chapel7

Ok... so, here goes.

I travel for work a great bit and have...

103,367 Choice Privilege Points

73,789 IHG points

43,453 HHonor points

40,982 Marriott rewards points

and

24,040 Best Western rewards points

I want to convert these to Delta skymiles to add my balance of 19,800
skymiles for a trip to London the week of the 4th of July.

This will be my first attempt at redeeming point for skymiles and redeeming skymiles for a trip.

Any advice you can offer on how to go about this, when and how soon would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank You SO MUCH!!

samplat

Welcome to FT!

Unfortunately there aren't very many good options for converting hotel points to delta miles. Some of the programs are convertible but at a very poor ratio e.g. Hilton to delta ratio is 10:1, choice is 5:1 IIRC. Your best bet might be to use the points for hotel stays and pay for the airline costs.

Here's a site that offers a mile converter calculator. Not up to date but still helpful to try to get some idea of conversions.

http://www.webflyer.com/programs/mileage_converter/

Also, search for threads within the program forums ( e.g. Hilton) on converting from one program to another for specific tips and suggestions.

MSPeconomist

Don't convert anything into DL miles unless you are sure that there is award inventory at low levels. Even if you could change all your hotel points to DL miles, you might not find any award tickets for dates you are able to travel, the DL award tickets could require fifteen hour connections in both directions, and the DL award tickets could cost about three times as many miles as they should.

chapel7

I will call Delta and ask if it's possible to see if there are any award seats available for the dates I need and how many points are required.

Hilton looks to be the worst conversion with a rate of 10 to 1
Marriott is great with a exchange rate of 3 to 1
Choice priveleges and IHG are the next best at 5 to 1

These points do me know good to stay at a hotel since my employer always pay for my stays. The only time they did me any good was when I used my IHG points to stay a week in Paris last year for my Wife and mine's honeymoon at the Intercontinental.

Even if it would only afford me one ticket and then I could purchase the other I would genuinely like to add these points to the Delta Skymiles I already have and based on all the conversion charts I've seen I should have at least enough for that but I thought you guys would be able to help me find some additional information to maximize the ways in which to do this but.... well, I thank you for your time.

MSPeconomist

Don't just look at the ratios. You earn points at different rates in different hotel programs and points have different redemption values. For example, without affiliated credit cards, one normally earns 5-10 points per dollar at Marriott but only 2-3 at Starwood. It also costs more Marriott points than Starwood for equivalent rooms.

opushomes

Overall, I believe your strategy is one of the worst.

Keep in mind that calling and asking if there is availability at this exact second may result in nothing available the next second. You cannot rely on a phone call unless you are ready to buy the ticket now. This is a very basic rookie mistake as inventories and pricing whether cash or reward change thousands of times per day.

Delta is one of the worst airlines for award availability.

Time for you to start reading the invaluable insight available not only on FT but all over the internet.

chapel7

And that's why I've come to you guys so that you can educate me on the best way to go about it. Regardless, I need to take a trip to London in July and I would like to use Delta skymiles since I already have 19,000. What is the best way to redeeming points or are they not worth anything?

I mean seriously, does everybody find ways to gather up skymiles and frequent flier miles only to not be able to use them unless they have the ability to leave on a whim and don't have a life or work routine to schedule around?

Really... educate me. What's the best way to go about this?

RhubarbPie

Where are you flying from (and is it only you flying)? Are your dates flexible? If so, how many days are you trying to be away for? If not flexible, what are the dates? Are you trying to fly business, economy, etc? More details would be helpful.

The miles are not worthless. Delta in particular makes it very difficult to easily redeem at mileage levels that aren't completely absurd. Obviously, the more flexible you are, the easier it is to redeem on any carrier, and particularly delta. And as others have mentioned, transferring points from hotel programs to airlines is generally not a the best deal. Are you open to getting a credit card or 2 (or 3)?

Anyways, if you provide more details, I would be happy to help you look for what you need. But you should also try to educate yourself by reading what others have already posted on this topic (on FT and elsewhere). There are TONS of posts and blogs on redeeming skymiles. And you can use the point converter above to roughly see what your points convert to if you transfer them to miles, if thats what you decide you want to do.

chapel7

Two people, economy and from Atlanta to London in July from the 1st to the 25th for two weeks.

RhubarbPie

Ok - r/t from the US to Europe in economy is 60,000 Skymiles. So if you plan to truly go through with transferring all of those hotel points to Delta, you'll only have enough miles for one flight, and the other you'd need to purchase with money (I'd suggest using your miles for the other person's ticket, and purchasing yours with money, so you then in turn accrue miles for your flight). If you wanted to purchase both using mileage, you could open a delta cc and an Amex that accrues membership rewards points (like the premier rewards gold card) which can be transferred to Delta. However, who knows what the award availability would be by the time you meet the spend requirement and receive and transfer your bonus miles.

I was able to find award flights at the low level (60,000 miles) departing July 1 (3 hr layover in IAD) and returning July 15 (2.5 hr layover in DTW). I didn't have to mess around with Delta's broken search engine or try to trick the system for this one. If you go to delta's website, search for a roundtrip award flight (check the box that says "My dates are flexible") between ATL and LHR, and you should see the same results. It doesn't always (or usually, even) allow you to produce low level award results searching that way, but for this particular search, it did. There are 200.00ish in taxes and fees for that flight which are imposed mostly by LHR and the UK, which no amount of mileage or status will take care of. LHR is just an expensive place to fly into. No getting around that.

You'll want to also check the price to purchase the same roundtrip ticket as your award flight, since you'll being doing that and presumably, you want to fly together on the same flight. If you don't care about being on the exact same flights, and are okay with just arriving/departing on the same day, you'll have more flexibility.

Hope that's helpful.

Mwenenzi

chapel7 Welcome to the forum

Have a look here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-skymiles-665/

LHR is just an expensive place to fly out of. Same for all UK airports. Flying into has few taxes (if any)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_passenger_duty

Edit:
From a post on 2 Feb 2013

RhubarbPie

That was nit picky without being helpful. The OP is going to London from Atlanta and will need to get back to Atlanta on a flight that originates in London. The point was, if you're going to London and intend to fly in and out of LHR, you're going to pay significant taxes (as demonstrated by the taxes on the example I provided).

onthego15

Your 19,800 skymiles have very little value compared to what you will need to fly to and from London. You will be better off spending your time searching for good fares. Even if you are serious about acquiring skymiles, chances are it will take you many, many months to accumulate enough miles to get an award ticket, and by that time probably nothing will be available (July is a peak month for travel to and from London).
So, my advice is to start researching fares. Good luck