A question to help me try to learn how to maximize my MR points. I agree business travel would be the best use of the airline points, but it seems to me that the 120k points only gets one of you in business class. Do you then buy the other business class tickets (presumably you are traveling with another person)? Or what is your strategy there? Thanks.

Well, unless you want them on your lap. :D Or you need miles from another source or travel package to make up the other 120k. That's what I normally do.

I have converted MR to miles and used the miles in J. The second - third tickets come from other miles earned.

You van go in J RT USA to India for about 130K miles or two Y seats for the same .

Average discounted J can be $4500-5000, Y $900 -1200 each. You decide how you want to travel!

This seems so basic, but I thought I'd ask. If you book a 10 night stay, you'd in effect get 2 nights free. Can you apply the 7 night stay cert from the travel package and only have to cough up 2 more nights worth of points?

No, the travel package is 7 nights. You cannot add 2 nights to get 1 free. You can add 4 to get one free

Marriott Vacation Packages - Resort fee?
 

Hi! I tried searching but did not find what I was looking for. I want to trade in 200 something thousand points to get airline miles plus 7 nights in a category 7 hotel. My question is, will I have to pay the resort fee for the hotel if I am using this specific certificate? Thanks!

Travel packages are the same as reward nights, so since those nights could include resort fees, so would a travel package.

Also, consider if you are getting less than the maximum number of airline miles (i.e. a category 7 hotel package is 280K MR points for 70K/77K airline miles) you may want to buy more MR points.

If you had an additional 50K marriott points, you could get an additional 50/55K airline miles (the large amounit is UA only) by redeeming a 330K travel package.

You can purchase up to 50K MR points per year at 1.25 cents per mile (or $12.50 per K miles). Since most people value airline miles at greater than 1.25 cents, you might want to consider this...

Billy

Sorry to burst the bubble. I am off to STT on a TP today...as far as I know the Frenchmans Reef $45/day resort fee is not covered....it was reflected in the cost when I made the ressie....I will try to negotiate that and let the board know.

If you can hold off until an airline offers a bonus for the transfer that is more bang. I got mine when AA offered a 20% bonus on MR transfers .

Also if you are a Vacation Club owner you can get a 5 day package by calling CS to get it.

I had me taxes and fees wiped...
 

so no award fees for domestic travel in US. However, I have a small sample size too.

I distinctly remember this, but for some reason I can't find the answer searching...
 

If I buy a Travel package during a time that an Airline is offering a bonus for buying/gifting miles, do I get the bonus as well? For instance, American/US Air is offering 30k miles bonus for buying 100K miles from 2/2 to 3/3. So if I get the travel package and designate 100 miles to go to US Air or American, would my account actually get 130K miles or just the $100k. Thanks in advance for the reply.

It depends on the bonus, but quite often the TP awards are included.

Much depends, usually works.

Link to the US promotion?

Thanks guys! Had the #s wrong - we are trading 300 something thousand miles for 120k southwest miles and a cat 7. Wanna get the companion pass as that's very valuable to us!

Bummer about the resort fees but that's what I kinda figures. We are thinking about using the cert in Hawaii but almost all seem to have resort fees. $30 a nite is better than hundreds per nite, but I kinda had my heart set on free! Lol.

US Air


American

It will take 330k MR points to get a cat 7 cert + 120k rapid reward points on WN. The points will then have a fixed value of 1.4¢ each toward a flight award (x2 with the CP).

The CY King Kam on the big island is my go-to Marriott in HI. No resort fees and only a Cat 6.