Originally Posted by
DFW DL
The travel package awards are definitely the way to go here. 250k MR points, redeemed for ailine miles, nets only 100k miles. Redeemed for the travel package award, one gets 120k miles and 7 free Marriott nights in a Cat 6. All you need to do for the transfer is to call MR to redeem the award and tell them which FF account you want the miles transferred to. The miles are transferred within a few days and the hotel certifcate (as well as a few other goodies) are mailed to you.
I believe that United is the only major still offering 60k business class awards to Hawaii. Delta still has first class awards to Hawaii for 60k each, but these must be redeemed by March 16th. After that, they go up to 75k each, matching AA, NW, and CO. I am unaware of any airlines which offer business class awards to Europe for less than 80k each.
Couple of questions on this post:
1) What if you need more than 120K airline points for your trip? do you get another say 120K airline miles (or more) at 235K marriott points and another 7-day hotel certificate?
2) After getting the cert. in the mail, can you change the reservation date or is the cert just "open" and just check the hotel then for availability?
3) IF changeable hotel cert. does it have an expiration date associated with it? (i.e. 1 year)