I agree that these travel packages are by FAR the best deal with MR.

Mr. Vker:
Were you able to get Marriott to transfer more than 120k points to the airline of your choice - or did you already have a lot of points at the airline of your choice? Two international F seats surely took more than 120K FF points.

I think Mr. Vker transferred 120,000 miles with each package. Since he redeemed two packages, he was able to receive 240,000 miles. You are not able to redeem more than 120,000 miles for a travel package (regarding the miles in which most major American carriers participate in).

YES! ^

I earn 18 points per dollar spent at FS Marriott properties (10 + 3 Plat Bonus + 5 MR VISA). So when I use a Hotel+Air Travel Package I effectively get 18 airline MILES of my choice per dollar spent. I don't think you can find a better earning ratio ANYWHERE. So really the answer would be YES, this is the best value for any points or mile earning of ANY program. JMHO, well maybe not so humble.

VA1379 is correct, but I want to add that sometimes Marriott and a specific airline partner will have 'bonus' points added to the transfers. I think that there is a 10% bonus (so upto and extra 12K miles) for transfers into AA miles right now. I made use of that one for a Travel Package award last year and recieved 132K miles instead of the normal 120K. I think that there was a BA bonus a year or two ago as well (that one may have been a 20% bonus.)

I do believe there are some here that try to wait until Marriott has one of these bonuses before they order the award. The problem with that is that there is no 'official' time schedule for them or any real indication of which airline's program that Marriott will have a bonus for. So those persons use history, guessing, and just plain waiting. :)

Yes, but you can always get a regular 7-night award and then if a Airline miles bonus comes around you want to take advantage of before your stay, you can exchange the 7-night award for a hotel+air travel package. That is what I did a couple weeks ago for my stay that starts this Saturday.

Or another reason to make award reservations through an agent and not have the points deducted.

We cashed in as follows:

1) Cat 6 Hotel (7 night cert) plus 120,000 AA miles for 250,000 points
2) cat 7 hotel (7 night cert) plus 120,000 AA miles for 270,000 points

We had the other 30K miles already on AA. That equalled the entire 270k miles needed.

The plane tickets are worth approx $28000.00 not including the (2) 7 night stays.

We leave in just 5 weeks. ^^

The TP's are the main reason I do my hotel stays at Marriott. I'm about to cash another one. I'm on the fence about switching to Starwood for 2008 (reasons unrelated to the points or awards themselves), and if I do I will definitely miss the TP's. Starwood's version of the TP (Nights and Flights) is actually a weaker award than a straight 5-night Starwood award.

I thought I would add that we choose AA for these transactions. They have very easy online look up of award availability. They allow you to hold those tickets for 2 weeks before transferring miles. This allows us to have the reservations in hand before committing our Marriott points to AA miles.

What a great deal...was wondering what I should do with all my points. Since the miles do not need to be used in conjunction with the stay, it is essentially a way to just get a 7-night certificate? We may just want to bank the miles and use the certificate in Hawaii...would that work? Also, is it just AA that the miles can be transferred to?

Any airline partner. I have mine credited to CO. I have a gazillion miles in both programs, but seems I like to "dump" them into the ff mile program as its easy to do!


Also, as an elite (all levels, IIRC) they will do "expedited" transfers, getting them to the airline in about 2 days!

This has worked well for about 7 packages so far. ONLY problem is they are NOT LINKING the stay certs to the hotel you have reserved, and THIS WILL be a problem to come. See the post on the HI Hotel Sampler.

Why are hotel + air miles such a good deal?

7 nights at cat 5 = 115 pts
7 nights at cat 5 + 120k miles = 235k

so basically 120k marriot pts = 120k miles
7 (additional night at cat 5) = 5 US Flights or 2 Flights to Europe?

If u assume you can get each cat 5 night at $200 is the 120k miles worth $1400?


Though another thought:

7 nights at cat 5 + 120k = 235k
Take 90k and convert the miles to hhonors pts for an aloha award
7 nights at Cat 5, 6 nights in Hawaii Hilton + 30k airlines award for 235k.

The reason they are such a good deal is for the miles exchange rate, which IMO can't be beat. Using the hotel+air package means, as you ahve shown, that you get 1 airline mile for each Marriott Reward point. And since in my case I earn 18 Marriott Reward points per dollar spent at Marriotts, that means I am getting airlines miles at the rate of 18 miles per dollar spent. IMO, a great deal by any measure.

Definitely not at 1.17¢ per point would be a waste of points IMO. Now 7 nights in Paris at a Cat 7 for 150000 which would normally go for $5950 is worth it at 3.97¢ per point.

Right now I am staying at a Cat 6 for 3 weeks for 390000. If I had paid for it, it would have cost $10500. comes out to 2.69¢ per point. So the hotel awards work for me, but I am a bit choosy as to where I use them. But that's just me.

Now if the hotel+air packages don't work for you, then there are always other hotel frequent stay programs you can choose from. Most everybody who does use them sees them as a great value.

Regarding the Hilton exchange thing, why would you stay at Marriotts to get Hilton points? If you wanted Hilton points, then stay at Hiltons. Personally that's not something I would consider as Hiltons don't exist in destinations I frequent.

This is a great deal to exchange MR points for AA miles 1:1 is a steal. I have use this twice and we fly FS for 60K each.

Not saying stay at Marriott to get Hilton pts. However if the air + hotel awards basically are add 1 marriott pt for 1 airline mile then there is a benefit

1. 1 Marriot Pt becomes 1 Airline Mile Becomes 2 Hilton Pts. Using a 175k Aloha 6 night Aloha award u get a 6 night hawaii award for 87.5k Marriott Pts, a savings of 120k pts of a normal Marriott 6 night Hawaii award.

2. Everyone eventually needs to use a Hilton or Starwood when Marriotts are unavailable or perhaps where a friend's wedding is. In this case, you can use those spare pts along with converted pts to get a nice award.

Not to hijack thread but what happens if u do hotel & air and cancel the hotel due to plan changes. Can you use the cert on something else?

Also can you use a 7 night hotel cert over 8 nights (6 night reward, 1 paid night, final night reward)