FlyerTalk Forums - conversion from airmiles.ca to Starpoints

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conversion from airmiles.ca to Starpoints

New here, hopefully I post in the right forum...

I'm trying to find out what is the conversion rate from airmiles (airmiles.ca) to Starwood points? One online calculator states it is 1:1, but I'm not sure that makes sense since I highly doubt it takes 20 000 airmiles to book 1 night at a category 6 Starwood property. The airmiles website has no info on the correspoint points required and phone service is not available right now.

For reference, I am looking at the Starwoods in Waikiki (Sheraton Waikiki or Royal Hawaiaan). I am having a hard time booking a flight with airmiles so trying to see if it is worth it to use them for the hotel portion of the trip.

thanks!

I'm not aware of any way to convert Airmiles.ca to Starpoints, at any price.

If this is possible, please share how.

Cheers,

I think you need to call airmiles

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flews (Post 21213994)

I'm not aware of any way to convert Airmiles.ca to Starpoints, at any price.

If this is possible, please share how.

Cheers,

You can convert airmiles to a few hotel programs. If I recall SPG and IHG are a couple of the plans. I do not know the SPG conversion rates, but I think you need 1900 airmiles for 25000 IHG points (or something like that).

I am pretty certain you need to phone airmiles as they cannot be converted via the website.

I understood you could redeem Air Miles for specific hotel stays but not converted to the hotel's loyalty program. The T&C on the website sure makes it seem like you aren't exchange Air Miles for points but booking an award at a specific hotel on a specific night:

Code:

All hotels offered are subject to the Terms and Conditions of the AIR MILES® Reward Program and its participating Sponsors and Suppliers. Hotel availability is subject to change and may be withdrawn without notice. Some restrictions may apply.



Hotels may be booked up to and including day of arrival, subject to availability.

 

Collectors must pay all taxes and fees, and other applicable charges at time of redemption with a valid credit card. Prices for hotels in Europe are inclusive of VAT.

 

Additional hotel property fees not included in the room charge may be charged by the hotel property at check-in or check-out. Hotel property charges may vary, for example, based on length of stay or the room booked.

 

Collector must have sufficient reward miles in their AIR MILES® Collector Account to redeem for any hotel. The number of reward miles required for redemption is subject to verification at time of booking and is not guaranteed until reservation is confirmed.

 

All travel services are arranged by LoyaltyOne Travel Services Inc., which may impose its own service fees for arranging travel services.  A service fee of $20 (plus applicable taxes) will apply to all hotel redemptions made through the AIR MILES Customer Care Centre

 

Changes may be permitted, and are subject to a $25 change fee (plus applicable taxes). No price increases permitted.



Changes may require the redemption of additional AIR MILES® reward miles in the event of a change of supplier, location, date (s), number of rooms, or room type. The Collector will be responsible for and must pay any additional taxes, fees and/or surcharges, as well as additional AIR MILES® reward miles required for the change. Any changes are subject to availability.

 

The Terms and Conditions of the AIR MILES® Reward Program may be more restrictive and may supersede the Hotel Sponsor/Supplier Terms and Conditions.

Or am I missing an unpublished exchange of Air Miles to hotel loyalty points?

To be clear to people reading this, the OP is talking about a Canadian shopping rewards program.

Up until recently airmiles.ca showed exactly how many points you needed for a category 1-5 stay. I don't think they converted it to starpoints, but rather booked it directly as a non-refundable stay. You had to call in to do it.

Now the website has completely taken down the redemption rate table (??) and simply states that you need to call. So perhaps it has moved to a simple points conversion like they do with IHG or they've altered the rates.

As I recall, the redemption rates were very poor, particularly for cat 4 and 5 properties. Then again, the redemption rates are not great for anything in the Airmiles program.

They did not have cat 6 or 7 available at all.

Best advice on this one is to just call airmiles as soon as you can.

IF they've moved to the same system as IHG, you tell them what property you need and number of nights over the phone, and they convert the exact number of points required at a set rate. You then log in to your IHG rewards account and book it yourself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dorienna (Post 21213934)

For reference, I am looking at the Starwoods in Waikiki (Sheraton Waikiki or Royal Hawaiaan). I am having a hard time booking a flight with airmiles so trying to see if it is worth it to use them for the hotel portion of the trip.

thanks!

Air Miles' conversion rates have always been quite poor. I've never found a hotel redemption with Air Miles that was fair.

Your Air Miles may offer better value as gift cards if you can't find workable flights.

Rather than converting, you'll do better by signing up for an Amex SPG (Starwood) card, and use those points to pay for a few nights.

to add to others' comments, i believe that you can only redeem airmiles.ca points for rooms, not convert them to spg points.
i have done this in the past. you must call spg and reserve with the airmiles code corresponding to the certificate that you will receive when you redeem your points.
not all hotels have availability for that rate code.
you can see the number of airmiles required by going one step further into the redemption process on airmiles.ca. from memory, they're something in the vicinity of 1300 airmiles for a cat 4 and 1500 for a cat 5.

webflyer.com gives most conversion rates including airmiles.ca to SPG at a rate of 1:1