In case you're keeping score...AAA recently released it's diamond award winners. By my count, 87 hotels received five diamonds. Here's a quick breakdown:
33 Indie's
54 Chain properties
Of the 54 chains,
23 Ritz Carlton
18 Four Seasons
3 Penninsula
3 Mandarin Oriental
2 Fairmont
2 St. Regis
1 Raffles
1 Omni
1 Pan Pacific
It's interesting that AAA consistently rewards the chains more than indie's (see last month's Star breakdown). It's also interesting that, according to insiders, the Mobil stars are more difficult to earn than the AAA diamonds. That might explain why you'll find a number of properties with a higher diamond rating than star.
AAA, can you say marketing games?
That's not taking anything away from these hotels...they're all fine properties.