When Redeeming a Travel Package, Which Airline to Choose?
 

I have redeemed for a travel package once before, but knew ahead of time the trips I wanted to use it for. Therefore there was no decision to make on which airline to choose (In this case it was Southwest and I was able to get 5 free R/Ts plus put my account over the top for a CP).

Now that I'm approaching enough points for a second package with no preconceived plans for a specific trip, I have some more flexibility.

I believe it is is fairly common knowledge that the travel package award is the best "bang for the buck (points)". However, I don't recall seeing discussion of which airline to select within a travel package (If I'm mistaken, please point me to a thread - I didn't find anything in my cursory search).

So my question - within the constraints of the available redemption partners for a Marriott Travel Package, which airline gives the most value for the redemption? For purposes of this discussion, assume no elite status with the airline.

I'm initially intrigued by the Frontier Airlines option where 120,000 miles could get nearly 5 R/T's to a variety of Mexican resort destinations (25,000 each) or 8 R/T's to LAS, but I'm curious what options others have chosen or dreamed up.

You have to consider what will give you the best deal, and it depends on your location and personal travel patterns. If you tend to fly with LCCs, then you should redeem with Southwest or Frontier. I fly mainly with United, and I would redeem for United miles to use for upgrades or free tickets when the airfare is expensive (at least 3 cents/mile).

I would hold off redeeming a travel package until you know what you want for the airline award. You have some time to think about it since you do not have the points currently for the package. You can always lock in an award stay for the hotel by making the reservation without paying for it, and you can get the hotel reward certificate later (from a travel package or redeeming for free nights).

Do you already accrue AA miles? Their program is unique in that all miles - including partner miles - count towards lifetime levels. One of my Marriott Travel Packages in the past pushed me over 1MM lifetime earned miles.

This benefit and the WN CP benefit you point out make those two programs of additional incremental interest above/beyond the miles themselves.

I find that the foreign carriers are much tighter with the miles you get in a travel package. I am going to order one shortly and am using United miles to get a flight on Thai. You get 120K United miles but only 85K ANA for the same package. I just wish United was still on AMEX membership rewards.

You might also check for which carriers offer bonus redemptions for hotel points. British Air has offered as much as a 50% bonus, and others including Northwest have offered bonuses in the past. I'm not sure about current offers, but I always wait to buy travel packages until there is a promo being offered. It increases your points received from 25% to 50%.

I got a 20% bonus with AA, and I believe BA is currently offering their usual 50% bonus.

Is that bonus a Marriott one or an AA one?

Are you saying that if the Marriott transfer provides 85k miles-you will get 127500 miles from BA-with a 50% bonus?

Along the same line of thought. I've never used a package in the past, but based on past comments on this board was considering the 7 night in a category 7 with airfare to Hawaii. But what I encountered was the resort hotel only showing stay-anytime availabilty throught the spring and early summer months. If I was to send the points to my AA account, what would be the chances of standard rewards on both the resort side and airline side showing up together to make a 7 day trip possible. I'm sure others have done it, and my search was just a very cursory search to assess availability. What has been your experience?

This may not help with your specific goals on this trip, but the 7 night cert and the miles can be used independently.

The only Cat 7 in HI is the JW Marriott Ihilani. There are plenty of Standard awards available but they are upgraded standard awards, which means for an ocean view in addition to the points for the Cat 7 stay you will also need an upgrade certificate at 5000 points each for each night you stay, along with a $50 per night upgrade charge. FWIW the weeks of April 15-22 and April 22-29 have the above award available at the JW Marriott Ihilani. You want to search at the hotel's web page not from the general reservation page. When you are unable to find the rewards stay you want you will see a link down toward the bottom of the page (as shown below) that will take you to an alternate date finder:

Travel dates flexible? Alternate Date Finder shows you when
Marriott Hotel Rewards are available >>

Use the alternate date finder, setting the options to 4 weeks and looking for 1 night and then you will see availability for 4 weeks. You will be required to sign in during this process if you have not done so already. Then you will be provided a number of award options. You may end up clicking on some and the system may come back and say that option is not available. Once you identify the dates that are available then go back and search for those dates at the hotel's web page.

Note that you can combine paid and reward nights and still use a 7 night certificate. If you stay 9 nights the first 4 are awards the 2 middle are paid and the last 3 are awards then you can use a 7 night certificate for this stay as long as the nights are all at the same hotel.


Also, I always bank the miles that come with my travel package. I use them later for upgrades to whereever, and whenever. I buy AA YUP fares to Hawaii as they are usually quite good. Using miles for award tickets to Hawaii IMO is a rip off. Using them for upgrading purchased coach tickets is good though. JMO

On a somewhat related note, for those of you having trouble finding 7 consecutive night availability, I found this post in another thread to be interesting:

The experience posted by aupgrade jives with mine as well, in that a paid stay and award stay can be mixed at the same property. By that very logic, a stay anytime award and standard award should be able to be mixed as well, at the same property.

As my experience today bore out, getting them to do such things can be a lot harder in reality than it is in theory :)

Pat

I favor AA for this reason and because AA does not allow transfers from Amex Membership Rewards whereas DL, CO do.

Yes, that's absolutely correct, when BA is offering the bonus. Many of us took advantage of the BA bonus last (two) times it was offered.

Last time it was 30%; http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ht=British+Air

My recollection is that it was 50% the time before (but it could have been 30%.)

I notice somebody posted above that the BA bonus is on now. I'm not aware of that (it could be, I don't know), but maybe it's a reference to the Diner's Club 50% BA bonus which is on now. Remember, these bonuses are sponsored by the airlines, not by Marriott. The BA bonus seems to be the most frequent one. One advantage of BA is that the miles can be used on American (except to the UK). One disadvantage is that if you are not a member of the BA Executive Club (their frequent flyer program), it is relatively difficult to join. As I recall, to join you must fly on a BA flight, or obtain a BA Visa credit card. They might also have an arrangement with Diners to allow membership.

Well I'm going to Grosvenor House in Feb & I'll be doing a combo award - StayAnytime for the first night (grrr) & Standard for the remaining 3 nights. I'm not sure there's anything strange in my situation. I talked to the Plat line today & it says it shows 2 awards being needed (maybe cuz the SA is the first night it makes it easier) & at Cat 6 (the hotel just changed to Cat 7).

Cheers.

I know this is a little OT, but a month or so ago, GH was showing lots of availability. I just tried it again this morning and nothing for any Thurs/Fri from February onto the end of the year.

Also, GH is still showing as a Cat. 6, not a 7. Though I did notice there is a note stating that new renovated rooms will be available starting April 1st. Possibly the category change will occur after the rooms are available?

That's awesome-I was disappointed about the lower mileage on the foreign carriers. I will watch for the specials and take advantage-THANKS FOR THE INFO!!!! ^ ^

PS: Where do you normally see these offers? Marriott's website or the individual airlines.

When I booked beginning of May this year for next Feb it showed no Fri (I don't think I paid attention to Thurs since I wasn't arriving until Fri) for several months. I've been calling periodically since then to see if Fri was switched to Standard, but no such luck.

When I went to check online yest or day before, it showed GH as Cat 7 which totally surprised me since I didn't think the renovations were done. I had the Plat line note that I made my ressie when it was a Cat 6. If it's showing Cat 6 still (or again), then that won't be an issue. I was using the dates for my stay when I checked, not April.

Truthfully I figured if there was going to be a StayAnytime night it would have been the Monday night (when more biz people are staying there) than the Fri night.

Cheers.

I booked RCC and GH for a full week over the New Year and for the March Spring Break week. I then decided on RCC for the New Year trip and cancelled the GH trip. Then the wife said she wanted to take the kids to DC for springbreak. So I cancelled both RCC and GH for the March trip. But after your post, I thought that it was wierd that you couldn't get a full week. So I checked and now I can't get another one for the whole year.

BTW, it sounds like you are talking with the reservation line to check availability (and that is fine.) But you can do that online very easily and look at availability a month at a time to see exactly which days have anytime availability and which do not.

Posted here in error --- Reposted on correct thread.

In my continuing research on this subject, today I found an offer from NWA for 25% bonus miles good through (also must register):



Terms and Conditions:

This 25% Bonus Miles offer is valid between November 6, 2006 and January 31, 2007 (“Promotional Period”).
Offer is only valid for WorldPerks members who reside in North America.
Only points to miles conversions made during the Promotional Period with the following hotel partners (“Participating Partners”) qualify for the 25% Bonus: Goldpoints Plus, Hilton HHonors, Hyatt Gold Passport, Priority Club Rewards and Marriott Rewards.
Limit one 25% bonus per Participating Partner points to miles conversion.
Bonus Miles will be retroactively removed if account is merged.
Please allow 6-8 weeks from activity date of converted miles for 25% Bonus Miles to post to the account.
If your points to miles conversion does not appear in your WP account, please contact the Participating Hotel Partner to verify the transfer.
Please review Participating Partners points to miles conversion terms and conditions before converting.

goldpoints plus
Hilton HHonors
Hyatt Gold Passport
Marriott Rewards
Priority Club Rewards

Converted miles and Bonus Miles will post as banked miles, not Elite Qualifying Miles.
Northwest Airlines has the final authority on the interpretation of these rules.

Travel Package question
 

I have a question. If you purchase a travel package can you split your hotel stay between a couple properties if they are within the point catagory purchased? I know there is a hotel sampler for Europe but I don't see anything about sampler and air miles combined.

I have asked Marriott in the past about this and have been told, no. The travel packages come with a 7-night single hotel cert and that can't be changed. :( It was a good idea though, and one I had thought about with my upcoming London stay.

But with that said, there is an option. There is no requirement that the hotel cert you receive with your travel package award be used on the same trip as your FF miles are used. In other words, you could order the travel package and order a hotel sampler package. You would use the FF miles from the travel package to fly where ever you wanted and then use the hotel sampler. Of course you would still have the 7 night stay award. With that you can hold on to it and use it within the next year (or longer if you call and have them extend it.) Or you could return it for a modest return of points (which I think is around 35-50K depending on the hotel category.)

No it must be at the same hotel. They can break up the nights to be combined with paid nights, but they must be used for that one stay.

Example:

I had a 10 night stay in Buenos Aires 7 of the nights was using the travel package award. 3 of the nights were paid. The agent selected and secured the most expensive nights out of the ten and booked the 7 night award and left the remaining 3 less expensive nights for me to pay. ^

Actually Marriott does offer hotel sampler awards which allow you to split your stay between different properties. You may split your 7 nights among any 3 properties in Hawaii, or in Ireland/UK for 130K or 150K MRPs respectively.

Of course this offer is limited in scope, but still useful for someone inclined to do a visit to either of these destinations on a modified Travel package which would not include the FF miles ( but also requires less points).

Barry

The OP's questions and all of the answers have been generally correct in the way we seem to use the term "Travel Package" here on FT. However, Barry's post highlights our misuse of the "Travel Package" terminology here on FT.

Yes, if the Travel Package is a Hotel Sampler.

There are Hotel Sampler Travel Packages and Hotel + Air Travel Packagaes, and as your noticed there is no Hotel Sampler + Air Travel Package. These Travel Package types are mutually exclusive and as such there is no way to do a Hotel Sampler Travel Package and get FF miles, nor is there a way to do a Hotel + Air Travel Package and split the hotel portion between different hotels.

Link to Travel Packages info at Marriott.com

IMO, the only reason to purchase a travel package is to get the equivilent of one FF mile per MRP (in most cases) which is an exceedingly good earn/burn ratio. For the OP, they'd be better off using the excellent earn from being EXP on AA for their air, and do the hotel using whatever earn/burn ratio they prefer for a award/paid stay, depending on what the numbers crunch out to.

Guest Services recently (in the last week) changed, at my request, a travel package hotel cert due to expire next week from CAT1-5 to CAT6 without charge due to the assigned hotel changing category after the reservation was made. They first extended the 1-5 cert, then credited back 45K when cancelling the cert and re-debiting for 50K MRP's to "purchase" the CAT6 cert. They then adjusted the account with a customer service credit to reflect the 5K difference. Net zero change to the account. Interesting to watch :)

Pat

Travel package recommendations where to stay?
 

Finally, I have earned enough points to redeem my first award. MANY THANKS to the members on this board for your help to achieve the points for a travel package - as a travel package is valued the very best deal.

I'm planning to redeem the award as a 7-night stay (category 1-5, category 6 or category 7) on a beach location. I'm open to any country/location. I have considered to go to one of the following locations

- JW Marriott Phuket Resort & Spa
- Sanya Marriott Resort & Spa

In the last years, I have stayed in many Marriott/Renaissance/Courtyard hotels in CITIES. I'have no experience with beach locations. I'd like to ask you for other beach locations that I should consider. I'm looking for a very special place where I can expect a nice hotel (e.g. rooms in a good condition), good service and a well-equipped wellness center.

Thanks,
Tim

You may find that a topic like yours will be very subjective to most. My 1st and best suggestion to you is to do a search of this forum. There are a lot of existing threads that will provide you with a wealth of info about most of the Marriott beach properties all over the world. My suggestion is do a search using the words "resort" and "beach". You should find enough info to keep you busy for a while. :)

With that, my favorite beach Marriott in North America is the Harbor Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale. Just about everthing there is great. On the Hawaiian islands, it depends on the beach, pool, and other activities. Personally, I like the Kauai Beach Resort with its pool and the laid back atmosphere of Kauai. But a lot of folks may point you to the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa and you probably won't go wrong there. :) There is an active thread right now with posts concerning some of the Hawaiian resorts.

There are a number of existing threads that compare/contrast the various Carribean Marriotts. So if you want to head to that part of the world, look for those threads.

I have not yet had the pleasure to try out a lot of the non-US based Marriott Beach resorts so I can't comment directly on them.

Just remember that even though you have the certs, that doesn't mean there's availability. In fact, a running complaint is the inability to find 7 consecutive nights any time during the year at some of the more desirable locations.

One way around this, if the nights are "broken" by one or two nights of award unavailability, is to pay for those nights and "bookend" them with the award nights. This can open up a lot more possibilities, if you're willing to pay a little.

Also, availability changes with time. Nail down now what you can find (even if it's split up as described above) and keep checking. You can always cancel with no penalty, as long as you don't wait too long.

Marco Island
 

I just returned from a 6-night stay at the newly renovated Marco Island Marriott Resort. The new main pool is fantastic and the beach is great (but a little "shelly"). My wife enjoyed the spa and the kids loved the second pool - the "tiki pool" (more geared to kids activities).

The resort is about an hour drive from the Southwest Florida Airport (RSW) which was very nice and easy to get in and out of.

I think Sanya should be a good, only 2-3 years old.

If you go to Sanya, consider paying rather than using points, as the rates seem quite reasonable. In addition, it is category 4 property, so that would be a waste to use a cat 5 certificate.

Travel packages are the best deal if they let you go where you really wanted to; as someone told earlier, even if Marriott offered a sex change operation for 100 000 points, I doubt anybody will do that, although that would be a steal at 50 cents per point (or whatever). So don't be blinded by the best cost per point; think about if and where you really would like to go.

You didn't say how many points you have but if you have 540,000 pts I'd suggest you get two 7 nite Cat7 hotel certificates and 240,000 FF miles.

With that two people could fly business class to London for a week, continue on to Paris for a week, then home...leaving some FF miles still in your account for future use.

IMO the real value of the packages comes from not flying economy. While business class can be prices up to 500% more than economy it's usually only 50% more FF miles.

Bookings are best done about 330 days before you would like to go as you have to marry flights with hotel availability ... and doing it early widens your chances. Some hotels never seem to be available for 7 night point stays - like Marriott Grand Flora in Rome (although I did get it for a week in May 2005). Hawaii is also very tough to get. Also, you do not have to use the hotel and air certificates at the same time or on the same trip.

Have fun. It takes a lot of planning ahead for the greatest benefits.

Brian

Travel package vs. regular hotel reward
 

Hi everyone,

I'm a long-time reader of these forums -- and quite envious of the frequent flyer mile totals and status of many of you -- but this is the first time I've felt the need to ask a question.

I've redeemed 115,000 MP for seven nights at the JW Marriott Phuket. My question is, should I go the travel package route instead? That would cost 165,000 MP, giving me the seven-night stay plus 50,000 airline miles.

I don't need the miles for my flight from SEA to BKK. But what's worth more, 50,000 MP or 50,000 frequent flyer miles?

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Most here are big fans of the travel packages.

It is not a simple question. I generally get about 1.6 cents of value per Marriott point. Sometimes I cash in airline miles for only a penny a point for domestic awards.

I still favor the package as a diversification move. I cash in a package and put miles into AA which I don't fly. I like the flexibility of having miles in Skyteam, Oneworld and Star Alliance. I only fly Star so transferring miles to Oneworld helps me diversify and guards against a Marriott devaluation.

Finally, if you use miles for overseas flights in C or F, you will get a lot more value per mile than you can get for a Marriott point - so the 1:1 ratio will add value.

Finally, you can transfer up to 120K points per package.

For me - I always get the travel packages - with as many miles as possilbe - 120K miles.

I value airline miles at more than marriott miles.

For example, I used 35K miles each (on United) to buy several award tickets to/from Hawaii over thanksgiving, and these would price out at over $900 each.

I also think using miles for upgrades is valueable. On United, I can upgrade an "H" or higher fare with 60,000 miles, round trip - confirmed into Business (if available) the day I book the ticket.

You can also score 90K RT Business class tickets to Asia, very valuable to me.

Billy

A couple of posters have chimed in with very good suggestions. But to really answer your question depends somewhat on your situation. Marriott points tend to be very good if used for Marriott stays. Those don't really cost Marriott much since the rooms are a sunk cost to them and so the points needed for even an expensive beach resort somewhere will be better than for many other uses. The benefit of the FF miles is that those can be used to purchase expensive business or first class tickets on very long international trips. Thus you can get a very good bang for you point by transfering to an FF account and purchasing an expensive ticket with those points.

But if you are in a situation where you either have a lot of unused FF miles and don't need any more to get that really nice flight, or if you only want to stay close to where you are and rather pay for your flight tickets, then you may not want to use your MR points for airline FF points. In those cases, you might see if there is a MVCI property close to where you want to go and use your points for a nice stay there (if they have availability.) Getting a 2-bedroom suite in an MVCI property for the same points as a nice Resort right next to the MVCI property can be a very nice use of points especially if you have a family traveling and need extra space. Especially since you will probably get access to all the resort amenities. ^

So the real answer to your question is it depends. :)

Which airlines do you transfer to for the Asia bus tix?