Starwood Preferred Guest - When to redeem vs paying?

First I am a PLAT member for many years. I do not often redeem when I can get a good rate at a property. I would rather pay than sacrifice hard earned points as I would prefer to use them someday at key high priced locations.

When a property costs me 7k pts+++ to redeem but I see a good rate, I go for that rate. An example is Montreal Sheraton Centre, costs 7k to redeem, but I can buy a room as low as $119 Cdn right now. Nearby the Sheraton 4Pts would cost me only 3K to redeem.

But how should I evaluate this ratio?

Some cases are clear cut, but others mostly in major centres or foreign destinations are harder to evaluate. Does anyone have a good ratio that would work?

Cash & points are a pretty good deal for the higher end places.

I think someone has previously poasted that a good figure would be to get at least 4 cents/point on the redeemed room including taxes........

So if you want to redeem a Cat 4 property, the prevailing rate better be at least $360.....

I vote for 3c US per night as the breakpoint. If I get a nickel out of each *point, I consider it an excellent use.
However, if you're targeted for V05 or something, you may want to set the breakpoint a 4c or so.

------------------
Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

We never redeem points either, unless the rate is very, very high. Sometimes on a two night stay, when the price is high, we will pay for one night and use points for the other.

I like to get the stay credit so it is even bothersome to me to use my free night. We are, however, using them for the Prince de Galles in January.

$360/nt for a cat 4 property? Yikes! I'm very surprised someone would only redeem points at that price or higher. I can't imagine there are too many places where the rates are that high. I use points, rather than pay, if I can get 1.81 cents each or more. I almost always get more, but that is my hurdle rate.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MileKing:
$360/nt for a cat 4 property? Yikes! I'm very surprised someone would only redeem points at that price or higher. I can't imagine there are too many places where the rates are that high. I use points, rather than pay, if I can get 1.81 cents each or more. I almost always get more, but that is my hurdle rate.</font>

The high end property redemption usually exist in Europe. For most US properties, I think they are "overpriced" at Cat 3 or 4.

The best values are to be had overseas! For example, the Cat 1 properties on the weekends (e.g. Westin Sukhumvit, Westin KL). I often redeem a Cat 1 weekend for 4K points total for 2 nights that would have cost $340 inluding taxes....giving a value of 8.5 cents/point! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I missed those days when the St. Regis was going for 10K/night...... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif