Hilton vs Marriott: We Compared 307 Hotels in 8 Cities on Price, Guest Scores, and Points

This Hilton vs Marriott comparison runs on numbers pulled the same day.
On October 6, 2026, we collected prices and Booking.com guest scores for 307 Hilton and Marriott hotels in 8 cities, for a Saturday and a Wednesday night in November.
Then we matched the hotels brand tier by brand tier (Hampton against Fairfield, Hilton Garden Inn against Courtyard, and so on up to Waldorf Astoria against the Ritz-Carlton).
We also added each chain's own direct rates and award prices.
The short version: in the same city on the same night, Hilton cost less in 5 of 6 tiers.
Guest scores were close everywhere except luxury, where Hilton pulled ahead.
And a Marriott point bought noticeably more hotel than a Hilton point.

Key Takeaways

• Hilton was cheaper in 5 of 6 tiers. Compared in the same city on the same night, Hilton's Booking.com prices ran a median 4% (luxury) to 25% (DoubleTree vs Sheraton) below Marriott's, before tax.
• Guest scores were close below luxury. Tier medians sat between 8.1 and 8.45 for both chains: Residence Inn and Sheraton edged ahead, Hampton beat Fairfield, and Hilton Garden Inn and Courtyard tied at 8.2.
• Hilton's luxury hotels scored higher. Waldorf Astoria and Conrad had a median of 9.0, against 8.65 for JW Marriott, the Ritz-Carlton, and St. Regis, and led in 6 of the 7 cities where both chains had luxury hotels.
• The budget answer flips by night. Hampton undercut or matched Fairfield on the Wednesday in 3 US cities, then cost more on the Saturday in all 4 where both brands appeared.
• A Marriott point bought more hotel. A standard award night worked out to about 0.7 cents per Marriott point and 0.4 cents per Hilton point, so raw award prices can't be compared point for point.
• Chain-wide averages mislead. All Marriott listings had a median price of $359 against Hilton's $292 on the same Wednesday, mostly because Marriott's sample held more than twice as many luxury hotels.

Hilton vs Marriott at a Glance

Marriott is the bigger chain, by a little.
Both companies reported their size as of June 30, 2026:

	Hilton	Marriott
Properties	More than 9,400	Over 10,000
Rooms	Nearly 1.4 million	Nearly 1,814,000
Countries and territories	144	148
Loyalty members	More than 260 million (Hilton Honors)	More than 295 million (Marriott Bonvoy)
Listings in our Booking.com sample (Wednesday, all brands)	211	287
Hotels in the tier-matched study	163	144

Sources: Hilton's second-quarter 2026 results and Marriott's second-quarter 2026 results.
For a traveler, the useful comparison happens one brand tier at a time.
Marriott vs Hilton breaks into 6 smaller contests, and the winner changes from tier to tier.

How We Compared Them

We used a single neutral platform for prices and scores, because each chain's own ratings sit on different scales.
Hilton Garden Inn Chicago Downtown/Magnificent Mile rates 4.2 out of 5 on hilton.com (3,174 reviews) and 8.2 out of 10 on Booking.com (3,955 reviews).
Courtyard Chicago Downtown/River North, about 200 meters away, rates 4.0 on marriott.com (1,927 reviews) and 8.4 on Booking.com (415 reviews).
On the chains' own sites the Hilton wins; on the shared platform the Courtyard does.
The setup:
- Cities: New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Washington DC, London, Dubai, and Singapore.
- Nights: Saturday, November 14 and Wednesday, November 18, 2026, a single night each, 2 adults, priced in US dollars on the US market.
- Hotels: every page of Booking.com's city search for each night. London and Dubai also got their central districts, because a single search stops at 1,000 results.
- Brand matching: each listing was matched by name, brand, and location to the chains' own hotel lists, so soft-branded names still land in the right chain. 304 of 307 hotels matched a chain record; 3 were assigned by an unambiguous brand name.
- Comparison: medians within each tier, in the same city on the same night.

Tier	Hilton brands	Marriott brands	Hotels (Hilton / Marriott)
Select service	Hampton Inn, Hampton by Hilton	Fairfield Inn & Suites, Fairfield by Marriott	39 / 13
Upscale select	Hilton Garden Inn	Courtyard	28 / 37
Extended stay	Homewood Suites	Residence Inn	14 / 24
Upscale full service	DoubleTree	Sheraton	29 / 14
Flagship	Hilton Hotels & Resorts	Marriott Hotels, including Marriott Marquis	40 / 28
Luxury	Waldorf Astoria, Conrad	JW Marriott, The Ritz-Carlton, St. Regis	13 / 28

Lifestyle and soft brands (Curio, Tapestry, Canopy, Autograph, Tribute, Moxy, Aloft, and the rest) stay out of the tier rows, since neither chain has a clean counterpart for them.
They only count in the chain-wide line.
The data came through a hotel data API, so every number is a live quote from the morning we pulled it.
We used StayAPI's Booking.com search for prices and scores, its Hilton hotel search and Marriott Bonvoy search to map brands, and Hilton rooms for direct rates and award prices.
The chain-specific routes are covered in our Hilton API and Marriott API guides, and the endpoints live on the Hilton and Marriott Bonvoy API pages.
A tradeoff to keep in mind: a single-night snapshot in November is a snapshot.
Prices move daily, so read the gaps as patterns across 8 cities; your own dates will differ.

Which Chain Costs More?

Hilton cost less in 5 of 6 tiers.
The biggest gap was DoubleTree vs Sheraton: DoubleTree came in 25% cheaper, and it was cheaper in 12 of the 13 city-nights where both brands had hotels.
Hilton Garden Inn undercut Courtyard by 15% (12 of 14 city-nights), and Homewood Suites undercut Residence Inn by 10% (7 of 10).

Tier	Hilton median, Wednesday (n)	Marriott median, Wednesday (n)	Hilton vs Marriott, same city and night	Hilton cheaper in
Select service	$222 (36)	$318 (12)	16% higher	3 of 8 city-nights
Upscale select	$270 (27)	$314 (35)	15% lower	12 of 14
Extended stay	$238 (13)	$349 (23)	10% lower	7 of 10
Upscale full service	$278 (28)	$240 (13)	25% lower	12 of 13
Flagship	$319 (35)	$368 (24)	7% lower	11 of 16
Luxury	$591 (13)	$709 (28)	4% lower	8 of 14

Look at the DoubleTree row twice.
Pooled across all 8 cities, DoubleTree's median ($278) sits above Sheraton's ($240), because 10 of our 28 DoubleTrees are in London while 5 of our 13 Sheratons are in Dubai.
Compared city by city, DoubleTree was the cheaper brand almost every time.
A median that mixes cities answers a different question than the one you're asking.
One flagship pair shows the gap in dollars.
Hilton New York Times Square listed at $362 for the Wednesday, while the New York Marriott Marquis, 337 meters away, listed at $603.
All prices here are Booking.com's US-market prices, which exclude taxes.
We checked 5 hotels' full price breakdowns to confirm it: Courtyard Chicago Downtown/River North showed $342 with 18.9% in taxes added on top, and Hilton London Wembley showed $164.55 with 20% VAT on top.
Dubai is the exception: its 10% service charge was already included, while VAT and the municipality and tourism fees were not.
Both chains get the same treatment in each city, so the comparison holds.
Booking direct barely moved the picture.
Hilton's own lowest pre-tax rate was a median 4.2% below its Booking.com price, and Marriott's was 2.0% below.
Direct quotes can come from different rate plans on each chain, so the Booking.com medians stay the headline and direct rates are a second view.
Marriott's site also listed a separate nightly fee at 56 of its 143 tier hotels, $30 at the median.
Hilton's quotes don't break property fees out, so we can't say whether its totals include comparable charges.
The night of the week mattered less than expected.
The same hotel's Saturday price sat at a median 0% change from its Wednesday price for Hilton and 2.1% lower for Marriott.

Which Chain Gets Better Guest Scores?

Below luxury, the chains trade small wins.
Marriott's Residence Inn (8.45 vs 8.3) and Sheraton (8.35 vs 8.1) scored a little higher than their Hilton counterparts, and led in 4 of 5 and 5 of 7 cities.
Hilton's Hampton beat Fairfield (8.4 vs 8.1), and the flagships landed within 0.05 of each other.
Luxury holds the one clear gap.
Waldorf Astoria and Conrad scored a median 9.0 against 8.65 for JW Marriott, the Ritz-Carlton, and St. Regis.
Hilton led in New York (by 1.05), Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington DC, London, and Singapore (by 0.05), and Dubai tied.
The extremes tell their own story (hotels with at least 100 reviews).
The top score in the sample went to the Waldorf Astoria Dubai International Financial Centre (9.5, 792 reviews).
Right behind it, at 9.4, sat a Hampton (Hampton Inn & Suites Chicago Medical District, 483 reviews) and two Dubai Marriott hotels, the JW Marriott Hotel Marina (2,372 reviews) and the Dubai Marriott Harbour Hotel (185 reviews).
The bottom of the table was Marriott's Courtyard Miami Airport West Doral (6.2) and Sheraton New York Times Square (6.5, 2,933 reviews).
Hilton's lowest were 3 DoubleTrees: Grand Hotel Biscayne Bay (6.8), Miami Airport & Convention Center (6.9), and New York Times Square West (7.1, 9,835 reviews).

Hampton Inn vs Fairfield Inn

Hampton scored higher: a median of 8.4 across 39 hotels against Fairfield's 8.1 across 13, and higher in Chicago, Miami, and Washington DC.
New York went the other way (Fairfield 8.1, Hampton 7.95).
Price depends on the night.
On the Wednesday, Hampton was cheaper in New York and Chicago and level in Miami; on the Saturday, it cost more in all 4 US cities where both brands appeared.
The closest pair sits 55 meters apart near Times Square: Hampton Inn Manhattan-Times Square South (7.7, $325) and Fairfield by Marriott New York Manhattan Times Square (8.1, $344).
Fairfield is mostly a US brand, so this tier rests on 4 cities and a small Marriott sample.

Hilton Garden Inn vs Courtyard

A dead heat on scores (8.2 each, across 28 and 37 hotels), with Courtyard ahead in 4 of 7 cities and Hilton Garden Inn ahead in 2.
On price, Hilton Garden Inn was cheaper in 12 of 14 city-nights, by 15% at the median.
The tightest pair is 32 meters apart in Midtown Manhattan: Hilton Garden Inn New York Central Park South-Midtown West scored 7.7 at $413, and Courtyard New York Manhattan/Central Park scored 8.1 at $550.
So a Courtyard often scores a bit better next door, and costs a good deal more for it.

Hilton Honors vs Marriott Bonvoy: What a Free Night Costs

The Hilton vs Marriott points question comes down to value per point, because Hilton charges more points for the same kind of night.
For the Wednesday, a standard award at a mid-tier Hilton cost a median 65,000 to 70,000 points, against 47,000 to 52,000 at the Marriott equivalent.
Dividing each hotel's all-in cash price by its points price gives the value of a single point:

Tier	Hilton award (median points)	Marriott award (median points)	One Hilton point	One Marriott point
Select service	65,000	52,000	0.38¢	0.62¢
Upscale select	70,000	47,000	0.41¢	0.73¢
Extended stay	70,000	52,000	0.38¢	0.71¢
Upscale full service	67,500	49,000	0.41¢	0.74¢
Flagship	70,000	68,000	0.43¢	0.60¢
Luxury	95,000	97,500	0.60¢	1.06¢

Across all tiers, a Hilton point was worth 0.41 cents and a Marriott point 0.72 cents (134 Hilton and 129 Marriott hotels with both a cash and an award price).
Direct quotes can come from different rate plans, so we reran the math on Booking.com's pre-tax prices: 0.37 cents against 0.59, the same direction and a similar gap.
So before comparing award prices, compare what a dollar of your spending earns in each program, then what those points buy.
Hilton Honors reports more than 260 million members and Marriott Bonvoy more than 295 million.
8 Hilton hotels returned errors on the rooms call and drop out of this section only.

So, Is Hilton or Marriott Better?

It depends on the tier, and the data says which way.

If you're booking	Pick	Why, from this sample
A budget weeknight	Hampton	Higher score (8.4 vs 8.1), cheaper or level midweek in 3 cities
A budget Saturday	Fairfield	Cheaper in all 4 US cities on the Saturday (small sample)
Upscale select	Hilton Garden Inn on price, Courtyard on score	Same median score; Hilton Garden Inn 15% cheaper
Extended stay	Residence Inn on score, Homewood on price	Residence Inn 8.45 vs 8.3; Homewood 10% cheaper
Full service	DoubleTree on price, Sheraton on score	DoubleTree 25% cheaper; Sheraton 8.35 vs 8.1
Flagship	Hilton	7% cheaper, scores within 0.05
Luxury	Waldorf Astoria or Conrad	9.0 vs 8.65, and 4% cheaper at the median
Award nights	Marriott	Each point bought 60% to 75% more hotel

The honest tradeoff: Marriott's mid-tier hotels score a shade higher, and Hilton's cost meaningfully less.
Where the sample is thin (Fairfield outside the US, Singapore's 11 hotels), treat the verdict as a lean.

How to Run This Comparison for Your Own City

Hotel operators can use the same method to benchmark a property against the other chain's neighbor, and analysts can rerun it for any city and date.
The core is a full Booking.com city search through a hotel data API (StayAPI here), grouped by brand:

import re
import statistics
import requests

BASE = "https://api.stayapi.com/v1/booking"
HEADERS = {"x-api-key": "YOUR_API_KEY"}
TIERS = {
    "Upscale select": (r"Hilton Garden Inn", r"^Courtyard\b|Courtyard by Marriott"),
    "Extended stay": (r"Homewood Suites", r"Residence Inn"),
}

dest = requests.get(f"{BASE}/destinations/lookup", params={"query": "Chicago"}, headers=HEADERS).json()
hotels, offset = [], 0
while True:
    page = requests.get(f"{BASE}/search", headers=HEADERS, params={
        "dest_id": dest["dest_id"], "dest_type": dest["dest_type"],
        "checkin": "2026-11-18", "checkout": "2026-11-19",
        "rows_per_page": 100, "offset": offset}).json()["data"]
    hotels += page["hotels"]
    if not page["pagination"]["has_next_page"]:
        break
    offset += 100

for tier, patterns in TIERS.items():
    for chain, pattern in zip(("Hilton", "Marriott"), patterns):
        rows = [h for h in hotels if re.search(pattern, h["name"])
                and h.get("price") and (h.get("rating") or {}).get("score")]
        if rows:
            print(tier, chain, len(rows),
                  statistics.median(h["price"]["amount"] for h in rows),
                  statistics.median(h["rating"]["score"] for h in rows))

Each hotel in the search response carries the fields the study used (truncated):

{
  "hotel_id": "187699",
  "name": "Hampton Inn Manhattan-35th St Empire State Bldg",
  "star_rating": 3,
  "price": { "amount": 351.82, "currency": "USD", "display": "$352" },
  "rating": { "score": 8.4, "review_count": 6464, "display": "Very Good" },
  ...
}

Name patterns miss soft-branded hotels, which is why the study matched listings against the chains' own hotel lists.
For a standing comparison instead of a one-off, our hotel rate shopper guide covers scheduled monitoring, and the New York review-score benchmarks show what a city-level view looks like.

Getting Started

1. Sign up at stayapi.com for an API key; the free tier includes 50 requests, with no credit card.
2. Look up your city's Booking.com destination ID with the destinations lookup endpoint.
3. Pull every search page for your dates, then group the hotels by brand and compare medians within each tier.
4. Add the Hilton and Marriott searches if you need soft brands mapped, or direct rates and award prices.
5. Rerun it weekly (or feed it to Google Sheets, N8N, or Make.com) to watch how the gaps move.
6. For portfolio benchmarking across several cities, book a demo call.

FAQ

Is Hilton or Marriott better?

It depends on the brand tier.
In our 307-hotel sample, Hilton was cheaper in 5 of 6 tiers and scored higher in luxury, while Marriott's Residence Inn and Sheraton scored slightly higher and Marriott points bought more per point.

Does Hilton or Marriott have more hotels?

Marriott does.
Marriott reported over 10,000 properties and Hilton more than 9,400 as of June 30, 2026, per each company's second-quarter results.

Is Hilton or Marriott more luxury?

By guest scores, Hilton's luxury brands came out ahead.
Waldorf Astoria and Conrad had a median Booking.com score of 9.0, against 8.65 for JW Marriott, the Ritz-Carlton, and St. Regis, though Marriott has more luxury hotels in these cities (28 vs 13 in our sample).

Is Hampton Inn better than Fairfield Inn?

On guest scores, Hampton comes out slightly ahead.
Hampton's median was 8.4 across 39 hotels against Fairfield's 8.1 across 13, but Fairfield was the cheaper of the two on the Saturday in all 4 US cities where both appeared.

Is Hilton Garden Inn better than Courtyard by Marriott?

They tie on guest scores, at a median of 8.2.
Hilton Garden Inn was 15% cheaper in the same city on the same night, while Courtyard scored higher in 4 of 7 cities.

Are Hilton Honors points worth more than Marriott Bonvoy points?

Marriott Bonvoy points were worth more in our sample: about 0.72 cents each, against 0.41 cents for a Hilton Honors point.
Hilton charges more points per night, so compare what each program earns you per dollar, then what the points buy.