American Express-Membership Rewards or Starwood?
 

I am trying to decide.

I have the open business card & have alot of membership rewards, but lately I 've been thinking I may want to switch to the starwood amex. Can I use those points for airlines & other things like I use the membership rewards?

Does anyone have any experience with both. Or any suggestions on the starwood program?

(The reason I was thinking of switching is because I've heard good things about the starwood card) -------------Christine

SPG Amex all the way!

SPG Amex accrues points in SPG Program, which can be used for award hotel nights or tranferred into airline miles. IMO, these points are much more valuable than Amex Membership rewards points. (even Amex themselves think SPG Points are 3x more valuable, since they allow you to convert MR points into SPG points, at a 3:1 ratio ... sometimes at 2:1, on special, but never at 1:1)

Also, SPG points are transferable at a 1:1 ratio to many, many more airlines than are the MR points.

One benefit of *wood that I like (and I don't have any MR experience) is that I can transfer *wood points between *wood accounts having the same last name/mailing address. This is purely a *wood benefit and has nothing to do with AmEx.

My wife doesn't collect many *wood points. But, if I want to reedeem 10K *wood points to top off my wife's airline accout (say, Delta, or NW), I can transfer 10K *wood points from my *wood account to hers, then she can transfer them to her Delta account. This is a nice feature that has helped me a lot in the past.

One thing I like about MR, though, is that you can use them as cash on the Amex travel site, for ANY airline or hotel or cruise that pops up in their search engine. 10000 = $100, so it's not great, but you don't have to search around for a skysaver award, wait for a points transfer, or limit yourself to specific airlines.

Definately go for Starwood. I've moved as much of my spending as possible to SPG, especially with US Air leaving MR.

I'm only just getting started here, and it looks like for converting MR to Delta SM, you have to shell out some cash.

Also, transfer ratio varies according to some mysterious account info:

http://www.membershiprewards.com/Pro...=103&aid=54963



Starpoint conversion has no such disclaimer:

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/prefer..._checkRoc.html

Plus Starpoints can be converted into Amazon certs at 100 pts = $1. I don't see Amazon.com certificates on MR (that may be a cool perk for me personally, dunno abt u guys). I'm sure there's a much fuller comparison between MR and Starpoints somewhere else on this board, so surely some senior member can come along and point us to it.

Most of these types of questions involve a tough decision, a lot of pros/cons on both sides, a painstaking evaluation of the best bang for your buck depending on your travel needs, and a lot of soul searching.




This one is an exception.


Go SPG Amex. It isn't even close - in fact, it's laughable that the MR program is actually offered by the same company that offers the SPG Amex.

Diners Club offers this same option, and its 1.25 cents per point rather than 1 cent. Right now there's even a promo where it's 1.5 cents. And I still don't use it, I try to get better value out of my points.

Starwood Amex is better than Membership Rewards.

No mystery. There are two programs: Membership Rewards and Membership Rewards Options. The Options version of the program offers lower redemption rates, but is usally offered on cards with no annual fee, such as Blue, The Knot and The Nest.

Not so fast. I've posted this before, so my apologies if this is old news.

Last year, I believe the green and gold MR Amex cards had six months of double points promotions. Supposedly they were targeted, but I was always able to sign up. We're in the middle of a two-month promo right now.

Under these promos, you can get 4 HH points/$CC for any kind of spending. If you wait for the annual 3:2 MR-> Starpoint promo, you end up with 1.33 Starpoints/$CC. No other credit card can top that. Is the annual fee worth the extra points? The math is pretty simple - in my case it's a definite "yes".

I only use my green MR card during such a promotion; for the rest of the time, my Starwood Amex is my primary card.

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet: you get a 25 percent bonus when you convert 20,000 Starpoints to 25,000 airline miles. (No bonus for smaller transfers.) If you charge a lot, this is a biggie.

Exactly - I've gotten more than 30,000 bonus points this year on my MR Rewards Gold card due to earnings promos, and my annual fee is $130. So, I've come out $170 ahead on that in addition to the points I've earned, AND there are transfer promos throughout the year as well.

It all depends on what you need, when you need it.

I participate in both programs, the decision is merely how to allocate spending between them. Membership Rewards offers some features that are absent from the Starwood program. Only you can decide how imporant these are:

1. Personal cards enrolled in Membership Rewards offer double points for so-called "Everyday spending", such as supermarkets, pharmacies, gasoline, postage and cellular phone. One card also offers 1.5 points for purchases from MR transfer partners, including Starwood. This means you actually earn more points using Gold Rewards Plus than if you pay with Starwood's own card which offers a straight one point for one dollar.

2. Membership Rewards offers recurrent bonuses. In 2005 we earned an extra point per dollar on all purchases for four months, and this has continued for the first two months of 2006. There was also an extra point per dollar on charitable contributions made through the Amex website. There is a one point per dollar bonus on airline tickets purchased from the American Express website. All told, we averaged 2.33 Membership Rewards points per dollar in 2005.

3. The flight insurance and purchase protection benefits provided by American Express charge cards are much better than the similar features of American Express credit cards, including the Starwood card. This isn't a feature of Membership Rewards per se, but you do receive reduced coverage when using the SPG card.

4. Membership Rewards is available on Business charge cards. There is no Business version of the SPG card. I realize a small business can get away with using a Personal card, but if you need to be able to issue a number of cards with explicit financial liability and varying spending limits a true Business card is required.

5. Membership Rewards points are held at American Express. Starpoints are held at Starwood. Compare their credit ratings.

dennis

Starwood Amex is the best card by far. I charge EVERYHING to it. I have one that is for business and personal. I have all my family members and friends swithed to this card.