AA devaluation and SPG Buyout. What to do now?
 

My main credit cards are SPG Amex (business and personal) and Chase UR (business and personal).

I travel a lot from ORD to BKK and back several times a year. It used to cost 67,500 miles, but now it will be 110,000 for FC. I used to mostly rack up SPG points and transfer them to AA and then book CX.

I still want to fly FC on CX. Is there another airline that I could transfer my SPG points to that would cost less? Maybe Alaska?

Also, would it be wise to start using my SPG cards a lot less and use my Chase cards a lot more since they are being bought out by Marriott? I've already racked up over a million points with SPG and I don't trust that they will be worth as much anymore, do you?

Have you looked on Amex & SPG web sites for other airlines options? (not hard)
Have you looked at the award cost for other ffp's
FF miles are not equal to earn or burn.
Some ffp's have high cash award surcharges

http://www.awardace.com/
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...demptions.html

The grass in not always greener on the other side

Yes, if Marriott prevails and is the future owner of Starwood, your points will be going down in value. It will probably be 6-12 months after the deal is finalized when the first devaluation hits, and it could get precipitous down the road from there. This is why I've made sure to tap into and use some of my SPG points whenever my own point total crept near 100K.

I'm also planning on canceling my SPG Amex card when the increase to $95 annual fee hits me later this year.

But the other programs are hardly any better in terms of devaluation over time. I have mostly migrated my air travel to the cheapest possible cash purchases, and I buy the tickets with CCs that give me 1.5% or occasionally more cash back

Do you have credible verifiable evedience of that? Public announcements by the hotel chain management?
Or just opinion? (which may or may be what happens)

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"I still want to fly FC on CX. Is there another airline that I could transfer my SPG points to that would cost less? Maybe Alaska?"

Alaska would be a good choice if:

1. its CX redemption rates do not change (or, at least, do not change dramatically); and

2. You could be reasonably certain of finding CX award space on the ORD-HKG nonstops when you want to fly. AS does not let you include more than one partner on a single award.

Everyone loves CX F, but their J class is also pretty nice. I like to sit in the little 2 row minicabin and it almost feels like first class.