doing something special for someone at home. InterContinental’s Berg estimates that almost half of Priority Club members who redeem their points for retail certificates do so during the months of November and December. Most find what they’re looking for at the company’s online merchandise mall. A few will use its personal shopper program to find — and fund — almost anything else.

“Let’s say you’re a Platinum member with 500,000 points. You want a John Deere lawnmower, but you don’t see it in our catalog,” said Berg. “So you call us up and give us the item’s SKU number. We source it, come up with an equivalent price in points and arrange to have it shipped to your home. People have ordered some fairly obscure items, including kayaks, high-definition TVs and camping equipment. It’s the Holy Grail of access to our members.”

It’s also possible to donate your points to a worthy cause. Carlson’s Goldpoints Plus members can use rewards to offset their carbon footprint. However, Carlson’s program is centered on the idea that members are frequent travelers above all else, and is moving away from offering items other than hotel stays.

“People are in our program because they love to travel, and travel a lot,” said Caroline Larson, director of loyalty marketing for Carlson Hotels. “We have to keep going further in order to stay competitive.”

Building a relationship

A recent survey by Carlson suggests that up to 70 percent of its members will seek o ut a Carlson Hotel, even if it means driving up to 15 minutes out of their way. The company cultivates that relationship by conferring greater rewards and a more personal level of service — what those in the industry call “touch” — as members rise in elite status.

“If you’re a silver or gold member, you get our best available room,” Larson said. “You get a separate customer line to make reservations and a 72-hour availability guarantee of a room in that hotel. You get early check-in and late check-out. And when you arrive, we acknowledge you as a member and thank you for coming back. We go out of our way to be hospitable. We are the hospitality industry, after all.”

As competition increases, hotels sweeten their deals for frequent travelers.

Making members feel like VIPs can mean anything from free breakfasts and better views to once-in-alifetime experiences. “Moments by Starwood,” for example, allows elite members to bid on private dinners with celebrity chefs, soccer clinics with a member of the Los Angeles Galaxy and closed rehearsals with top musicians. Most hotels help members earn elite status by increasing their earning power. Best Western Rewards members receive double points during spring and fall promotions, while elite members receive triple points. At Hyatt, Platinum members receive an automatic 15 percent point bonus, while Diamond members get a 30 percent boost.

Members who take a break from traveling may be shocked to discover that their hard-earned points have expired or lost their value. Most programs allow points to expire if members don’t visit a hotel within a set period of time — though with some, such as Hilton’s HHonors, the use of an affiliated credit card qualifies as staying active. But even points that never expire can become less valuable when a company recategorizes its hotels, making fewer available at the lowest redemption rate or increasing the number of points it takes to get a room.

To keep their points and maximize their value, travelers have to manage their rewards like the investments they are.

“True point junkies really spend a lot of time making sure they’re earning points in a number of ways,” said InterContinental’s Berg. “Their philosophy is that if you’re in these programs, you might as well maximize the benefits.”

Members can keep track of points with online programs like Points.com (http://www.points.com) and USA Today’s Mile Tracker (http://www.usatoday.deskport.biz). They can seek out promotions at sites like Frequent Flyer Bonuses (http://www.frequentflyerbonuses.com) and Point Maven (http://www.pointmaven.com). Hotels are keeping in closer contact with their customers, branching out from newsletters and emails to text messages and RSS feeds. As the competition among top programs continues to heat up, members can expect to reap the rewards.

BY THE NUMBERS

Best Western Rewards (formerly Gold Crown Club International):
Ten points for every dollar spent; 8,000 points for free room night. Gold status after 10 nights. (http://goldcrownclub.bestwestern.com)

Carlson Hotels Worldwide Goldpoints Plus:
Up to 20 points for every dollar spent; 15,000 points for free night at category-one hotel. Silver Elite status after 10 stays or 15 nights within a calendar year. (http://www.goldpointsplus.com)

Hilton HHonors:
Up to 15 points for every dollar spent; 7,500 points for free night at category “opportunity” hotel. Silver VIP status for four qualifying stays or 10 qualifying nights. (http://www.hiltonhhonors.com)

Hyatt Gold Passport:
Five points for every dollar spent; 5,000 points for free night at category-one hotel. Platinum status with five eligible stays or 15 eligible nights within a calendar year. (http://www.goldpassport.com)

InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club:
Ten points for every dollar spent; 10,000 points for free night at Holiday Inn Express. Gold Elite status after 15 nights or 20,000 points. (http://www.ichotelsgroup.com)

Kimpton InTouch:
One free night for every seven eligible stays or 20 eligible nights. Inner Circle Elite status after 15 eligible stays or 45 eligible nights within a calendar year. (http://www.kimptonhotels.com/intouch)

Starwood Preferred Guest:
Two Starpoints for every dollar spent; 3,000 points for free night at category-one hotel. Gold status after 10 stays or 25 nights within a calendar year. (http://www.spg.com)