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Exchanging Marriott Points for Tesco CC and BA Miles

Exchanging Marriott Points for Tesco CC and BA Miles

Old Jan 1, 2007, 5:13 am
  #46  
 
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Originally Posted by spotwelder
OK, so you can autotransfer by selecting earning preference, or at least I guess so. If you have just purchased 99000 points, how does this get transferred?

If you self transfer, then you get stuck in the TO4 reward for 70k points then a TO2 for 20,000 points and so on.

I might have to do a bit more jiggling around to purchase a few extra k of points so that I end up with 250k for transfer purposes. Not that I am taking this seriously of course....
auto transfer is only when you stay with Marriot (at least thats what I was told previously) ie your stay will autoconvert into Tesco points etc

Self transfer means you have to stick with their designated bands - so as you say need to "jiggle" a little to get the best for you.

I am thinking of buying a "few" MRs at a time and then converting all together
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Old Jan 1, 2007, 8:21 am
  #47  
 
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Originally Posted by 5EF
Same here, Marriott points all posted ok, now to convert to Tesco. Will let you know how it goes.
Me too, 125K in the account today and i've ordered the Tesco reward.
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Old Jan 1, 2007, 4:24 pm
  #48  
 
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I've made a couple of orders now as the first order has been successful. It makes great sense with the Amex 241 voucher and it's also ideal for Clubcard deals as there are some good opportunities to save on some airport hotels/parking etc.

It also makes sense to purchase the Marriott points using a Nationwide credit card. If you're using an Amex card, you're effectively buying the extra BA miles you get for using the card at around 1.8p - not such a good deal considering you're buying them for less than 1p/mile in the first place!
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Old Jan 1, 2007, 4:45 pm
  #49  
 
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Christmas cards

Just checked my Marriott account and like my Christmas cards for 2006, nothing posted yet!
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Old Jan 1, 2007, 5:20 pm
  #50  
 
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Originally Posted by Pocket Aces
It also makes sense to purchase the Marriott points using a Nationwide credit card.
I have often wondered about this credit card - do they get their money back from wider spreads. Can you say what the actual sterling cost was to you by date as a comparison with other cards we all use.
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Old Jan 1, 2007, 5:41 pm
  #51  
 
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Originally Posted by TOMSURFER
I have often wondered about this credit card - do they get their money back from wider spreads. Can you say what the actual sterling cost was to you by date as a comparison with other cards we all use.
As a comparison, 99,000 MR points cost me 517.87 paying with BA Amex on 29 December.
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Old Jan 1, 2007, 5:48 pm
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by knifeandfork
As a comparison, 99,000 MR points cost me 517.87 paying with BA Amex on 29 December.
My Marriott Visa was 518.55 on 28 December.
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 1:56 am
  #53  
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Originally Posted by TOMSURFER
I have often wondered about this credit card - do they get their money back from wider spreads.
Remember that none of the credit cards in the UK that offer 'spread-free' FX transactions offer miles or any other sort of reward scheme. The extra costs presumably wash out.

I don't actually have a Nationwide / Post Office / Liverpool Victoria visa, for instance, because I need my overseas spend to either (a) trigger my Amex 2-4-1 or (b) post triggering my Amex voucher, I value 2 BMI miles per 1 as more valuable than a 2.75% saving on my transaction.
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 2:24 am
  #54  
 
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Originally Posted by TOMSURFER
My Marriott Visa was 518.55 on 28 December.
My bmi platinum card on 31 December 2006 was 519.79.
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 2:35 am
  #55  
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The question of which credit card offers best value has been asked many times and will no doubt continue to be asked.

The only fair and consistent way of comparing is to use different cards at the same merchant at the same time, hoping that they will be processed and charged at the same time and appear on statements at the same time. This avoids daily rate variations. This is usually difficult to arrange for one person.

Having said that, I have regularly used my Nationwide Visa and AmEx (and occasionally other) cards in the same location outside the UK if not at the same merchant. Without fail, the Nationwide transactions are cheaper, usually by around 2.75%. At one time, Nationwide offered reasonable cashback on all purchases (1% I think), but this is now only 0.25% and only on UK purchases.

As to whether lower prices with no miles or higher prices with miles are better, this is clearly an individual decision. FWIW, my UK spending on fuel and supermarkets goes on my GE Money MasterCard, earning 3% cashback up to 5,000 p.a. (and 0.5% on other expenditure). For me, this is better than earning miles.

My business expenditure goes mainly to AmEx cards of different persuasions, and the fallback card is the bmi MasterCard.

Ain't life complicated?
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 2:59 am
  #56  
 
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Not quite sure yet what my spend was using the Nationwide Visa as it hasn't posted yet. But as Raffles noted, the extra amount it costs can be justified by using a BMI MasterCard. Alternatively it could be worthwhile if you need to put spend on the Amex card to trigger the voucher.

My thoughts were that, after these Marriott points purchases, I wouldn't need any extra BA or BMI miles for quite a while, so saving a few quid was more important than gaining the extra miles at around 1.8p
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 3:58 am
  #57  
 
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The only fair and consistent way of comparing is to use different cards at the same merchant at the same time, hoping that they will be processed and charged at the same time and appear on statements at the same time. This avoids daily rate variations.

To those of you who know about this stuff, given that several US transactions on the same day come in at a differing FX rate - is the rate determined by the money market rate at the exact time that the transaction hits your Amex account ?

Knowing that, and watching the online FX rates, would give an optimum time for a buying opportunity of MRs etc.- recently there has been a movement of 3 cents or so within the day.

Thanks
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 6:07 am
  #58  
 
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Originally Posted by TOMSURFER
I reckon that if they get purchase requests for 1,250 million marriott points and corresponding orders for 350 million tesco clubcard points(when in the last year they probably got no orders at all) they wil notice it ! ( and Tesco ! )
Make hay whilst the sun shines!
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 6:29 am
  #59  
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Originally Posted by JimmyTheJock
Make hay whilst the sun shines!
Will anyone really care?!

I am sure that Marriott has priced its points at a level which makes them a profit under most (all?) redemption scenarios. I therefore assume that they pay Tesco less than $10 per 1,000 when you transfer. After all, it was Marriott's choice to set the redemptions thresholds (ie 125k for 35k Tesco) where they are. And, lets fact it, you are basically spending 650 for 350 of Tesco clubcard vouchers which hardly seems a bad deal for Marriott or Tesco!

I also assume that Tesco has priced its points at a similar level, meaning that Tesco is not paying more than the face value of the voucher (2.50 per 600 miles) when you transfer to BA.

And BA, of course, is very careful with its award availability to only release seats for miles that are unlikely to be sold.

In theory, everybody in the pyramid - you, Marriott, Tesco and BA - should be happy with this deal! If not, Marriott and / or Tesco has only itself to blame for setting its transfer values at the wrong level.

The only people who will lose are those at the bottom of the Tesco Deals food chain (Goldsmiths, Virgin Holidays etc) who accept Deals tokens but assume that 99% of customer will only have 50-worth or so. If you use 750 of Tesco vouchers (c1,400 of Marriott points) to buy a 3,000 Rolex in Goldsmiths, then Goldsmiths will be taking a hit - but I assume they write this off as part of the cost of being part of Clubcard Deals.

I have yet to get to the bottom of whether you can use CC vouchers for Upper Class Virgin Holidays deals. You are not allowed to use CC vouchers for flight upgrades, but some Virgin Holidays are brochure-priced (or at least web-priced) as including UC flights in the basic deal.

Last edited by Raffles; Jan 2, 2007 at 7:55 am
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Old Jan 2, 2007, 10:25 am
  #60  
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Is there a reasonable degree of certainty that the points will transfer to the Tesco account before cutoff? I know they say upto 6 weeks ................

On the CC front, what makes the calc even more complex is considering the Nationwide debit card which always seems to be between 5% to 7% cheaper than credit cards whenever I've used both on the same day abroad. This sometimes makes miles a bit of a stretch as 7% is pretty good!
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