aaupgrade

Geez, that 270K MR points ALSO INCLUDES a 7-night (1 week) certificate at a category 1-5 hotel.

150K for 7-night hotel category 1-5 certificate
120K for 150K AA miles
===
270K

platbrownguy

nvm was late to the party

platbrownguy

yeah but your original message was just plain false. there's no way to turn 40k SPG into 120k MR in order to redeem for any package that would get you 150k AA. so i wasted time figuring out that what you just posted was what you really meant, and now you're acting like everyone else should have been able to extract that from your clear and unambiguous but wrong initial post:


you have to have 90k SPG or 270k MR to be in the game to begin with, even assuming you did have a use for a 7-night cert at a mid-grade hotel (who has time for that?)

Acid

thanks platbrownguy!!!

aaupgrade

Good point. I'm sorry you perceived my post was misleading, and perhaps it was but that was not my intention. I was merely attempting to show the value of the exchange. One reason I provided the link to Marriott Hotel-Air travel package web page in my first post was to provide details and thus avoid any confusion.

I agree wholeheartedly! It wasn't my choice to use a category 1-5 hotel cert as an example, I was just responding to Acid's post where s/he was quoting values for a category 1-5 certificate. FWIW, when I do travel packages (TPs) I usually exchange for category 7, 8 or 9 7-night hotel certificates (which does require more points). Now I did exchange for JW Phuket back when it was category 6, but then changed plans and called Marriott and changed it to a category 9 certificate which I used in London year before last.

Yes, it does take a lot of points (SPG or MR) to do use these TPs, but this is FT after all where a good number of people have a lot of miles and/or points.

The whole point of this was to point out a great exchange rate. Hopefully someone will benefit.

Ironically it is still a better exchange rate even if one doesn't take the 7-night hotel certificate into account.
But you do need a nice stash of points to take advantage of these deals.

I travel strictly for leisure, using MOM, mostly international, stay about 50-75 nights/year and as such try to make the most efficient use of money, points and air miles. As such I use F and J RTW tickets to reduce air costs which requires one to start from varying locations (locations with best RTW price are always a moving target). Airline miles get used for positioning flights, and MR points get used for mostly Travel Packages which means every couple years I need to adjust one of my usual stays of 3-5 nights to a 7-night stay. Looks like I'll be hanging out in Sydney for a week next year. Also throw AA changing their AAdvantage program means I've been crediting most of my flying to BA as attaining BA Gold is much easier than AA Exp and also gets me North America lounge access even on domestic itineraries. As the targets keep changing, so goes the strategy. Same goes for the SPG and Marriott target with their programs combining. Do the math and get the best bang for the buck, mile, or point.

IntFF

Generally transfers between Loyalty programs are worth it only if you miss some points for an award in the program you transfer to.

G-CIVC

I heard the 7 night certificate can be redeposited at a later date for 45,000 MR (=15,000 SPG), so effectively 75,000 SPG ==> 150,000 AA under this promotion. Holy smokes Wish I had that balance of SPG!

Explorer789

The only one of these hotels I would consider is my Best Western points. I rarely stay there unless I need a budget hotel and redemptions are basically gift cards. So, question now is whether to use this promo or wait for the next UA 25% promo.

slickwalletalk

I don't see an offer for the 120,000 MR points on the travel package page. Could you clarify?

aaupgrade

Sorry for the confusion. If you read the posts since the one you quoted it should clarify your understanding of Travel Packages (TPs). Below is a repost of the info from post 16:

Travel Packages (TPs) with 120K miles start at 270K MR points which ALSO INCLUDES a 7-night (1 week) certificate at a category 1-5 hotel. It's a package that includes miles AND a hotel certificate, hence the term "Package". My original post was merely an attempt at showing the exchange value for the points to miles portion. A breakdown of the values of the package are shown below:

150K MR points for 7-night hotel category 1-5 certificate
120K MR points for 150K AA miles
===
270K MR points

I hope that helps. And thanks for bringing this up again as it reminded me to go back and modify my previous post to hopefully make it clearer.

Sabai

Indeed, until Marriott renders them into ArnePesos for their combined program.

roadtriper

It absolutly does! I transfered 20K SPG points 2 nights ago, and this am I had a 31,250 AA deposit all in one transaction that was posted as SPG transfer. RT

st.exupery

Curious if those Marriott AA miles are added to your AA total. Not sure if this was mentioned here, but Chase UR transfers 1:1 to Marriott.

st.exupery

I guess it was obvious but the answer is yes.

kevinflyaway

I was looking at SPG Night & Stay awards and decided not to do it, since you need to know which hotel you want to stay at when you actually do the transfer. Do I understand correctly that a Marriot Travel Packages gives you a voucher/certificate which is worth a 7-night stay?! How long is this voucher/certificate valid?

If so, I made make the transfer via Marriot. It gives you almost a free 7-night stay, instead of just the points through SPG transfer.

I would do:
SPG 83500 -> Marriot 250500
Travel package (cat. 1-5 + 100.000 miles)

Direct SPG transfer would nett 129375 AAdvantage miles
Marriott Travel Package would nett 125000 AAdvantage miles + the 7-night stay