Originally Posted by Jon Maiman

I struggle with this question. I had been of a mind to save up my MR points for a big free vacation courtesy of MR. Now that I am in that zone (235,000 points) and still earning lots of points via business stays, I am thinking of modifying my redemption strategy. Occassionally I have need to stay at a local hotel while doing renovations on my house. So far I have paid for those stays. Now, I am thinking of redeeming points instead and saving my cash. I will still have plenty left for a free big vacation. Only thing holding me back until now is wanting to ensure I will hit the minimum number of nights for gold renewal this year. At my current rate of travel, I'll just miss platinum this year (missed by 5 ngihts last year). Also the new Megabonus deal is swaying me to still do paid stays. For now, I'll probably continue to pay until I complete the Megabonus and than re-evaluate. May continue to pay until I qualify for platinum (or have no chance of doing so) and then start redeeming.

By the way if I did redeem now, I can typically get 1 cent to 1.5 cent per point value for local stays. I consider that acceptable and better than my return on miles for an typical local/domestic airline trip. Have far fewer miles accrued, so still hording them until I have enough for a free big trip (e.g. 2 x tickets in C or F to Europe or Hawaii).

Bottom line, it is a personal decision. I don't think there is a single correct answer.


--Jon