Flying for Fun

Unfortunately this benefit is no longer available for tranfers from partner Hotel Loyalty programs.

As per Southwest T&C:

*Companion Pass qualifying points are earned from revenue flights booked through Southwest®, points issued on Southwest Rapid Rewards® Credit Cards, and base points earned from Rapid Rewards Partners in a calendar year. Purchased points, points transferred between Members, points converted from hotel and car loyalty programs, and e-Rewards, e-Miles, Valued Opinions, and Diners Club, points earned from Rapid Rewards program enrollment, tier bonus points, flight bonus points, and Partner bonus points (excluding bonus points earned on the Rapid Rewards Credit Cards from Chase) do not qualify as Companion Pass qualifying points.

hhoope01

On using points, I see lots of threads where someone asks what's the nicest/more luxurious/best/etc Marriott they can use points on. Then they try to make a reservation around that. I'm the opposite. I decide where I want to go first and then look at what the hotel options for points are. And depending on the length of the stay, cost of the hotels (both in cash and points), whether cash is tight or not at that time, etc., I'll decide on whether I use points or pay cash.

I do like the TP awards and usually tend to get one of them every year (or at least every other year). I personally have no problems enjoying a 7 night stay at a beach or similar location. I used a TP award last year for a 2-bedroom MVCI property on Aruba. Loved every night there. I'm using another TP award next month at the JW Marriott Grand Lakes in Orlando. Between Universal, Disney, SeaWorld and a number of other things to see and do, I doubt I'd get bored if I were there 2 weeks.

Oh, and I also rarely, if ever, try to calculate cpp or anything along that lines.

Cledaybuck

There is nothing that says they won't create one. Especially when the two programs merge.

pinniped

My armchair guess as to what's going to happen when they merge the two programs is this.

- Today, there are 12 Marriott categories and 8 Starwood categories. (Two of the Ritz categories are dupes and the 8th Starwood category is kind of a loose range.)
- If you merged them together right now and tried to keep all hotel redemption rates flat, you'd need 14 categories, with the 14th being the loose Starwood range.
- Since 14 is a bit daunting for guests - sort of a hard thing to market - my guess is that we'll get 10-ish categories. It won't matter whether the hotel was a heritage Marriott, Ritz, or Starwood brand. Maybe those ultra-pricey Starwoods will get to keep their loose range...or maybe Cat 10 will be so damn high that it won't matter.
- They'll hollow out levels at the bottom: every hotel will "creep" upward.

So yeah, Category 9 *could* devalue. But you probably have all of 2018 to book at current levels (meaning all of 2019 to complete your stay).

Most rooms in the system will cost more to book in 2020 than they do now. My hunch is that the Marriott "currency" will be the one that survives, but the categories will all creep on us a bit.

joshua362

At least 10 categories, if not a full 15. Or they scrap the category system entirely in favor of the Hilton model where its an ever changing point redemption value based upon whims. Now that there is far less significant competition. Yes, I do believe the sky is falling...

pinniped

Our only shred up hope is that I've seen comments (linked somewhere here, I think) during an interview with a Marriott exec where he acknowledged that Starwood fans are rabid about SPG. Not saying awareness will lead to action (or prevent undesirable action), but at least there's awareness. Since Honors is pretty much the exact opposite kind of program than SPG, Marriott has to know that would drive out a ton of high-yield guests. It would become very easy for Hyatt to step in and woo a lot of those guests over.

Of course it's possible that Marriott will simply say that hotels are so full either way that they don't need any of the Starwood-style features anymore. In which case yeah, the sky is falling...

pitflyer

I still try to stick with a floor of 1 CPP in terms of ACTUAL savings I will make. This is something that's a more complicated calculation since the Marriott properties in an area may be overpriced and a comparable property might be cheaper than the cash rate at the Marriott. Honestly it's gotten a lot more difficult since I take lots of short trips so travel packages or fifth night free doesn't factor in. Most of my recent redemptions have been at cat 2 Four Points and Sheratons in the USA on weekends where I am looking at spending 9000 Marriott points (3000 SPG) vs saving at least $90 (usually the hotels are around $110+tax, so I end up getting close to 1.3 CPP). Same way I use the Visa cert -- make sure to get more than the $85 fee I pay for the card.

pinniped

Yeah, as I got to the "short trips" part of your post, I immediately thought...you're one who benefits on the MR-SPG transfers going the other direction. Starwood is good for one-nighters, especially if you can find a good C&P or a Category 2 in good condition.

I'm a little bit bummed that I'm burning one of my Visa certs next week on a $110/nt Fairfield Inn during our Thanksgiving roadtrip. It's about to expire, and I'm finding it harder and harder to find good Cat 5 uses for it... All the places I used to use it 3-4 years ago are Cat 7 by now.

UVU Wolverine

Marriott is my backup program, but I have the Chase Visa and keep it due to the free night. It's quite worth it for me, as I do what Jon does. Road trips for me invariably require one night stays here and there where I find the hotels regularly charging $150/night. I also usually keep enough points in my account to redeem a one or two night stay somewhere if the cash rate is really high, but I don't usually find high value in Marriott redemptions which is why they're my back up. Hilton points are worth a lot less, but they're also far easier to obtain for casual travelers.

VisaW

If this is true, the points blogs need to get on that ASAP. I'm still not positive that these T&C exclude what we're talking about. Strictly speaking, when you use 270,000 Marriott points to earn 110,000 Southwest miles (and the 7 nights), that's less of a transfer (or a conversion) than it is a redemption in and of itself. I haven't tried doing this, because I don't fly Southwest, but if this benefit went away, I think it would have made big news on TPG and OMAAT, among others, who frequently tout it as one of the best uses of MR points.

hhoope01

You might want to go check out the threads on this in the Southwest forum. Southwest specifically excluded Marriott points transfers with very little lead-time. There was a big enough outrage that Southwest backed off for 6 months I do believe to let folks get one last round of CPs via TPs and hotel points transfers. But that road has now been closed off and I doubt it will ever open back up again.

But if anyone is really interested in a CP, the Southwest CC bonuses still count and with two of them in a single year can pretty much still get you a CP.

CPRich

A few years back there was no Cat 9....

Lovethecabin

Same here.

joshua362

There was no notice and effective 1/1/17, a few days later WN backed off and gave everyone until 3/31/17. I got in just under the wire for the first and last time...

pinniped

Yeah, that's exactly how it went down. I was on the fence about doing a CP this year and saw the threads on FT about the gravy train ending. When it opened up for a few weeks, I hit my last one and have CP through end of '18.

Over the past 15 years, I've done 3 TPs that counted towards AA Lifetime status and 3 that created WN CPs. Sadly both of those little "extras" are gone...