GoPhils

Okay, so I am new to the forums and am trying to plan a honeymoon for next summer to St. Kitts.

I've heard that the best use of Marriott Points is for the travel packages, however I think I already have the hotel covered (actually from someone else's points), so I am trying to use my points to get a flight, and am not sure what to do.

I am currently Platinum with MR (but might not be after this year) with about 250,000 points, but have no status (I have 11,000 miles) with USAir, who is the airline I plan to use for this trip.

If I were to use my points directly for the flight, it would be 172,000 points per person.

If I were to convert my points to miles (at what looks like 125,000 points for 50,000 miles), it would cost $100+80,000 miles per person. So with the miles I already have, I would need a total of 195,000 points+$100. So I guess of those two options it's better to just get the flight directly. And just to confirm, MR points converted to miles don't count towards preferred status, correct?

But for S&G I looked at the travel packages, and it looks like for 250,000 points, I could get 7 nights stay + 70,000 miles, which with my other miles would be enough for one flight. So yeah, that definitely does seem like a better deal.

Is there any other options I'm missing? Should I just figure out a way to do the travel package instead?

BKKLEE

pkg is best redemption
you do, or should know, you can combine your friends points with yours to do a redemption, like a pkg..........

lexdevil

Combine points so you can redeem for a full 120k miles. That is the most efficient use of points. Anything less than maximum redemption is wasteful.

mooper

270K MR points gets you 120K US miles plus 7 nights at a Cat 5 property (which you could book for a friend, trade, etc. if you don't want to use yourself). US has run, over the past two or three years, periodic conversion bonuses of 50% to 75% where you'd get 180K+ US miles instead. If you have time to play with and are willing to risk that another bonus might not roll around, waiting for that opportunity would give you the best return of all.

nickfromct

The periodic bonuses for transfers into US Air have typically been in March, so that might be cutting it a bit close.

SecondCity

not to derail the thread, but any 'typical' timeframe for United bonuses (if ever)?

nickfromct

I haven't seen any, but I'm not up on United as I am US Air.

mooper

Not that I can recall, however, you can redeem US miles for UA flights. As noted above, however, the next US promo could take a while to come around again, if at all.

LKO

Instead of having someone else book the hotel and pay for it with their points, can you have them transfer the points into your account? Then you could get a travel package for the hotel and miles. You'll get more miles with a travel package.

GoPhils

Thank you all for the suggestions!

It definitely is a much better deal to do the travel package! It looked like it would have basically been around 200,000 points just for the hotel, and 350,000 points (that I don't have) for 2 flights. But for 300,000 total points (and really only 100,000 of my own) I can most likely get the hotel + 2 flights. Thanks!

GoPhils

Ah crap...in reading some of the other threads on here, it looks like they will only give me just enough points from the other person's account (not my spouse obviously) needed to get the award?

GoPhils

Sorry to keep responding to myself, but looking through some more threads it appears that I can just make a "dummy booking" so that I don't have enough points and then cancel later?

Also, there's a possibility the hotel can be covered through the friend's Marriott Vacation Club instead of with points. If that's the case, seems like I may be able to just book the travel package myself (when I get enough points) and use the nights later (edit: just noticed that looks like pretty much what mooper said above)? But looks like there were mixed reviews between saying it was only good for 1 year or asking for an extension.

I don't really know anything about the Vacation Club, but is there any difference between the rooms at the St. Kitts Beach Club booked through the vacation club and booked from Marriott.com? I guess the ones anyone can book are just leftovers that people didn't book using the vacation club? One thread seemed to mention some of the units having a better view than others (although it appears the Beach Club overall has better views than the resort?), and I'm wondering if you'd probably have to get those through the vacation club.

LKO

I've never been to St. Kitts so I'm not familiar with that property. However at some of the Vacation Club properties there are hotel rooms and vacation club villas (usually with kitchens). It is likely separate inventory.

nickfromct

The St. Kitts Beach club units on marriott.com look like the MVCI villas. Marriott rents out the excess unsold inventory.