American Express Membership Rewards - Turning AmEx Rewards into UA Miles?

I have 190,000 American Express Membership Rewards points. As I understand it, these are my options for turning them into UA miles:

190,000 AmEx pts --> 247,000 Hilton pts --> 40,000 UA miles
190,000 AmEx pts --> 171,000 Holiday Inn pts --> 42,500 UA miles
190,000 AmEx pts --> 190,000 Marriott pts --> 60,000 UA miles
190,000 AmEx pts --> 63,270 Starwood pts --> 63,000 UA miles

As I understand it, Starwood is the best deal, which is made even better by the 5000 bonus for every 20K transferred. That would give me a grand total of 78,000 UA miles.

For those who have done this before, am I doing this correctly?

Also, I don't have any specific need for these miles. Does anyone have an opinion about whether the UA miles are more valuable, or should I just leave the AmEx points in one of the Hotel programs?

Thanks for your help!

what is your purpose in turning them into UA miles? IF you want to use them to fly you can use them on other airlines - often for less miles than UA or to places UA doesn't go . One example using UA to fly business sfo-bud requires 2 awards for a total of 100000, I can do the same using delta miles for 1 award of 80000. So it depends on what you want.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/004935.html

I would transfer them to US and lobby your Congressman to get the UA-US deal approved (which is looking more and more likely anyway) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You can transfer to Mexicana, and fly UA as a Star Alliance partner, or transfer to US, and use them that way later in the year.

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If you have a 190,000 points and a planning to launder them through Hilton, it is probably best not to transfer them directly from Amex to Hilton ... here is why.

Amex to Hilton (1000 MR --> 1300 HH)= 240,000
Amex to Delta (1000 MR --> 1000 Delta Sky Miles) = 190,000 miles
Delta to Hilton (1000 SM --> 2000 HH) = 380,000 Hilton points = 80,000 UA miles

I still like the Marriott route.

(See the other thread.)

when will usair miles turn into united miles? if you can wait, that might be the way to go...

Amex MR-->Delta SM-->Hilton HH-->United MP. That routing would actually get you 75,000 UA miles.
(190,000 Amex converts to 190,000 DL miles, which then converts to 380,000 Hilton points, but taking into consideration 50K points = 10K UA miles, you'd have 70K UA miles with another 30K points to still convert. Since there isn't a Hilton award for 30K points to miles, you'd process 10K points for 1,500 miles, and 20K points for 3,500 miles, giving you a grand total of 75,000 UA miles.)

You must really like UA over DL. There's no way I'd pass up 190,000 DL miles for just 75,000 UA miles. With 190,000 with DL you could have two BusinessElite tckts to Europe, plus 30K left over. What does 75K over at UA get you?

Anyway....you can see I'm a little biased towards DL. If you must have UA miles, then I'd stick with your plan to convert your points through Starwood. If your math is correct, you'd get 78K, which is 3,000 more than going via DL and HH.

I don't know what your objective is with United, but if you have 190,000 Marriott points, you can buy 10,000 points for $100. This would give you a total of 200,000 Marriot- and you could claim Marriott's award code 713. It gives you a certificate for 7 nights at a Marriott "choice" hotel, and also airfare for 2, almost anywhere in the Marriott airline partner system (United is a partner.) It is my understanding that with some airlines, they put the points directly into the airline account, and then you deal directly with the airline.

RLewis: (I'm assuming you're NOT Ray Lewis! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif )


In this case MR=Membership Rewards NOT Marriott Rewards.

Mac

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Via con Dios!