yes, but this is a Marriott forum so why are SPG questions being asked here??????????

In an attempt to help the OP decide between the 2....the entire point of the thread.

I think that low end usage of points is a waste, no matter where you use them. Keep in mind, there are category 5, 6, 7, and even a few category 8 hotels and resorts in the USA, so it is not necessary to visit London or Paris to stay at higher end properties.

First of all, hello from a fellow DVC owner. Most people on FT slam timeshares, but it has worked out beautifully for us. You do have to know what you are doing.

Also, SPG points are easily worth way more than Marriott points. Matter of opinion of course, but I'd say maybe 100% more.

You sound like a prime candidate for a Marriott Travel Package. 270K Marriott points gets you 120K airline miles/points and a week in a Marriott cat. 5 or lower. Add 30K for each step to cat. 6, 7, and 8.

If you do that, consider using Southwest as the airline. WN points are worth 1.67 cents each, flat, toward their economy fares (so $2000 for the 120K), but you'd get as a bonus a Companion Pass so that every time you flew WN for up to 2 years (transfer today, good through 12/31/14), you could take a specific person free, unlimited. Best deal in the air, IMO, potentially worth thousands.

I have never really looked into the Marriott travel packages so thanks for the input. We usually travel Delta because they fly almost anywhere nonstop out of Detroit although I do like flying Southwest. What are WN points?

I agree with your facts, but not necessarily your premise. You are assuming that most people soley use their points for recreational/ vacation stays at resorts, and that is not the case.

Using myself - while we certainly do use them for vacations - I have a niece who has is hospitalized frequently. I often use points to allow myself, or other family members, to stay in a lower end property to be near her. Is it a good use of points by FT standards...no. But to my family this is priceless, especially those who absolutely do not have the wherewithal to visit otherwise.

That is why I am annoyed about loss of the $1k gift cheques. They helped in many different situations - family use OR when a popular property was not available on points, OR points usage was too high as compared to the rate. (off season, for example.). Others found them a complete waste, and were horrified whenever they were discussed - TEHO.

Even if people WANT to use points for vacation - they may not always choose a resort. With no real bennies (at Marriott anyway) it can get rather pricey with items NOT covered by the award. These forums have plenty of posts requesting information on FI, SHS, etc around Disney, Hawaii, AZ, - so am thinking those users do not find using their points in low end properties to be a waste.

It seems as if you and I can pretty much use our points when and where we want without worrying about the total vacation cost to the penny. Everyone is not at that point in their life, and I try to be mindful of that in my responses.

Southwest points.

I need to research the travel packages to get my arms around it. It looks like the deal is in the transfer to air miles at a 1:1 ratio. I can transfer SPG points at a 1.25:1 ratio to Delta so maybe that is a better deal?

I did not just say resorts, I also said hotels, for stays in cities, or suburbs, or whatever.

While you think it's a waste to use points on a lower cat property, sophiegirl's points are valid. Not everyone wants/needs/can find a high end property & there are many circumstances where using them at lower cat categories can come in handy - illness such as she described, visiting the kids at college (not everyone goes to Harvard), change in financial circumstances, staying at a property/doing a mini-vacation in an area where there aren't any hi-end properties, using them at a lower-end property that has extremely high rates due to an event, etc, etc.

Here's my take on points. They're valuable when you need them, whether that's for a stay at a lower cat property or a high cat property/hotel. Each person's circumstances is different. What is one person's waste is another person's priceless.

flannbarr, sounds like you're doing a good job analyzing your travel & how best to use points, whether *Wood or Marriott.

Cheers.

+1

personally I just used points for both a Cat 3 & Cat 4 on a last minute New Years Eve booking when the rates went up 200%+ vrs. my normal redemption for Cat 7 TPs............

In general, I don't think most here would disagree. On a straight point-to-point comparison, in most situations, an SPG point is worth more (maybe upwards of 3x more) than a comparable Marriott point.

With that said lets look at your earning power and how you use your points to see what the best options are:

1. You stay somewhere around 14-17 nights per year in a Marriott. Lets just say you might be able to earn around 50K Marriott points per year from your stays (assuming you are a Gold elite, you use the Marriott CC for those stays, etc.)
2. You have upwards of 100K on spending from a CC. How much of that amount would be from airline tickets, car rentals or restaurants? The Premier Marriott CC will give 2 pts/$ for those. So lets assume you might get double points on about 15% of that spend. So with this you would get either 100K SPG points or 115K Marriott points.

So that means in a "normal" year, you might earn 100K SPG and 50K Marriott or you could earn 165K Marriott points.

With this in mind, if your primary award will be to get airline miles from those points, then you would have the following option:

1 Year of earnings: 125K airline miles from SPG in Delta (if that is your primary airline.) With Marriott you wouldn't have enough points earned in a single year for a TP award, so you could only do one of the straight conversions to airline miles which means you probably could only get about 40K+ airline miles in Delta.

If you instead could use your points for hotel stays, 100K SPG would get you 6 nights in a Cat. 6 hotel (assuming you use a 'get 5th night free award'). Or you could get upwards of 10 nights free at a Cat. 5 hotel (assuming you use 2 'get 5th night free awards). Plus you would still have 50K Marriott points for 2 nights at a Cat. 5.

Your 165K Marriott points would get you around 5 nights (assuming you use a 'get 5th night free award') at a Cat. 7 property (which might be close to an SPG Cat. 6 in quality).

So in both cases on a strictly year by year basis, if you are earning points primarily via CC spend, SPG looks like the better choice.

2 Years of earnings: If you hold your points for 2 years at a time, the Marriott TP awards now can come into play:

For SPG, all the numbers would basically be doubled from the 1 year analysis. So that means 250K Delta miles. For Marriott you could now get around 120K Delta miles plus add in a 7 night hotel stay with upto a Cat. 7 hotel. Now given you state that you pay for at least one 7-night stay per year, depending on how much you spend, this 7 night award could save you more than $1500 per TP award or more depending on where you stay. So how much does the extra 130K Delta miles mean to you? (And I do understand that if you use the TP award nights, you would earn fewer Marriott points due to not paying for those nights, but you will actually have a few extra points each year. So you could probably still earn that TP award every other year.)

I would still say that SPG has an advantage here, but it is much narrower than it was by looking on a single year-by-year basis. Those TP awards definitely change the benefit potentials.


For me, this is why I am dropping SPG and moving back to Marriott and Hilton. If you add in more points from stays (i.e. CC spend is no longer the primary earning point), then Marriott starts to pull away from SPG. My earnings go from 1 pt/$ spent to 20 pts/$. With SPG my earnings go from 1 pt/$ to 4 pts/$ spent (granted if you can get more than 75 nights in a year, you could potentially earn 5 pts/$).

But if SPG just barely wins out just on CC spend (once you start earning enough for the Marriott TP awards), then it's no longer even close once you start looking at earning points from stays. (i.e. 4 or possibly 5 times more points from Starwood, and 20 times more points from Marriott).

hhoope01-Great analysis. I probably stay 5 paid nights per year in a Marriott, max. Here is how I earned my MR points for the two year period 8/08-7/10 before I switched to SPG:

Non-Marriott Spending 146,643 MR points
Air/Car/Dining Spending 44,948 MR points
Marriott Spending 16,134 MR points

Total MR Points Earned Over 2 Year Period=207,725 points


For the two year period 10/10-9/12 after I switched to SPG for most credit card purchases and MR where AMEX not accepted, here are the points I earned:

Non-Marriott Spending 43,964 MR points
Air/Car/Dining Spending 6,363 MR points
Marriott Spending 5,396 MR points

Total MR Points Earned Over 2 Year Period=55,723 points

Non-Starwood Spending 137,454 SPG points (includes about $15,000 charges for dining out)
Starwood Spending 2,389 SPG points

Total SPG Points Earned Over 2 year Period= 139,843 SPG points

I am not sure exactly what this is telling me except I still have to use my MR VISA where AMEX is not accepted so I am still earning MR points. I guess I could use my VISA for dining purchases and get 2x MR points vs. 1x SPG points. That seems like a good thing to do.

In looking at transfers from hotel points to airline miles, it might be better to avoid transferring into DL.

More generally, a big advantage of these programs can be to transfer into a program in which you don't earn many miles, so that you have more flexibility for award flights--for example, DL doesn't offer one way awards (except for the same number of miles as a RT), so having some miles in UA can be very useful and similarly for destinations that aren't served well or are tough for awards on SkyTeam versus *A, although the cost can be taking such award flights without status.

Very good advice. I will only transfer into an airline program if it makes sense which is very well may not.