<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by MileKing:
Its true that most conversions from hotel programs to airline miles are bad deals because of the terrible conversion rates. I almost never convert my hotel points this way because of the loss in value. The few exceptions are, of course, where the conversion will lead to more mile (e.g., the current AA promotion that requires 20 partners and a conversion counts as a partner transaction). However, Starwood points convert 1-to-1 to airline miles in most FF programs. Just one more reason Starwood is my favorite hotel frequent guest program.</font>
Just because Starwood is 1:1 and Holiday Inn is 4:1 does not means that Starwood is a better value. A Starwood gold/plat gets 25,000 airline miles for 20K pts ($6666 spent). With Holdiday Inn, a gold member gets 11 points per dollar, and 67,200 points convert to 25,000 AA miles. So to get 25,000 miles you need to spend $6109. And a platinum member at Holiday Inn needs to spend $5169.