Wow, almost five years and first post, that is impressive!

I am going to head to the all inclusive Marriott Los Suenos in Costa Rica in a month or so for my honeymoon and will report back. From all I've read so far, it looks impressive!

That's easy. Use Marriott points in Paris and/or your Starwood points in Venice.
When I went on my honeymoon in 2005, I was a Starwood plat. We stayed a few nights in Florence, IT at a great Westin that's no longer in the system. In Venice, we stayed at the Europa and Regina. It was a very memorable honeymoon; they gave us a beautiful suite facing the canal. You've got enough Starwood points for ten nights at the Europa and Regina in Venice.

You'll have to pay for airfare, but it'll be a very memorable honeymoon no matter which city (or both) you choose.

OK, I'm going to complicate things a bit. 240K points will get you six nights at any category 8 property worldwide.

You might consider that you can buy 50K points per calendar year for $625. If you buy 50K in 2010 and 2011 that will get you to 340K points. Now if you apply for a Marriott credit card, that should put you over 360K points. (Alternatively, your fiance could buy 20K points into her Marriott account and she could then transfer the points to you at the time you 'purchase' the award).

With a 360K award, you get 7 nights at any category 8 property worldwide and 120K frequent flier miles into the airline of your choice. That should be enough for two coach awards to just about anyplace.

You should look into the marriot packages. You are able to get air and hotel using your marriott points. Advise from BillMorrow is worth looking into if you want to stay at a very nice place for your honey moon. But Marriott does have some cat 6 properties which are okay as well

I would second the idea of Europe with Marriott's in Paris and Starwood in Italy in June.

Aruba, Hawaii, Cancun, Grand Cayman (Ritz) & St. Thomas/St. John (Ritz) would work from splitting time at nearby Marriott and Starwood locations if you want the beach.

You also have enough points for 6 nights at a Tier 2 Ritz-Carlton or 5 nights at a Tier 3 at 250K points.

Other Marriott Resorts to consider: JW Costa Rica, JW Phuket

I definitely agree with the advice to try to get to 360k to get a travel package. Spending 240k just on a hotel when you're that close to a travel award seems a bit like underutilitzing your points. Basically, you're in position where you can accumulate another 120k marriott rewards points and convert them 1 to 1 for airline miles, which is a rocking good conversion rate for 120k miles.

If you apply for the Marriott Visa, you'll get 50k pretty quickly. Use the card to buy a $1,000 Marriott gift card, and you'll get another 15,000 points, and have prepaid $1,000 for incidentals during your trip. That's an easy 65k, and now you just need 55,000 more points. If you had access to coupon connection here, it would be pretty easy to trade some of your starpoints for Marriott Rewards points, but either way accumulating 55k points shouldn't be that hard. In fact, BOTH you and your fiance could apply for the visa, and then you're basically done.

Note that you don't need to have enough points to book the hotel you want. You can do it now, and then have the travel cert applied when you get it. If you go to book the hotel now, it might make you draw your 240k points to do it, and you probably don't want to do that. Make a dummy reservation well out in the future for points at another hotel to occupy your points, then book the reward you want for the big trip, and when you have enough points for a travel package, cancel the dummy reservation.

mix and match programs
 

I agree about using the packages to receive free stays and the airline miles. You can also leverage your starwood points by using the nights and flights option. We did that for Capetown and spent 60K points for 5 free nights and 50K AA miles were given to us as well. I used cash and points to fill out another night or two. that would help if you were going to use the suggestion above for the two locations.

How about signing up for the AA 75K credit cards (a total of 4 if possible) that would give you 300K AA miles. You could then fly first on Cathay to somewhere in SE Asia, perhaps Thailand.

My fiance and I have booked our honeymoon using AA, US, and MR points/ miles.

We used 135K AA miles each for: DCA-JFK-HKG return BKK-HKG-SFO-DFW-DCA on Cathay/ American First

We then used 60K US miles each for: HKG-PEK stop PEK-BKK-KBI destination then KBI-BKK-HKG (but skip the last leg to stay in BKK for a couple days)

We used 200K MR points for 5 nights at the Ritz Phulay Bay (unfortunately this is no longer available but Marriott says they'll still honor our res) plus 10K points additional/ night for upgrades.

We're also planning on using MR points in HKG depending on how many we have.

I am in a similar boat, I'll be getting married in June and I have about 200,000 Marriott Points with about 35,000 AA miles. I will be keeping an eye on this thread. Keep the advice coming :)

I would get working on your AA miles ASAP.

See the FT thread on the 75K AA Citi Card Sign-up bonuses here.

Or go directly here to signup.

You'll need to get the cards and get spending to get the miles in your account. IMHO, don't waste anytime on this part as award availability for flights will be one of your biggest constraints if you want to fly in first or business.

American Airlines and Marriott are no longer partners
 

:( Was looking at doing something very similar since I have both Marriott points and AA miles - the partnership between the two companies apparently was recently disolved

Thank you for the advice. I was debating between getting an AA card or a Marriott card to get more points. Based off the recommendations in this thread and others, I'm looking at the Marriott in Phuket as a possible destination. How many AA miles should I shoot for in order to get 2 round trip coach tickets from SDF to Phuket?

Instead of trying to build up all these miles for a vacation package, you can just transfer your starwood points to 125k airline miles. That is enough for two coach tickets. If you want to go first class, then you can add miles for a Marriott travel package to the same airline. I don't see why you need to do a cat8 redemption though.

Don't even have to think about it. Paris.

Bobette

I'm not very familiar with using the Marriott packages, just booking separately. That said, if you want two first class tickets to Phuket, an AA partner first award is 67.5K miles (business is 55K) in each direction from North America to Asia Zone 2. You can do and open jaw if you wanted to say fly into BKK and return from Phuket (HKT).

Here's a way to do it on AA and CX: SDF-DFW-LAX-HKG-HKT You could also use SFO instead of LAX.

Here's the AA partner travel chart