Originally Posted by steve100
- Charge $20,000 on Starwood card, and that is enough for a free trip in the USA. Or charge $40,000 on the card and that is enough for a free trip to Europe. (This is based on the fact that 20k SPG points translates to 25k miles with most airlines. And, most airlines are 25k for a free trip in USA or 50k for a free trip to Europe).
- Charge $20,000 on the Fidelity card, and you will get $300 (or charge $40k and you will get $600).
Since I can usually get tickets for travel in the USA for under $300, and my travel to Europe is usually around $600 to $700, I opt for the cash option. This way, when I buy tickets, I earn more miles by actually flying. I also don't have problems trying to get extremely hard to find award tickets. For those destinations which regularly cost more than $300 to fly to (say Boston to Anchorage), I just use my miles I earned from flying (rather than miles earned from charging on my credit card) to get an award ticket.
True, but a large conversion of Starpoints to air miles is about the
worst possible redemption option you can make, except as a last resort. That's why Starwood is more than happy to give you 1.25 miles/point on large conversions!
SPG to miles is a valuable feature of the card - a main reason I use it as a primary. But it's most valuable when you are moving as few miles as possible to liberate orphaned FF miles.
I would argue that 20,000 Starpoints represents about $600 in free hotel rooms, conservatively. If you have a use for free hotel nights, then you can't best SPG. If you don't have a use for free hotel nights (which the OP might not, because of those timeshares...), then cashback is probably better.