My wife and I are officially empty nest and have gathered over a million Marriott points paying for big ticket items like college tuitions using our VISA and I would like to determine the best way to use them. For example, the least efficient way is to use them for one or two night stays. I have heard that the most efficient use is with air/lodging/car combinations. I have explored some of these on the Marriott site, but thought I would post here for input as well.

One other note: I am a private pilot and have a partnership in a plane, so travel within 500 miles I would probably fly myself. Europe, Hawaii, and Canada are places we are considering for a 10 day to two week (or longer) excursion.

Thanks!

Bill

Travel packages are the way to go. They include a 7 night stay and a corresponding number of airline miles.

Travel packages are best bang for your buck, you get good hotel redemption value plus 1:1 miles transfers. Increase the value of your Marriott points exponentially. Then use the miles for international upgrades or premium class awards.

The US domestic airlines give you the most miles. I am a fan of using AA because they allow to hold the award tix for 2 weeks and then transfer the points to AA.

One has to be careful comparing airline programs' redemption costs with MR. AA, for example, redeems more like 2MR:1AA

I agree that travel packages are the way to go. They are the only thing I will redeem points for. For 270,000, I got one F award on Lufthansa (via UA miles) and 1 week at the Category 7 Champs-Elysee Marriott. That's a $10-15k value, depending on how you value the F award and the hotel rate.

You are correct when using points ONLY to get miles. However, when getting TRAVEL PACKAGES, you get many more miles:

A Cat 7 travel package w/ 120,000 miles is 270,000 Marriott Points. The week is worth 150,000 points that leaves 120,000 points yielding 120,000 AA (or United etc.) miles. That's 1:1.

The airlines below all yield the same amount of miles for the same amount of Marriott Points.

Participating Airlines: Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, British Airways, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Mexicana, Northwest, United Air Lines, US Airways, Varig Brasil, Virgin Atlantic

The airlines below here all yield less miles than the ones above.

Participating Airlines: Air China, Air France/KLM, Alitalia, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Cathay Pacific, China Southern, Emirates, Jet Airways, LAN, Lufthansa/Miles & More, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, SN Brussels Airlines, TAP Air Portugal

I did my travel package and had 120000 miles deposited into my UA account. Added to my other miles, I was able to use the travel package to obtain 2 Biz-class awards to Japan on ANA, using United miles. Even though a direct transfer from Marriott to ANA results in less miles, using your airline alliance codeshares can alleviate that!

The 270k MR points for 7 nights in a Cat 7 + 120k miles is code 091, FWIW.

Okay - I'll take a chance at getting some heat!

Your profile shows nothing about any status with Marriott - just seems you got the miles through the credit card.

I'm Silver with Marriott after buying one of their timeshares. I accrue a large number of miles each year on my credit card by purchasing some business items with it. But with Marriott, rooms cost lots of points and getting top resorts at top times is very difficult unless you pay twice the already high rates (Stay-Anytime rewards).

I ended up investigating and switching to Starwood. There are two basic reasons - the rates are lower and there are no blackout or double point times. I have gotten resorts during the major holidays and summer vacations with absolutely no problem whatsoever. So the dollars I spend on the credit card give me more and better vacations dollar for dollar - much more!

I bring this up because you already have a load of Marriott points and it may be a good time to diversify. And if you agree, I can speak very highly about the Starwood system. Obviously, I recommend that you check their forum on FlyerTalk to see what others say.

That said, with 1,000,000 + Marriott points, you have some wonderful vacations coming up.

IMHO OP made a huge mistake by collecting all those points using a Marriott Visa. There are far better reward cards out there.

Anyway the travel packages are the only worthwhile redemption option. Even then I have trouble finding Marriott properties worth staying at where I could use the hotel portion of the award.

Some diversification to Starwood might be a good consideration for some areas, like Italy, where Marriott has very few locations. Two years before going to Italy for the first time I took out the Starwood card with lots of bonus points (Master Card Canada), but personal and corporate purchases through and had enough points for penthouse stays in Venice at the Danieli and at Westin Excelsior in Florence. Got in the Marriott Villa Flora in Rome for a 7 nighter, a rarity it seems these days.

Packages are the way to go, for sure. Occasionally you'll find point use (standard) at a hotel where the nightly cost is very high compared to the $0.0125 cost per MR point when buying or using them, but a week's stay in a European Cat 7 can have a very high value, especially these days with the low dollar.

Brian

No heat here - you live and you learn. But its well documented on these boards that if you stay at Marriott with any frequency you will realize the earning potential with Marriott and its affiliated visa is hard to beat. Typically $10-13,000 in stay spending at FS Marriott hotels will give you 7 nights and upto 120,000 airline miles (not factoring any bonuses like the mega etc.) I agree that for non hotel stay point accrual, then Marriott may not be your best choice.

I just cashed in 200K marriot ( 083) I got 7 nites at a Cat 6 in Hawaii and the plane flights to get the people there

I thought this was a great deal - buying this would have cost me over $4K ; though not as good as europe still made me happy.

Bill Welcome to FT

I echo what others have said The Travel Packages are the best value. You can plan an entire vacation with these travel packages. That is the only redemption I do with my Marriott Rewards points.

Please report back what you decided.