There is one thing I haven't seen mentioned, so I will throw the idea out there. On this link, it talks about a new high end card from AMEX, but it is being marketed as an SPG card. It says Arriving in August at the top of the page. So the new card would earn points in the new program, not SPG points.

Marriott Rewards Credit Cards

I wonder if there is any potential here to earn lifetime MR points through this new AMEX card starting on August 1. I also wonder if points from the other SPG cards would start counting towards lifetime levels starting in August. Again, the reason why I think there might be hope is that the earnings will no longer be issued in Starpoints starting August 1. The earnings will be issued in points in the new program.

I have noticed that both Amex and Chase are referring to the old program names. I am guessing this is because their contracts were with SPG and MR until the end of 2018. Then perhaps in 2019, the cards will be rebranded with the name of the new combined program.

No, it's much simpler than "contracts". It's simply that the merged program name has not been announced yet, and is supposedly not going to go into effect until 2019, so Amex and Chase have no other choice but to continue using an existing program name until the new program name is announced.

You can transfer SPG points to MR today (and it's been possible for many months) and they don't count toward the MR lifetime points counter.

So for them not to count in August would require no change, which is easy.

While for them to count in August would require a complex change (what would they do with points previously transferred from SPG?), which would be very hard.

So I am convinced that they won't count in August, just as they don't count now.

Confirming that transferring points to UA and back to Marriott does in fact increase your lifetime total. Just keep in mind that 56k MR points = 25k UA and transferring them back is 1:1, so you will take a 31k hit for 25k or 62k for the max 50k that you can transfer from UA in a given year. I had plenty to begin with so this was well worthwhile for me. I shouldn’t have any trouble making LTP/LTPP within the next month or so.

A week and 5 stays later...gotta keep pushing!

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c0a296d22a.jpg
David

Maybe I missundertood you but I wonder what complex change that you are referring too?
The simplest thing is to combine the MR LT point balance with the equivalent LT SPG point balance, if you want to allow MR members to employ their points accumulation with SPG. The fact that SPG points did not add to LT MR points balance is in part a facilitation of such a procedure;

At the end of the day each SPG account have a credit side with a the definitions of each credit, all you need to do is to sum up all of these credits conditional which types of credits that are deemed valid. In fact this procedure, of combining the LT points balance between SPG and MR, is facilitated of the fact that SPG points transferred when the accounts where linked did NOT count towards LT points balance in MR; if such a provision wouldn't been in place there would have not been any way to avoid double counting without reducing MR members LT point balance. Now due to the fact that the SPG points transfer did not count towards any MR LT points balance it becomes straightforward to combine LT points balance between SPG and MR and at the same time avoid double counting without reducing each MR members LT points balance.

Guys, they're not going to add SPG LT nights or points for the grandfathered LTPP consideration.

If they were going to do that, they would have announced it already, and tons more of us here would be way, way above the threshold.

Except that they changed their mind on at least one thing already (being able to get LTPP via combined SPG+MR LT nights + combined SPG+MR years before the end of 2018), so who's to say that they won't announce something else that they haven't announced yet? :confused:

But like I said, I think SPG points and nights have to be separated. They could possibly announce that SPG+MR LT nights will count but only MR LT points will count. It's way less likely that they would announce anything about SPG LT points counting.

With luck we'll know for sure soon, whether yes or no, since Starwood Lurker is looking into it (in the SPG forum there where's he's gathering questions and then trying to get them officially answered).

I've got a question.

I'm sitting at 1.8MM LT points (well above on nights), and I think I'll get to 2MM points by end of the year, with some help. However, I made a dummy mistake.

I had 10K SPG points that I transferred over to Marriott (30K), not realizing that they wouldn't add to my LT points. I should have checked here first! So, is there a smart way to get those counted? Should I transfer them back to SPG, then convert some other way?

Sorry if this is painfully obvious to some but how does one transfer United miles into MR? Is it via United’s website (I couldn’t see anything)? Also, can someone confirm that such an inbound transfer ups MR lT points? Thx.

Do you mean nights AND points, or nights OR points? Because as mentioned, combined nights (and years) have already been added for LTPP consideration.

Yes.

https://members.marriott.com/benefits/

I'm not sure how this can be interpreted any differently. Listed right underneath the new Lifetime tiers:

"NOTE: Members that reach 750 nights and 10 years at Platinum by December 31, 2018 will be grandfathered into Lifetime Platinum Premier Elite status (notified January 2019). In addition, members that achieve Marriott Rewards Lifetime Platinum under the legacy requirements by year end will also be grandfathered into Lifetime Platinum Premier Elite status. And, don’t forget that we’ll combine Lifetime activity across both Rewards and SPG toward qualification when members combine accounts in August"

You could transfer them back to SPG, then to another person. Then that person could do the conversion and transfer the Marriott points to you. That person will lose the lifetime points you gain though.

You could do a Marriott-UA-Marriott round trip transfer. You’ll lose points in the process.