Originally Posted by
MNAudiS4
Quick question, got a stay over in athens, Greece in may. Marriott rack rate is 209 EURO's a night which is 275 dollars not including taxes. So lets say 300 a night. Is it work dropping 55k points for 2 nights. I have 641K points if that comes into the picture?
Does anyone have a good value table for marriott points?
I generally will not redeem an award unless I can get more than one cent per point,
net. "Net" is the key concept, since you have to calculate the effect of the foregone points, as well as the points you pay/redeem for the room.
(Even then, though, I will run another calculation on the effect of paying for the room using a Premium Pound as part payment.)
In your case, we will presume you have the Premier card (and thus earn 5 points per dollar charged) and are Silver (and thus earn 20% bonus on base points). Assumptions are reasonable, since you *should* have those things if you're a US-based [MSP] member (credit card is widely available, and brings enough nights bonus credit to make the holder at least Silver so long as he holds the card).
Points earned if stay is paid by charging the credit card:
10 base points per dollar excluding taxes, calculated on $275/night = 5500
+ 20% bonus points for Silver, calculated on 5500 base points = 1100
+ 5 points per dollar charged to credit card,
including tax, calculated on $300/night = 3000
Total points foregone if using an award: 5500 + 1100 + 3000 = 9600
To which you have to add the points paid for award: 55,000
So the net points the award "costs" (i.e., points paid + points foregone) = 55,000 + 9,600 =
64,600 points.
Total cash cost is $300 per night =
$600
So, you're saving $600 by giving up 64,600 points, for a redemption rate of about .93 cents per point. This doesn't equal or exceed 1 cent/point, and as such is, IMHO, a bad deal (all other things equal).
Of course, all other things may not be equal, for instance you may have more points than you expect to be able to use (in which case you may be willing to settle for a redemption of less than one cent per point) or you may be saving for a travel award where point redemption value is close to 2 cents per point (in which case you wouldn't want to redeem for rooms at much less than 2 cents per point), or you may have no money (in which case paying for the rooms is not a viable option).
(I leave the Premium Pounds analysis as an exercise for the reader, but note that, based on my calculations, and considering £1 = 1.50 EUR, it makes the award redemption even less enticing.)