Cross program conversion?
 

Hey all. I have accrued a bunch of points across a few programs, and now that AA is running the 20% bonus on Marriott point conversions, I want to see what your thoughts are on consolidating all to one program. At present, I have:

Marriott: 467,918
AA: 48,332
United: 78,157

What would you do?

Welcome to FlyerTalk. We're happy to have you here.

There is no way to merge AA and United. Marriott offers ways to move points to both United and AA. These are unlikely to go away. The bonus gets offered sporadically. It depends as to how you want to use your points, whether for flights or for hotel nights. If you want to use them for flights, you should immerse yourself in the Marriott award charts. Marriott offers attractive travel packages that includes airline miles plus 7 nights at the same hotel in addition to offering miles only packages.

Welcome to FT:
You can't consolidate UA<>AA. Separate programs. You can transfer Marriott pts to various airlines but the exchange rate is dreadful. You could make a Marriott Travel Package rez. and chose AA or UA for your airline partner and then XXXXXX miles will be deposited into your UA or AA acct. I haven't done this but read the thread here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...-packages.html

welcome to FlyerTalk, slavakala.

Consolidating all to one program is not practical or possible. Plus it's very good to have miles/points in multiple programs, as for a given trip one airline may have availability and another may not, and one hotel program may have a good redemption rate while another may not (or may not even have properties there).

At most, if you want to top off to an award level, then it might make sense to transfer a small portion of your Marriott points to one or other airline. But it's not going to be a good value for other than "topping off". Marriott points will be much more valuable for hotel stays if mostly left where they are.

The first half of this is great advice. The second half, not so much.

Consider the Marriott Hotel + Air packages: http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi

Redeeming a 7 night stay + 132,000 United Miles (actually 152,000 under a current promotion, though make sure to register) costs 120,000 more points than booking just a 7 night stay. So by spending 120,000 additional Marriott points beyond those required for the hotel alone, you get 152,000 United Miles. That's a fantastic value if you book premium cabin travel at saver mileage levels.

Even if you argue that to maximize value of Marriott points on hotel stays, you should redeem in 5 night blocks to get the 5th night free, the math still works out for the Hotel + Air packages often being a better value than hotel alone.

I depends partly on what your future plans and travel patterns are - do you need more hotel points, airline miles...where would you be traveling and what airlines/hotels offer the best redemption options, etc. Though I wouldn't do the Marriott-->AA transfer even with the current promotion.

I like having diversity (without being spread too thin). Another option now is to transfer Marriott to SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) points at a 3:1 ratio (and vice versa).

In addition to, obviously, SPG hotel redemptions, SPG has a wide range of airline partners (plus Amtrak) with the ratio to most airline partners at 1:1 - a relevant exception to this is UA which has a lesser rate that I wouldn't recommend. And transfers from SPG to airline partners garner a 5,000 mile bonus with each 20,000 point increment transferred.

Just another possibility to consider.