What's a resonable value for MR points?
 

I tried to search this thread, but found no answer.

What are MR points worth?? Or what is the best way to redeem them??

I'm having to decide if I should use up about 30K of them for a stay that would otherwise run me about $250-300, or $10 per 1K points.

Thanks in advance!!

First of all, you can buy them from Marriott for a penny a point (but only as part of a redemption, when you are short of points, up to 10% of the award).

I try to get about a penny and a half per point. I like the "Travel Package" awards. If you search on Travel Package in this forum (not this thread) you will see many others share my opinion.

Example: I just redeemed 250,000 points for a week in a Category 6 property and 120,000 American AAdvantage Miles. With the one week cert I booked a week next August at the Kauai Marriott Resort and Beach Club. A room there runs $259 a night or $288.57 with tax. Thus for the 130K point attributed to the hotel I am receiving 1.55 cents per point. The other 120K points convert 1:1 into American miles. We can all argue what they are worth, but I would value them at least at 1.5 cpm, maybe 2 cents. Furthermore they can be exchanged for 240K Hilton points, if you feel they are worth more or are long on miles and short on hotel points.

I then had 226K points left in my account, and purchased 24K points for $240 to cash in another 250K award, this will get me a week at the Marriott Waikoloa on the Big Island and another 120K AA miles. Because I am getting 1.5 cents of value per point, I don't mind buying them at a penny a point. Plus purchased points count toward lifetime status.

I plan to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Marriott before that ends at the end of the year. I should point out that, in addition to seeking high value for my points, I am also mindful of "laundering" points through Marriott and American for potential lifetime status purposes. Thus I will probably transfer in just enough points to get to 90% of an award and buy the rest, then transfer in more, etc. so I can make progress toward 2 MM lifetime points with Marriott and 1 MM with American.

Only problem is I can't figure out where else to go with the one week package awards.

A caveat: every individual is different and different value propositions make sense for that individual. This seemed to work best for me and I am happy getting a penny and a half per point. My only other Marriott redemption was 50K points for 3 nights in SFO that would have cost nearly $1000, or 2 pennies a point. I would not consider redeeming points at a penny a point.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ighlight=worth
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ighlight=worth

Just as an anecdotal experience with point value, I just was planning out some various travel package scenarios yesterday for us for next year and saw availability at the Marriott in Paris for next September. Price varies from 445 to 775/nt Euros during the stay period, which is about 900 USD at the high end. IIRC, the Cat 7 hotel part of the travel package "costs" about 150K points for 7 days.

Alternatively, for airfare, to a totally different and less expensive (hotel-wise) location, I found C-class award seats (business) on UA for FAT-SYD during the same timeframe for 90K miles per person. The 270K Cat 7 travel package comes with 120K FF miles, so I'd have to cough up another 60K miles to do this deal. However, the price for the same flights and same times, if purchased on UAL yesterday, were over 6800.00 per person.

So, what is a "reasonable value" for MR points? In the above two examples, the hotel could be worth a median of about 2.5 cents per point (based on the lower room rate) and the airfare about 7.5 cents per point. Obviously, this wildly variable but thought I'd share from the actual research I did for an upcoming trip option list.

I would say that 1.5-2 cents per point would be acceptable to me and I will look for values in that range or above.

Pat

It is true that utilizing the travel packages with hotel and FF miles, and choosing a property like the Paris Marriott and business class airfare maximizes the value of both the MR points and the included frequent flyer miles. However, to those who never accumulate the necessary MR points for such a reward, or choose to cash in their points for a hotel stay or to trade in their points for miles only, the value of MR points is probably closer to a penny a point, with exceptions. For example, a common MR award would provide 1 FF mile for about 3 points. A common measure of the value of FF miles is $.02. In this instance, the MR point would be worth just under a penny.

I did one major MR redemption recently - 250k for 120k AA + 7 nights on Kauai. I personally value my AA miles at 1.5 cents and I personally value 1 bed for 1 night on Kauai at $150. (That's probably what I could get a room for if Marriott points were not part of my life.) Multiply that all out and I get just a little under three grand. Or, a little over a penny a point.

I also completed several small award stays this year. A Cat 1 TPS in downtown Minneapolis - nice, new property - 20,000 points for 3 nights. Worth $67/nt? IMHO, for our needs, yes, and maybe a bit more... A Cat 3 Pointsaver R.I. - also in Minneapolis - 3 nights 27k pts. Worth $90/nt.? I'd say so... So even on the small ones, I look for what I consider to be worth a penny a point or a little more.

The value you get from MR points depends partly on what kind of money you ordinarily spend on hotels for leisure travel when hotel points aren't part of the equation - and partly on whether you can quickly earn large amounts of points to get into the top-end awards.

I'm always amused when, as has happened again in this thread, someone cites a situation where a BF class ticket and/or a hotel night costs some ungodly amount and then proceeds to value their points/miles based on that. We could generate a number of scenarios where miles are worth 10 or even 20 cents each. Is that the figure that one would apply for "everyday use" of miles? Would a typical traveller even pay those fares if miles were not available? I don't think so.

In valuing points/miles, most FlyerTalkers do not adjust for award availability. Let's face it, award rooms or award seats are capacity controlled and almost everyone has faced a situation where they are unable to get the dates/flights they really want. In some cases people are shut out completely and have to alter plans (destinations, dates, etc.). Mileage valuations should be discounted by 10% or 20% or perhaps more to reflect this. In addition, devaluation is a fact of life in most every program. Unless you plan on collecting and redeeming ALL your points/miles prior to the next award schedule change (who knows when that will be?), what you are earning now is worth less than you think. Seems that most programs devalue every few years (3 years on average in my view). If you started from scratch now (0 point balance) thinking points are worth 1 cent each under the existing award schedule, then you really need to collect and use all points within the next 3 years to prevent devaluation, otherwise the points are not worth 1 cent.

For the above reasons, I have tended to take a more conservative view of mile/point valuation, and consider my Marriott points to be worth about .87 cents each. I frequently get better value that that when I use them, but if I need a place to stay and can receive .87 cents of value from using points, I'll use the points rather than pay cash.

[QUOTE=MileKing]I'm always amused when, as has happened again in this thread, someone cites a situation where a BF class ticket and/or a hotel night costs some ungodly amount and then proceeds to value their points/miles based on that. We could generate a number of scenarios where miles are worth 10 or even 20 cents each. Is that the figure that one would apply for "everyday use" of miles? Would a typical traveller even pay those fares if miles were not available? I don't think so.
QUOTE]


MileKing and Gardener - you each make good points on how things are valued. Afterall, a room or flight is technically only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. (these programs wouldn't really exist if all you did was slowly just earn the exact value in credit of what you actually spent, right?) I think this thread makes 2 things clear - calculating what you are PAYING for a mile or point is critical if you are seeking to understand their cost and relative value when you are ready to redeem, and there are tons of threads on theories approaches to value them depending on the program. When REDEEMING, a different story on the way value is looked at and what you are getting and getting bang for your buck - if I'm staying in a $400 hotel room, I value it that way, even if I would never pay that out of my own pocket. I think it is possible to use different equations when considering what you'd pay to get the point/mile and what it's worth. I've stayed at hotels and taken flights I probably never would have if I had to pay for them. Also, IMHO capacity controls have to be taken out of the picture to a degree when evaluating value - if you are flexible or book early enough or luck out, you can max out the benefit of your points. I'm low tier status on most of my programs and have never experienced a capacity-driven blackout date, including free trips to HI, London and Paris.

FWIW, there's a deal going on right now with MVCI where one can purchase a week at Custom House and get 380K points plus 125K for the 2005 week, as there aren't units ready yet. I think it ends next week. That's two Cat 6/120K ff travel packages.

Deals like this are where most of our points come from. The rest is from bonuses and running business expenses through the VISA card. To put things in perspective, the only reason we're both silver elites is because we have the VISA card ;)

As someone who owns MAR and some of their timeshare properties, you can bet I'm going to extract every last penny out of the points we receive. That's my job. My wife's is to cook :) IIRC, I put a mean useful value of 1.5-2 cents on each point, inclusive of all options. The ones I ran across were just icing.

I would guess the average platinum can do 200K points per year, and likely bill most the costs to someone else. That's a much better bang for the buck than we get, and they get better perks along the way.

Don't begrudge us our small victories :D

Pat

I too like looking at this "value" for amusement purposes only. Kind of like when I redeem int'l F and chuckle at that fact that someone actually pays $10,000 for that seat that I'm getting for miles. As long as you don't get too carried away with it, it can be fun. :) I enjoy looking at the back of the door in hotel rooms to see that $399 rate quote. I laugh because somebody out there somewhere has actually paid it, and I'm there on hotel points.

My reality is that I generate most of my hotel points through credit card purchases and rental cars. Because those always involve a trade-off (e.g., I'm giving up cash rebate credit cards in order to earn SPG, HH, and MR points), I have to take the conservative approach when it comes to making earning decisions. Therefore, I always think "What would I do if I didn't have hotel points?" On Kauai, I'd book a nice villa for $150/nt. Therefore, that's what I'd value my big 7-night Marriott reward at. That's what I consider when I'm using my MR Visa instead of a simple 1% rebate. Actually, you could argue that I should just take the rebate and invest it and I'd come out ahead, but I do barely enough Marriott business that the elite status and the extra hotel bonus points are worth it.

value
 

my feeling is they are worth whatever the same trip would have cost me.

therefore its is mot so important to calculate the dollar value of a point but rather which reward package/option is provides the best value.

For MR the vacation package is clearly a winner 250,000 points = 7 nights plus 120,000 air miles.

Also, buying more nights is a greater value than single nights at a property

hersh

. . . my feeling is they are worth whatever the same trip would have cost me . . . it is not so important to calculate the dollar value of a point but rather which reward package/option is provides the best value.

I completely agree with hershmeister.

The MR program is comprised of a variety of members ( business or leisure travlers, and Marriott timeshare owners ) who earn their points via different means and with different goals in mind. There is no one single boilerplate method of fixing the value of MR points and it all boils down to how a member earns their points, and how they redeem their points.

A leisure traveler may accumlate points more slowly and hence elect to redeem for single night stays or for multiple nights. A road warrior has this option as well as the choice to build up a sizable stack of MR points and go for a travel package. Most Marriott timeshare owners accumulate big chunks of MR points and also select the travel package.

My own perspective is that of a multiple week Marriott timeshare owner who also accumulates leisure stays with Marriott. For me, the travel package is the best value because of the 7 day hotel certificate and the 120K FF miles.

What is the "real value" to me? It's all relative to the time and destination we want to visit and the FF miles that we utilize. In our case, we select prime foreign hotel destinations where room rates are higher, and we use our FF miles for upgrade seats instead of award travel. We are still putting money out of pocket to do MR travel, but careful planning brings us significantly more value than we would receive out of pocket.

Our formula does not work for everyone. But the MR program has something in it for everyone who takes the time to earn points and find a use which suits their goals and needs.

Barry

All well and good, but at what value will you use an award rather than pay the cash for the stay?

In our case, as we redeem CAT 6 or 7 travel packages primarily, I wouldn't consider a hotel with less than a 300/nt USD BAR. Generally, the ones we've used and consider were/are closer to 400-500/nt. To put it in perspective, I rent our intervals out at rates in that range (300-400/nt).

On a pure hotel redemption, as an example, I waffle at 200/nt on a CAT 5, if on a multi-day stay. We have one coming up in NYC and I have it booked on points right now but may change to cash as it's right at that level. The stay would be getting down near the one penny range and that makes me feel uncomfortable (that I haven't extracted enough value from the points). If it was 250-275/nt (pretty normal for NYC), I'd be comfortable using points, if it were a leisure trip. As it's not (tax deduction applies), I factor that in as well, plus the value of points earned from a cash expenditure. Lastly, I look at my wallet :)

As was mentioned, the MR system means different things to different people. Hopefully it's flexible enough to meet most people's needs and desires. I know, so far, I have no complaints.

Pat

I think many ppl get carried away when they try to base the value of the points using the highest published rates. I think basing the value of MR points off the rack rates is not a good approach, because almost NOBODY pays those rates. Everyone has some sort of discount code AAA, AARP, Government, Corp, etc. My approach is to use Priceline rates for determining the value of points.

For example, I booked 2 nights at RI in Chicago through priceline. Rack rate - $179/night, rate paid - $50/night. It is a CAT 4 requiring 28,000 points for two nights, which in reallity cost $100. What is the value of points in this example? ~0.36 cents a point.