pinniped

I'm sure he was able to phrase this in a "truthy" kind of way. TYN does not add additional fees for redeeming points. But...you must redeem via Expedia, which does add fees and requires you to forfeit any applicable online booking mileage bonus you would have otherwise received from the airline.

So yes, the value of 1 TYP approaches 1 cent as the value of the redeemed ticket increases.

Yes - SPG has seven hotel categories. Or maybe it's 8...I lose track of SPG's top categories in places like French Polynesia, etc. But that's typical with a hotel program. At the current time, I feel that SPG offers far superior value to TYN...although I understand that a few people here are grandfathered into a card that yields 4 or 5 TYP per dollar, which is getting pretty close to on-par with SPG Amex.

Note that the value of the SPG Amex is at its highest when (a) global hotel demand is high and (b) the U.S. dollar is weak. The Starpoints I'm earning right now probably won't get spent until 2010 because, right now, I'm finding cheap hotel rooms readily available. The one advantage that TYP has is more instant gratification: you can always just cash 'em out on your next flight for reasonably close to a penny a point.

oopsz

I usually use SPG points at an equivalent of $.04 to $.07 per point, earning 1x points per dollar. I don't generally convert to airline programs but redeem for hotel nights, valuing them at the rate I'd otherwise have to pay to book the room.

I earn TY points at a rate of 3x to 5x per dollar, but cash them out at $.01 each.

Right now because of the liquidity available through thank you redemptions (either in travel or gift cards), I'm sticking to TY as my main program, only using SPG when I stay at SPG properties for the double bonus. But if TY gets devalued any further, or if I start losing select-spend groups, I'll seriously consider moving over to SPG as my main program.

IAD-SFO-TPE

could you share some insight how to maximize the value of SPG points? $0.04-0.07 is so amazing.


I still have some points, and was looking for category 3-4 hotel room for my vacation. those room reward typically requires 7000-10000 points, which I dont think it will cost me more than $150-200 if I book it elsewhere. that is $0.02 per point to me.

thanks.

GUWonder

Mid- and low SPG award category resort area hotels during peak periods often have quite high cash rates while still selling quite reasonable or cheap SPG point rates because the award category is based on the average rate for the hotel and that averaging includes the off-peak and peak period rates. Going for such hotels is how I often manage to get 4-7 cents of value out of an SPG point. Bookings in an area with a special event driving sky high cash rates are another good use of SPG points -- like DC during the most recent Inauguration.

pinniped

My good ones:

Munich for Oktoberfest. 8500 points for a junior suite that comfortably slept four guys. Even Best Western type places were charging 300 Euros a night for a two-twin-bed room.

Berlin Marathon. Another 8500 point junior suite at a Westin that would have cost around 400 Euros per night just for a basic room. (In fairness, Berlin had lower-cost rooms near the outskirts of town. But we were unfamiliar with Berlin and knew that our Westin was only a few hundred meters from the start/finish line of the marathon.)

Westin Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. 10k per night for three nights, $500/nt. rooms. OK, I'll admit that calling this 5 cents a point is a stretch because we could have Pricelined elsewhere in LA, but damn it was nice to be in the prime location for the parade and game and not have to deal with a car at all that weekend.

Westin PVR for Spring Break. I forget exact rates (something like $350/nt. for a regular room), but we used 8500 points per room per night for two rooms right down the hall from an excellent lounge that served food and open bar pretty much all day. The extra 1500 points per night was to guarantee the lounge level - gorgeous rooms and I hardly ever walked around that place without a beer in my hand. (This hotel has since jumped to a Cat 4, but in peak season I'd still consider it a good value.)


So not only do I credit these as 4-7 cent redemptions, a couple of them are trips we simply wouldn't have been able to do the same way without Starpoints. ^


This is why I almost never exchange Starpoints for airline miles. In an emergency it's nice to know I can, but I hope I never have to.

username

This is the first time I read this thread. Wow! I did not read the whole thing but it sounds like Citi did a big devaluation of the program earlier in the year.

This is interesting. I have another card called CitiMiles which gives 1 actual flight mile for $15 you spend. This is a card that Citi took over after AirMiles went belly up in the US in the early 90s. The old term was that the minimum redemption was 500 (R/T) miles and no fees at all. So, it was perfect for expensive short segments.

In the February statement which I got in early March, there was a few lines about the term change retroactive to 1 March. Minimum went from 500 miles to 2500 miles and also a $39 fee. Obviously this made the card useless - and I think that is what they wanted. Why would I charge $37,500 to fly half way across the country?

When I called, even the agents did not know about the T&C change. They actually extended the old term by 4 weeks. I actually tried to warn people here but it seemed very few FTers have that card: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...rm-change.html

So, it looked like Citi was really busy tightening the belts.

So, I cashed out all my miles - got 3 tickets with my 1700 miles left. Booked a bunch of trips that I was not 100% sure I would take. Either way I would have lost the miles. So, why not.

What I learned from it was that:

1 - it is safer to have a card where the bank does not hold your rewards
2 - Citibank really does not mind scr**ing over its customers

I actually do have TYN also from banking with them + the AT&T Universal card. Luckily, this is really my secondary card.

pinniped

Are there any geographic, time, price, or airline restrictions on that 2500 mile CitiMiles redemption? I can see where it could still have a niche. Last-minute Kansas City to Canada is always a pain in the A to find decent fares, even ones that would be well under 1250 miles each way. It's simply a market nobody really competes for...

Also, from what I've observed, it'd still have a nice niche from Western Europe to Eastern Europe secondary airports. Even very short ones are sometimes $800 R/T unless you happen to have one of the European LCC's competing.

But I agree with your general premise: the home-grown points programs are almost never a good long-term play. For a program to be rewarding enough to attract people like us, we all join it knowing full well that it probably isn't sustainable. TYN has gone through two such iterations (three if you count the unannounced 3c to 2c cap in February).

IMHO, the main key is that the airlines themselves control international premium cabin awards. They can give them away to frequent fliers at a lower effective cost because, in most cases, they're giving away a lot of seats that wouldn't have been sold for full revenue anyway. Banks don't have that: they have to buy that seat for you to redeem it. (Granted, in some cases they get discounts, but still...) That kills sustainability if they attempt to make those awards lucrative enough to attract us.

Happy

If TYN redemption in the past is a guide, you would not be able to redeem anything that is not originated from US. Before the devaluation, the fixed pt redemption can only redeem flights originated in US. Given the Citimiles still have a fixed level, I imagine it probably has the same restrictions.

Citi probably stopped offering Citimile card long ago. That may explain why very few here has much reaction when being informed about its devaluation.

username

Oh, yes. That part did not change - must originate in the USA, must stay Saturday night and must book 2 or 3 weeks in advance. It served me well but it is time to move on.

IAD-SFO-TPE

wow! that's impressive, I thank you for the examples.