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When to Use Points/Value of Points

When to Use Points/Value of Points

 
Old Feb 22, 2005, 3:41 pm
  #1  
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Question When to Use Points/Value of Points

I have a pretty good idea of when to use my airline miles and when to pay for a flight. I assume some of the same reasoning goes into when to use my Marriott points for a stay. However, any advice on the value of Marriott points and when to burn them on a stay. I am thinking of using them to stay at a Category 3 hotel for 2 nights (28,000 points) which would cost $139 + tax per night if I paid. Is this a "bad" deal? Thanks (Sorry in advance if this has been addressed in prior threads but difficult to search with the search feature down).
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Old Feb 22, 2005, 3:55 pm
  #2  
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I answer most of these threads the same way: the answer very much depends on your own earning/burning patterns, your own cashflow situation, and how bad you want to be in that Marriott vs. a similar hotel down the street or whichever option Priceline would serve up for you.

I do frequent Cat 2/Cat 3 award stays similar to the one you describe at a similar redemption rate. (Penny a point.) Some folks here look for more than that by saving for the major travel packages, but I tend to earn & burn my Marriott points frequently, keeping my cash in-pocket, and then using Starwood for my major awards. I use them in places where I absolutely want the Residence Inn or TownePlace Suites and I don't want to deal with Priceline or any third party agent.

If I get 1 cent per point, I'm happy. Usually, the Marriott point I earn today will get spent within 9-12 months (using FIFO), so I really feel that I'm getting a legit penny a point in most cases.
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Old Feb 22, 2005, 5:27 pm
  #3  
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I echo the advice above - your situation will determine the right answer. As an example, I had so many USAir miles, and with the risk of liquidation, the marginal value to me was near zero - so I burned some in what others may determine to be a waste of miles.

For MR, my quant jock analysis resulted in a valuation of 1.2-1.8 cents, depending on my assumptions. I tend to save them for longer stays (marginal cost of nights goes down with longer stays) at higher demand properties, so I personally would use $$$ in this scenarios.

YMMV
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Old Feb 22, 2005, 9:42 pm
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I struggle with this question. I had been of a mind to save up my MR points for a big free vacation courtesy of MR. Now that I am in that zone (235,000 points) and still earning lots of points via business stays, I am thinking of modifying my redemption strategy. Occassionally I have need to stay at a local hotel while doing renovations on my house. So far I have paid for those stays. Now, I am thinking of redeeming points instead and saving my cash. I will still have plenty left for a free big vacation. Only thing holding me back until now is wanting to ensure I will hit the minimum number of nights for gold renewal this year. At my current rate of travel, I'll just miss platinum this year (missed by 5 ngihts last year). Also the new Megabonus deal is swaying me to still do paid stays. For now, I'll probably continue to pay until I complete the Megabonus and than re-evaluate. May continue to pay until I qualify for platinum (or have no chance of doing so) and then start redeeming.

By the way if I did redeem now, I can typically get 1 cent to 1.5 cent per point value for local stays. I consider that acceptable and better than my return on miles for an typical local/domestic airline trip. Have far fewer miles accrued, so still hording them until I have enough for a free big trip (e.g. 2 x tickets in C or F to Europe or Hawaii).

Bottom line, it is a personal decision. I don't think there is a single correct answer.


--Jon
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Old Feb 23, 2005, 6:43 am
  #5  
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Originally Posted by Jon Maiman
I struggle with this question. I had been of a mind to save up my MR points for a big free vacation courtesy of MR. Now that I am in that zone (235,000 points) and still earning lots of points via business stays, I am thinking of modifying my redemption strategy. Occassionally I have need to stay at a local hotel while doing renovations on my house. So far I have paid for those stays. Now, I am thinking of redeeming points instead and saving my cash. I will still have plenty left for a free big vacation. Only thing holding me back until now is wanting to ensure I will hit the minimum number of nights for gold renewal this year. At my current rate of travel, I'll just miss platinum this year (missed by 5 ngihts last year). Also the new Megabonus deal is swaying me to still do paid stays. For now, I'll probably continue to pay until I complete the Megabonus and than re-evaluate. May continue to pay until I qualify for platinum (or have no chance of doing so) and then start redeeming.

By the way if I did redeem now, I can typically get 1 cent to 1.5 cent per point value for local stays. I consider that acceptable and better than my return on miles for an typical local/domestic airline trip. Have far fewer miles accrued, so still hording them until I have enough for a free big trip (e.g. 2 x tickets in C or F to Europe or Hawaii).

Bottom line, it is a personal decision. I don't think there is a single correct answer.


--Jon

Well, if you hoard just a little while longer, your travel package will give you enough FF miles for those two C tickets to Europe or Hawaii. (Not that I'd recommend blowing miles on C to Hawaii unless you know your airline offers a good product in that market.)

If I were that close to 250k again, I think I'd hold out for the whole enchilada. Pittsburgh is easily Pricelineable. A nice resort in Hawaii is a bit less so and Europe hotels can get very expensive. (Whether you want an American chain business hotel on your Euro vacation is entirely a personal choice.) Finally, two biz seats to Europe would not suck... ^
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Old Feb 23, 2005, 8:02 am
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My valuations tend to be more conservative. My hurdle rate for using Marriott Rewards points is 0.87 cents each (i.e. less than 1 cent per point). If I can get 0.87 cents of value, I'll use an award otherwise I'll pay the cash. Even with this relatively low valuation, I haven't redeemed a Marriott award in a few years ( I think the Marriott Grand Flora in Rome for a week in 2002 was my last Marriott redemption). Most of our leisure travel is in the U.S. and we book well in advance so securing low rates is fairly easy.
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Old Feb 25, 2005, 2:40 pm
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My personal rule is not to redeem points for stays of less than four nights, or for room rates under $150 a night. The per-night point cost becomes less (whether you're talking about a package deal or a room-only redemption) for longer stays, so for a short stay, I'd rather save the points and pay outright (which earns even more points for later).

Normally, I'm a penny-pincher anyway, so if I'm paying out of pocket, I'll look for the good room value, which almost always means $150 a night or less, even in major metropolitan areas.

These little rules have helped me save a big pile-o-points while also maximizing the value of the points I actually do redeem. However, as always, YMMV.
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Old Feb 26, 2005, 8:47 am
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Some great points being made here - for me, the two major things are how quickly/easily you can earn Marriott points, and I like the suggestion about the longer the stay the better with Marriott. Those two items add a lot of context to what your points are worth.

Getting X points per penny is a great calculation, though it is also true that if you are an earning machine, the calculation is less critical (doesn't mean it's less relevant, just less critical to your situation). Some folks here (not me anymore, unfortunately) seem to amass so many points that their reasonable ability to use them should probably be a factor - if you have half a million points or will get there, why not use them? Sometimes I think I spend too much time trying to figure out how to earn points and not enough time on how to use them - $150/night with taxes is not insignficant for a Cat 3 hotel - I'd be inclined to consider using points on that. I personally don't think having more points or miles than you can use within a few years makes a lot of sense, if you are spending real dollars today to bank points you'll use later, when redemption values may increase (they could decrease as well but when does that happen?).

However I also feel that the fact of points per night decreasing with each subsequent night with Marriott is a critical factor - the drop off in points needed night by night is significant and to my knowledge is a somewhat unique structure to this program on basic award charts. If a 7 night stay/travel package is in your future, the points might be worth holding - that 5th, 6th or 7th night gets pretty cheap on the points. We personally tend to use our points to stay in places we'd never be able to/want to pay for ourselves, like a $400/night resort - the value of using points for a longer stay like that, and having a luxurious stay you might not otherwise have is worth considering.
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Old Feb 27, 2005, 7:14 pm
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I second most of the advice by everyone above. My cutoff for Marriott points is 1 cent US for small chunks, so I'd call the OP's choice dead even.
Unless Raven foresees accumulating a total of >100K for a big enchilada...

Last edited by Brendan; Feb 28, 2005 at 11:21 am
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Old Feb 28, 2005, 8:01 am
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Originally Posted by Brendan
I second most of the advice above. My cutoff for Marriott points is 1 cent US for small chunks, so I'd call the OP's choice dead even.
Unless Raven foresees accumulating a total of >100K for a big enchilada...
FWIW, I'm trying to get my balance back over 400K.
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Old Feb 28, 2005, 9:10 am
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Originally Posted by Just Passing Thru
FWIW, I'm trying to get my balance back over 400K.
What type of award are you saving for??

I just made 235,000 before the CO transfer bonus came into play, so I got 7 nights at a cat 1-5 hotel + 150,000 Onepass miles... I thought that was a pretty good redemption.

Decided to go on vacation at a Category 6 hotel, and I was told I could have an exception and upgrade my certificate for 20,000 miles. Can't wait till I can redeem this in August!
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Old Feb 28, 2005, 9:19 am
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Originally Posted by eduboys
What type of award are you saving for??
Two of the 7-night package awards. At 400K, we'll be able to redeem two packages at the Cat 7 level, so we'd have sufficient points no matter where we chose to go. If our chosen location didn't require a Cat 7 redemption, we'd have some points left over.

Oz and South America are on the menu right now, but Ms. JPT may have other plans for us.
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Old Feb 28, 2005, 9:53 am
  #13  
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Originally Posted by Just Passing Thru
Two of the 7-night package awards. At 400K, we'll be able to redeem two packages at the Cat 7 level, so we'd have sufficient points no matter where we chose to go. If our chosen location didn't require a Cat 7 redemption, we'd have some points left over.

Oz and South America are on the menu right now, but Ms. JPT may have other plans for us.
Actually, the good news is that you won't need Cat 7's. You'll probably be able to get away with two Cat 5's (at 235k each for the top air/hotel package) or a Cat 5 and a Cat 6 (250k).

Most of Marriotts Cat 7's are clustered in London and NYC. Most FT'ers would probably agree that there are too many cheap ways to secure NYC lodging that the points aren't best used there.

London's another story...if you want to be in an American chain hotel while in London (so folks do, some don't...), using points is probably the best way to go because rates are very high and there aren't a plethora of cheap back-doors into those properties like there are for U.S. hotels.
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Old Feb 28, 2005, 10:29 am
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Originally Posted by pinniped
Actually, the good news is that you won't need Cat 7's. You'll probably be able to get away with two Cat 5's (at 235k each for the top air/hotel package) or a Cat 5 and a Cat 6 (250k).

Most of Marriotts Cat 7's are clustered in London and NYC. Most FT'ers would probably agree that there are too many cheap ways to secure NYC lodging that the points aren't best used there.
I was actually thinking of the packages that come with only 50K air miles; we've got a slug of FF miles, so we wouldn't need to redeem for the really fat packages. The 50K mile packages are only 200K at the top level.
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Old Feb 28, 2005, 11:11 am
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On the topic of the really fat packages, does anyone know if those 84 Southwest credits count towards the yearly total of 100 required for a Companion Pass? (In other words, do those 100 credits have to equal 100 paid, flown segments, or does partner stuff count?)
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