emergency ? about amex and starwood
 

emergency to me, that is. It is a good use of membership rewards point to transfer into starwood for hotel payment? ratio is 3 to 1. 120 ax points gets me 4 night w/ 1 free @ a hotel in hawaii, the value for 5 nights is about $ 1725.00 for 5 nights without room and local tax. Are the ax points better used for let's say a 1st class ticket to asia or whatever. Thanks, I have not had much time to poke around but the board looks great. Happy Holiday's to all! Kurt

"...Are the ax points better used for let's say a 1st class ticket to asia or whatever..."

For me, much better for FC to Asia, yes! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

For you? The choice is really yours! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Thanks! from a value point of view, so to speak, is about $ 2k for 120 points decent or is it just a bad deal? I know it's probably not the 7k or whatever the r/t asia tkt would be.

What is the average dollar value of frequent flyer miles? See
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/003114.html

Strikes me that if you're going to Asia and want to fly first class, and if you're going to also stay 5 nights in a hotel in a Hawaii, then the points would be better used on airfare because of the price differential as you point out.

A couple of points:

- From AmEx's web site, looks to me like the Membership Rewards points to Starpoints conversion rate is 3 AmEx points = 1 Starpoint. So 120,000 points would get you 40,000 Starpoints. That's a bad conversion ratio in my opinion; I wouldn't use it. Even if it were 2 to 1, that would still be a bad conversion ratio IMHO and I wouldn't go for it.

- Membership Reward's partnerships make it difficult for you to get to Asia - no UA, NW, or OneWorld partners. There are a few options, though; for instance, you could dump the miles into OnePass and fly on Northwest.

Have you considered switching to the Starwood card? There are so many advantages over Membership Rewards - no annual fee, one Starpoint per dollar spent, tons of airline partners, and 20,000 Starpoint -> 25,000 airline mile conversion rate.

Good luck, and welcome to the board.

Get the Sheraton card as it is 1 to 1 not 1 to .33

And 25k miles from only 20k points "earned" too! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You could transfer the AX points to Delta for a trip to Asia. Delta has a partnership with both Sinapore and Malaysian Airlines.
Also the Starwood Amex card is so much better that the standard Amex card that it's a total no-brainer. We recently cancelled all the corporate cards and saved over $1,000 on annual fees and replaced them with Starwood Amex cards. No annual fee, points are more valuable and the card is accepted just like anyother Amex card.

Is the Starwood Amex card issued in the usual versions (green/gold/plat) ??


[This message has been edited by Gaucho100K (edited 12-22-2000).]