IC Expert

Has anyone ever done this? The www.airmiles.ca site makes it sound difficult. If you have what was your experience? Did it happen quickly? Was there any restrictions on booking? Thanks

Nomade

I did it two years ago. It can't be done Online. You have to call Airmiles first, tell them which property you want to stay at, and specify dates. They redeem the proper number of Airmiles points and transfer it to you Priority Club account. Then, you can complete your reservation. The whole process just took one day. And don't forget, those miles counts for qualifying to top-tier level in IHG.

IC Expert

I wonder if this could be used with point breaks. Instead of telling them what property and when, i wish i could just convert my airmiles to PC points

MXM135

I have done ths many times. Call Air Miles and let them know the type of hotel you wish to book (Holiday Inn, Candlewood, IC, etc) and tell them the number of PC points you want and they will convert xxx AM to PC points.

Conversion rate isn't very good but it works. Points are posted within 2 to 3 days. They don't care about Point Breaks as it has nothing to do with them.

mxm135

sdsearch

You can, it's just that they don't understand it that way. (It's, in fact, very similar to the way Priority Club itself used to work, with transfers to American Airlines a few years ago. The Priority Club website said you were redeeming for a specific flight destination, but you were simply redeeming for the number of miles needed for that flight destination. And those transfers, which back then were at rates better than 3:1, were only available at very speciifc point thresholds, corresponding to 25k miles, 35k miles, etc. And you had to call...)

Keep in mind that most phone agents at many companies can only do what their scripts tell them. So you have to give it to them in that format.

They expect the average person wanting Priority Club points to not know how many points they want, just what hotel they want (and so they look up the points).

Maybe you could just tell them "I want a hotel that will need xxxxx PC poitns", but if not, you just need to find a random hotel that needs that (for a given number of nights) and pretend that's where you're going to stay.

ride red

I transferred points from Airmiles to PC points this spring. They do count towards Platinum status. The transfer was very fast - about a day if I remember right. You need to phone AM. You can use them for Pointsbreaks, they're just like any other points. And there are limitations on the amounts that can be transfered. I don't think you can do a transaction of 375AM to 5000 PC. I did 1500AM to 20000 PC, cause I told them I needed one night at a Staybridge for 20 000 points.

Shareholder

What I have started doing recently is booking my ICH stays through the Canadian AIR MILES Shops portal. This takes you right to the ICH booking site and brings up one's default account. This way I can double dip, since I get 1 AM for every C$20 spent for the room, in addition to my normal PC points and bonuses. (Actually, I triple dip by charging the stay to one of my affinity credit cards!)

AMs post quite quickly after the stay as I had two bookings for last week in Singapore and Malaysia and both have now appeared in my AM account, within days of the PC points posting to my PC account.

So this may be the best way of earning AMs for stays at ICH properties.

(Note that this also works with the Aeroplan shopping portal which also accesses the ICH booking site. Both AM and AE portals can be used to access SPG properties too. However, AE takes forever to post miles earned.)

Points Surfer

Thanks Shareholder......never thought of booking through a portal like that. I've got a new plan now ! ^

Stezo

[QUOTE= I did 1500AM to 20000 PC, cause I told them I needed one night at a Staybridge for 20 000 points.[/QUOTE]

I have just over 7000 AM points, and no longer in Canada, so figured I might as well use them up. Anyone know if it is it still 1500AM = 20000PC?

MXM135

Stezo, here is the link showing the current conversions from AirMiles to PC points:

https://www.airmiles.ca/arrow/Reward...d1029849628320

Hope this helps.

mxm135

Stezo

Perfect, not sure how I missed that on the airmiles site!
Thanks!

MXM135

It used to be more readily available and visible, now you have to search for the information.

mxm135

tMonk1

the Canadian AIr Miles loyalty program has cancelled its offer to convert Air Miles Points to IHG Rewards Pts. (example - 1,900 AIr MIles + 25,000 IHG rewards pts.)
No announcement anywhere from either party that was easily publicly viewable. I went to the Air Miles site to make a conversion on August 31 and found the note saying that August 31 would be the last day for such conversion. However,, Air Miles had already removed the link and closed the phone lines (not open on Sunday). Very disappointing. Now IHG properties can only be booked using Air Miles pts. through the awkward and limited (no suites etc) booking facility on the Air Miles website. What really bugs me is that there are NO accessible rooms offered. Used to be able to buy pts with Air Miles and easily shop for the type of room I needed. No more - another program diluted. Makes Marriott and Hyatt much more attractive.