I do not belong to any *A program. My wife and I each have<10K miles in Sky Miles so we can walk away feeling no great loss. My points (miles) would be drawn from a combination of Amex and Marriott. Therefore, the question is whether to dump the requisite total into a CO account now or just before they jump the ST train. Would they then transfer the points to another *A member willingly or stay "nonepass" Currently, if one takes the maximum award from Marriott involving a Cat.7 hotel, one pays 270K points and receives 120K miles into a CO account. However, the same program will only yield 85K miles to a*A member. Similarly, AMEX will transfer points to CO currently, but none to *A members.