American Express Membership Rewards - Exchanging AMEX points

Have 140,000 points. Will never get any more. Corporate card turned in. Have AMEX with Hilton (free) so get several months to use or transfer the Mileage REward points.

Am considering the current 15% bonus into Delta. Would prefer AS or AA, even UA.

Both of us are "early retired" so we are really not interested in "stuff" but does anyone have any suggestions that might benefit us better that the Delta deal??

Although the current 3:1 ratio of AMEX to starwood points is not attractive, starwood/amex did offer a *reduced* ratio of 2:1 last fall I think last fall, or late summer). IF they were to do so again, this (starwood) might be a super place to park 150K MR points, ie 75K starpoints.

What will 75K starpoints get you ? 5-6 days at St Regis-level resorts, peak season or whenever, since spg has no blackout periods for reward redemption (we did a 6-night a St Regis/Aspen last year (rooms were $1000+/nt for paying guests, and we have a planned 7-night Whistler ski stay planned this post-Christmas (also peak for them), all using about 10K starpoints per night. The leverage of these points is impressive, *if* you can convert at 2:1 (which assumes the promo would happen again - who knows ??).

If you're not into high-end resorts, IMO another SUPERB use of starpoints is the cash and points combinations starwood offers. Spend a couple of thousand points, and room rates typically drop to about HALF or less of STREET PRICES (not rack rates). If you had 75K starpoints, you could travel and stay at starwood hotels for along time using reduced dollars. Again, I would only convert if the ratio is reduced to 2:1 in a promotional period. 3:1 is too high a price.

Only other program that was attractive IMO was HHONORS BEFORE devaluation this year. Now, I would never convert MR points to HHONORS. Sadly, the UNDERLYING PROBLEM is that Membership Rewards points are, chronically, devaluing as Membership Rewards itself becomes a stale product, losing partner after partner, but never seeming to be able to ADD partners. I have been steadily reducing my MR points because of this very issue over the years.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ILUVCITIBANK:
Although the current 3:1 ratio of AMEX to starwood points is not attractive, starwood/amex did offer a *reduced* ratio of 2:1 last fall I think last fall, or late summer). IF they were to do so again, this (starwood) might be a super place to park 150K MR points, ie 75K starpoints.</font>

You put $250K a year on a Starwood Amex (IIRC from another thread) and you would still convert MR to Starpoints? You're really PO'd by the Hilton devaluation, aren't you?

Not everyone is going to be able to get a $1K room for 10K points - I think that's a pretty extreme example. If that's what you going to use them for, then I would agree with your suggestion. But in general, I'd convert them to HH via HA (which is the only thing I do with my MR points). Even with the devaluation, I still think 4HH points beats 1 Starpoint.

Another way is to go through ANA (1:1) and have them issue *A award on UA. Delta can also issue UA award but only on domestic routes.

Or Virgin Atlantic for Upper Class tickets.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by singlemalt:
You put $250K a year on a Starwood Amex (IIRC from another thread) and you would still convert MR to Starpoints? You're really PO'd by the Hilton devaluation, aren't you?

Not everyone is going to be able to get a $1K room for 10K points - I think that's a pretty extreme example. If that's what you going to use them for, then I would agree with your suggestion. But in general, I'd convert them to HH via HA (which is the only thing I do with my MR points). Even with the devaluation, I still think 4HH points beats 1 Starpoint.</font>

How to you get 4 HH points from 1 MR point. I saw that if you convert MR to Hawaiin air they become 2-1 (Hilton points). How do you get 4-1? Appreciate the info. I have a ton of MR points and would like to use them for Hilton...Robert

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by robertw477:
How to you get 4 HH points from 1 MR point... I have a ton of MR points and would like to use them for Hilton...Robert</font>

Sorry - didn't mean to get your hopes up. What I meant was a 4:1 ratio based on exchanging MR points for HHonors points vs. Starpoints. One MR point = 2 HHonors points vs. ILUVCITIBANK's suggestion of 1 MR point = 1/2 Starpoint.

[This message has been edited by singlemalt (edited 11-01-2003).]

Sorry - meant to edit the above post.


[This message has been edited by singlemalt (edited 11-01-2003).]

I see that MR points convert to SPG Points at 3:1, but do MRO points directly convert to StarWood points at all ?

[This message has been edited by Alcibiades (edited 11-06-2003).]