American Express Membership Rewards - honeymoon to Europe needed

I always thought MR points converted 1:1 to starwood. I have 51K MR points and just found out it is a measly 1:.33 conversion. I am Starwood platinum with 47K points and AA platinum with 84K. 15K with Delta no status. I am trying to plan my Honeymoon. But am at a lost of what to do with these MR points. I can't tranfer to AA to get a business class upgrade which costs 100K for both of us with a discounted ticket. I can't transfer to starwood for much. Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks,

What you might do is transfer 20k from Starwood to AA which will give you 25k AAdvantage miles. Then, use the MR points to Hilton which will come out to ~66,000 HHonors points. Look for point stretcher awards and that 66k will get you four free nights. For example, in March you can get that award at the London Green Park. You can use the remaining Starwood points for 2-3 free nights at one of their properties or cash in a few of the points for the SPG 50% off certificates which gets you a room at 50% off the rack rate. In most cases that's siginifcantly cheaper than the hotel's best rate.

Transfer 51K from MR to Delta (1:1) which will give to a total of 66K in Delta and then transfer to Hilton (1:2) which will give you 132K.

How's Hilton, is 132K worth alot? I read on hear that If I sign up for the Starwood Amex I can't transfer my Membership Rewards points to equal 1:1 starpoints? Has anyone tried this with any success or will they only give the 1:.33? If the new card earns 1:1 why wouldn't they give this conversion?


Thanks

The Starwood Optima card earns 1:1 and the points go directly into the SW account. Like the DL optima card. I have not heard of them allowing you route your MR points via your SW optima card.

If you are ever converting MR points to HH points always go via CO, DL, LP or one of the other airlines but not AA as your conversion ratio is lower. Right now if you transfer >10K in points to CO you get a 25% bonus. So there are free points going that way. 51K MR = 63.75K CO = 127.5K HH

My transfers via LP have always been very quick, and CO take about 2-3 weeks.

I'd use CO

If you stay a SW alot, get the optima card and you will rack up the points. (In the 1st year you have the card the 1st stay = 1000 bonus, next stays = 500 bonus pts) In addition to the online and status bonuses you get.

I used a reward to stay at the Hilton Noga Cannes on my Honeymoon and we liked Cannes/Monaco/St. Tropez et al, but the hotel is very Funky.

I think that 100K will get you a week in an internationl hotel. GLON ("Going Global") under VIP awards. You may need to get comped to Hilton status to redeem this award.

BSL

(Tried to post here earlier, but it didn't work...)

HHonors awards: The GLON is an excellent award. A week in almost any Hilton in the world (a few exceptions) for 100,000 points. It is one of the best values in the HH program. You need to be HH Silver or higher to redeem it, but five minutes of surfing the HH board will provide the information you need for the comp. You'll probably get comped to Gold, which would make you eligible for a space available upgrade on your GLON award.

If I were you, I'd try to get yourself up to 100,000 AA miles without cannibalizing your other points through a hotel program. Sign up for the Citibank AA Mastercard, find a cheap mileage run, etc. That's JMHO though...I hate losing value through conversions because I value the free hotel stays more. Another thought: AA has one-way upgrades for 25K per seat. If you get "good" coach seats one-way with your Plat status, this might be a viable option. I don't like spending so many miles on overnight upgrades, so I sometimes go Eastbound in a coach exit-row window and Westbound in biz. (And then AA kicks in the OP UG about a third of the time.) Just another possibility...