prettyflyforaflyguy

So today I transferred 120k Bonvoy points for 50k KLM/AirFrance Flying Blue miles to get a RT transatlantic economy ticket.

Full fare is $446.47, meanwhile with miles KLM takes 47,500 miles + $268.67 cash. (cash goes to YR fee and taxes)

So if my understanding and math is right, 120k points got me a $178 discount.
Based on looking at
www thepointcalculator com /us/hotel/marriott/marriott-points-value-calculator
I'm thinking, not so much.

(EDIT: Tried to post screenshot but FlyerTalk won't let me attach pics, sorry)
(EDIT2: Can't post links either, whats up with that? To see what I mean, please manually edit/fix up the link above, and paste 120000 into the calculator. You should be able to see what I mean - e.g. "Airfare tickets - $456")

Grateful to have a discount & put points to work, don't get me wrong...but looking at the calculator site leaves me feeling like I could have done better.
Does this seem like I got the expected value to you? Is this just the reality of YR + taxes?
Should I readjust expectations or...get smarter in the future with how I redeem?

Appreciate the expert knowledge here, thanks for sharing your take!

FlyingFrZ

I would say that's not great value. Most would value a Bonvoy Point at 0.7 to 0.8 of a cent. That would put your 120k at around $840-960.

Personally have gotten even higher value booking luxury properties during peak times.

Keep in mind, Flying blue is also a transfer partner of credit card partners, such as Amex, so the points are not very hard to come by compared to something like Alaska miles.

garykung

No. You never transfer hotel points to somewhere else, ever.

The only exception is you are short only a few and you have nothing else.

prettyflyforaflyguy

Thanks for confirming.
I am more of an Airbnb person than a luxury hotel seeker and originally got this card, my first ever rewards card, because agnostic miles seemed appealing.

Starting to feel I should have gone with Chase sapphire. Will save the rest of my Bonvoy points for hotels only!

Alex_I

Correct. With Chase Sapphire your $446.47 ticket would cost 29,765 ultimate reward points and no cash copay.

Flying for Fun

Really? 180K Marriott points will get you QR Q-Suites from North America to South Africa without a transfer bonus. I would value that higher than 3 nights in a Category 6/7 Peak/Standard even if you exceeded 1 cpp on the redemption. Not everyone has transferable currencies outside Marriott.

People value things differently so while it may work for you, emphatically stating that you never transfer hotel points to somewhere else, ever, is a little bold. But then again, 40K-60K for a night in a Marriott at JFK sounds really enticing.

James

imbisibol

Oh I wholeheartedly transferred 100,000 Bonvoy points to AA to help top up miles needed for a JAL seat in Business from PDX to MNL.

garykung

Then have you booked that yet?

craigthemif

Wrong.

60k Bonvoy points --> 25k miles can be a very good deal.

Not Avios, not AA/UA/DL. not AF/KLM. But there are airline programmes with great award charts out there, but without a credit card option. Business or First Class for relatively few miles...

And while we're at it, there are many people who spend half of their life in hotels and have zero interest in spending their holidays in one as well. But those people might be quite happy with award flights to a holiday home or a cruise departure point...

nexusCFX

I have considered 60K -> 25K to Alaska in the past. Honestly though, the two major programs I can think of with no CC transfer parter are AA and AS. Both sell miles discounted many times each year, such that I could pay far less to buy the miles than I'll pay on the hotel stay I could have used the Marriott points on.

Obviously everyone is different though, but my Marriott redemptions with 5th night free are often at a very high cpp value of 2.5-3cpp (and yes, I would and do pay cash if I don't have the points), so I can't imagine sending them to an airline program unless it was a small amount for a top-up.

Kacee

Totally disagree with that. The ability to transfer Marriott, with 25% bonus, to a wide range of airline partners is one of the program's strong points. I've gotten fantastic value transferring Marriott to KE and EK, for example.
There's really no other way to get KE or JL if you don't fly them.

And in any event I'd generally rather lay out points for miles rather than cash.

prettyflyforaflyguy

No cash copay? Wow, could you explain that a bit please?

Hawes7701

25,000 AS miles will get you from DEL - Tokyo (stopover) - SIN in business class on JAL.

booked 3 seats for family as part of round the world.

personally consider this to be worth considerably more than 60,000 bonvoy points.

margarita girl

Bottom line is OP getting $178 of value for 120K Marriott points, is a grave error. Lesson learned.

prettyflyforaflyguy

Agreed on that front! After doing the math I had this disappointed feeling like I blew it, and that's why I created the thread in the first place.
I originally got the SPG/Bonvoy b/c of the good things I read about it, but for my first time spending points, I must say the experience has left me quite unimpressed. Mostly it's due to my own ignorance, but also the Marriott backend was sorely, sorely lacking.
I tried to xfer the points myself using the Marriott website, but it was broken in a confusing way - the button would click but nothing would happen. (I checked Chrome dev tools and very slowly these weird errors would appear, I also tried multiple browsers). Didn't want to accidentally transfer points twice, so I called Marriott.
There the incompetence over the phone was comically bad, 3 reps and 1.5 hours later all saying variants of 'the system might be down but I don't know', finally the last guy also said 'hm, i tried but not sure, don't want to transfer twice, let me check another way' and luckily he managed to avoid double xferring.

I'm obviously a noob to the Bonvoy points game - if you could take the opportunity to explain what you'd consider a stellar example of squeezing value out of your points, I'd much appreciate it!

Everyone values things differently, that's fine - it's starting to sound like people in the know might lean towards Sapphire for flights, and Bonvoy for fancy hotels. Is that fair to say is a general consensus?


This in particular is intriguing - the YR fees were a dreadful surprise! How does Chase manage this? Seems too good to be true, would appreciate your insight.