We are considering using 420,000 points to get a 42 in Panasonic Plasma TV that I can otherwise get for about $1800 + or -. Is that a good buy vis a vis using the points for a hotel stay (in Tokyo as an example)? Is there a formula to use? Thanks!

It is a bad deal. For 130K points you can get a week in a Cat 6 Hotel which would set you back $2000 to $3500. For 390K points, 3 weeks worth (minimum) $6K.

Formula - take the value of the item and divide by the number of points. Compare that to value obtained per point using the points for rooms and airline tickets.

In your case, you are getting less than a half penny per point. My rule of thumb is I want at least a penny a point, I am happy when I get 1.6 cents per point.

Thanks so much!

unless you have a billion points in your account. Then, i'd say go for the TV. You'll live the rest of your life in a hotel room if you tried to cash in those points on hotel stays alone!

Actually, I'd say the opposite. If you have more points than you know what to do with, then you might as well save yourself some money and pay for the TV with points. OTH, if you only have the 420K points and have plans for some vacation trips and want to save money there, then your better off spending the $1800 on the TV and using points on hotel rooms/airline tickets which could cost much, much more than $1800.

I echo gardener. Anything out of the catalogue is not the best use of MR points if you're value focused. OTOH, if you really want the TV, go for it and don't fret the points if it fills an aesthetic need.

In terms of MR points and the 420K points you hold. Consider planning ahead for a nice destination trip with a travel package award. Most efficient would be a category 6 or a category 7 package with the 7 day hotel certificate and 120K FF miles ( 250K to 280K MRP ). The hotel category would depend upon where you want to go, and you certainly have the points. Choose the right destination and you could have a package worth $4000 or more depending upon destination and flight.

We're Marriott timeshare owners and we use MR points for travel packages to London where we leverage the hotel certificate and take advantage of the weak exchange dollar rate. We ourselves bank the FF miles and use them to upgrade paid fares, but one could easily use the miles for award tickets.

There's all sorts of ways to play the MR game. Pick one that fits your needs.

Barry

Hhoope01, actually U agree with Fermat who was responding to Gardiner's "It's a bad deal ... " line.

I also agree. It's a bad deal "unless you have a billion points in your account, [in which case we all say to] go for the TV."

I also ditto the 1 cent per point rule & the Travel Package suggestion.

After re-reading Fermat's post again, yes, I seem to have misread his post. I do apologize. I'll try and read things a little more completely from here on out.

It seems to me that the value of points being exchanged for any of the items in the catalog seem pretty low. For an example, I'm looking to use 150k points for a 7 night stay at the Marriott in Rome, a Cat 7 going for around $500/night (rough estimate). That comes out to about $0.21/point. As a contrast, you can buy a Playstation Portable video game system for 108k points, which runs for $200 on Amazon.com: $0.0018/point!

My observation exactly!

Now if you wait a while for BA(or another airline)to offer its annual bonus for transfer of points then the value of a travel package really goes up.
I got 30% more miles(162 k vs. 120k)by waiting.
Thereby getting to first class tix on BA and two weeks in nice hotels
Much better value than the merchandise catalogue.

. . . if you wait a while for BA (or another airline) to offer its annual bonus for transfer of points then the value of a travel package really goes up. I got 30% more miles(162 k vs. 120k)by waiting . . .

Thanks for the tip BGP, that's a good strategy. I'll keep that in mind as we're always planning ahead and sitting on a hoarde of MRPs. We always try to maximize the value of the points.

Barry

Oops! You're off by one decimal place: $3500 / 150K = $0.023 .
However, your point still stands: the hotel room is "only" 12.6x better, not 117x better!

The only catch to the Rome math: if you get into a situation where there truly are no good hotel rooms available in Rome for under $500, your desired Marriott award is probably not available.

I always assumed the catalog was targeted specifically for people who spend 250-300 nights in a hotel. They have oodles of points and little desire to redeem them for yet more nights in hotels. (These same people also likely have oodles of FF miles and little interest in a typical mileage conversion.) So, to Marriott's credit, they are given an outlet - merchandise. This target audience could generally care less about the redemption rates - I see some options in that catalog that'll get you about a third of a cent per point. Good enough... (I tend to look for a penny a point when redeeming for hotels, measuring somewhat conservatively.)

. . . I always assumed the catalog was targeted specifically for people who spend 250-300 nights in a hotel. . . .

That's a good point. The Marriott program is tailored for several different types of users.

Those of us on the Marriott timeshare end acquire our points differently ( by trading a timeshare week back to Marriott ) and we tend to be more value conscious as it comes down to how you utilize the points to extract the cost of the maintainance fees you pay on the week you trade. That's why we timeshare folk don't bother estimating the cost per point. For us, it's a function of your cost of acquiring the points and how you utilize your travel package in return.

Folks who earn mostly via hotel stays are working on a different cost basis. Road warriors who spend endless weeks on the road might indeed prefer something out of the catalogue as they might be travel weary. There is indeed some nice merchandise to choose from.

But those individuals whose business travel is moderate, or folks who build up their points slowly over time, might also want to consider the value side of the equation since it takes them some time to build up points and they could indeed leverage a travel package for maximum relative value.

The MR program is indeed very flexible.

Barry