MilesBuzz! - my first post, hope it is interesting to you guys

I am going to Paris in Spring of 2010. I normally would use my starwood points ( I am gold) book 4 nights get the 5th free and hope they upgrade me. My question is I have 186,000 orphan points at marriot. I can use 180,000 points for 5 nights at their hotel vs 48000 for the LeMeridian or go big and use 80,000 for the prince de galle. What would you guys do and why?

thanks

chris

Ceber, my approach would be to use up the orphaned Marriott points and use the cash saved elsewhere.

You may also get more and better responses if you have the mods move this to the SPG or Marriott forums.

If you truly consider the Marriott points "orphan" (why do you consider that many points orphan?), then by all means use them. Get rid of the orphan miles.

My contrarian take on Paris is that most of the American chain hotels there are overvalued. My wife and I love Paris, but we always end up in a small boutique there - usually what most of us would consider a 2-3 star property. (Wife speaks French, so finding off-the-beaten-path places in the heart of the city is doable for us.)

186k is a healthy amount of points: I usually think of orphaned points as being enough for a Courtyard night or something.

My own personal take on valuation of points is 3 to 1 (MR to SPG). So the Marriott is kind of in-between those two Starwoods in cost, but they're all close enough that I'd probably research the properties themselves and try to pick the best one of the three.

Do you have status at Marriott? If not, perhaps that's a slight edge for Starwood, even though Gold isn't exactly a "high elite" status.

You might also want to look at what 180k Marriott points can purchase on the Marriott rewards site to compare. Go to:

https://www.skymall.com/mr/homepage.htm?&source=K8&partner=25G

Are you able to get more Marriott points (from more stays, CC, etc.) to top off the account and get a travel package instead? IMO the Marriott travel package is the best value of the points - 5-night of hotel stay + 120K of frequent flyer miles. Lowest redemption level (for cat 1-5 hotel) is 270K points, so you are not too far off.

You may also get a better response if you put a more relevant title.