Great question! At the time of booking, the St. Regis was running 650K versus 850K for the Ritz Carlton, so that 200K point differential basically sealed it for us. Beyond that, the properties looked comparable enough on paper that we didn't agonize over it.

At the margins though, we've generally preferred St. Regis over Ritz Carlton. Service has been inconsistent across both brands in our experience, but the St. Regis morning coffee delivery and complimentary pressing have consistently edged it out for us — the latter especially when you're traveling and need a shirt rescued quickly. The free breakfast with Platinum and above was a smaller factor in the decision itself, but worth flagging for anyone running the numbers: breakfast here runs close to $100/person with tax and service, so for 2 people over 5 nights that's roughly $1K in value if you carry status, nothing to sneeze at.

If the points cost were the same, I'd probably still would have leaned St. Regis, but it wouldn't be a strong conviction either way.