Originally Posted by
wahoohfd
I am planning to transfer some of my Diners Club points to Marriott or Southwest.
I know 1 DC point gets me 1.2 Marriott points or 0.8 Southwest points. Does anyone have any thoughts on the valuation of Marriott and Southwest points and which might be the better deal? Thanks in advance.
-wahoohfd
What you "know" isn't quite correct. If you go through SPG first, you get
1.8 Marriott points per DC point. Please see this thread:
As to the valuation, it's complex. At Marriott, it depends
a lot on where you would use your Marriott points. Sometimes you can get a hotel that's $200+ for 10000 Marriott points, but other times you get a hotel that's under $100 charging you 35000+ Marriott points. If you're only going to hold out for the former (which I've found in places like Africa and the Middle East, not sure how many other places), then it's great value. If you're going to use them "willy nilly" wherever you need to stay with no attention paid to point value, you might end up at the other end of the scale. Or, by being more thoughtful about when to use them and when not to use them, you might end up somewhere in the middle (but not going to places where they're the very cheapest). And it can depend in part on whether you need to stay in big city centers or more in suburbs or smaller cities.
Meanwhile, go to the Southwest forum to get the latest, but IIRC Southwest points (assuming used for Wanna Get Away) fares are roughly 1.5 cents per dollar.