Interesting you should say that. We're traveling to Turkey and will use SPG points for a night or two at the Sheraton in Cesme Turkey. Since I work in Afghanistan, a bit of America sounds nice. With the best on-line rate 139Eu, and staying on Friday/Saturday, at the rate we paid for the points with taxes we're getting abot 6.5 cents value per point which cost about 1.25 cents. While the 25,000 miles for 20,000 is enticing, using the points for hotels is often a better value.

in my experience I would have to diagree with the above... When buying hotel nights you would convert the value of points based on the best available published rate. My understanding (I never redeemed hotel points) is that to assess the vaule of a point you would use a "rack" rate when converting. makes no sense to use a rack rate for conversion if there are cheaper available rates published...

Correct, but the post you quoted - before the part you quoted from it - said the poster used the "best online rate," not the rack rate. On this basis, assuming the poster would have paid for a room in that hotel anyhow rather than seeking out a less expensive place to stay, his/her valuation makes sense.

The only catches to paying for points via taxes for this purpose are (a) you can often get them less expensively if you have enough time to accumulate the ones you need, and (b) the rewards that make them most valuable aren't always available. If neither of these applies, this is indeed a good way to get a nice hotel room cheap.

If you use a Platinum DL Amex card, you get a 10,000-mile bonus for $25,000 in annual charges. Through 4/30, by registration, you also get a 20% on all charges. Put those together with the double miles for tax payments, and the 2.49% convenience charge works out to less than a penny a mile.

Took some digging a while back but I found this, its should help... It breaks down all the UAL Visas. http://www.firstusa.com/cgi-bin/webc..._20k&page=cont

1) "...you can often get them less expensively..." Sure, someone, somewhere has usually managed to accumulate points for less. At present, though, how can one acquire a great number of additional points at less, let alone much less, than $.0125 a point? (Let's leave out enrollment bonuses, assuming we have already advantaged ourselves of those, and "free" points with each $1 charged, assuming we are already using our cards for our other spends.)
2) "...the rewards that make them most valuable aren't always available..." Isn't it the case with Sheraton that all rooms which have not been sold/reserved are part of inventory for award purposes, so nothing like airline "saver" awards (as opposed to "standard" ones), or am I mistaken about that?

No, a standard room must be available. At some properties you can use additional points for higher category rooms or suites, but not all properties offer this option.

OK, but so long as a "standard room" is available, it should be there for points, just as it would be for if you were paying $s for a standard room. In other words, Sheraton does not make the two-tiered "saver" vs "standard" award distinction on their basic product that airlines do, requiring a "saver" inventory seat in coach before one can redeem a "saver" award, though there may still be a great many unsold/unreserved coach seats out there. Sheraton properties may offer higher category rooms or suites in return for more points, but again they don't discriminate between customers who would redeem points and those who would pay $s for a room. Right?

And how does Starwood Gold come into play where award bookings are concerned? (Starwood Gold is one of the perks of Ameniti.)

(I only started using a SPG AmEx card relatively recently, on the strength of FT recommendations. Perhaps I need to spend some time fisking SPG T&C, but any useful pointers will be appreciated, especially as I go ahead and pay taxes with my card today to build those points.)

Correct, as long as a standard room is available for sale, it is available for points redemption.

So if you put $10k on you spg amex you should get 15k pts? In other words the 2x bonus is capped at 10k points not your total pts.

a) If someone wants to sell me a dollar for 80 cents, I'm not going to pass on it just becase someone else will sell me a dollar for 75 cents. I'll take both.

b) I've stayed X-mas-New Year's week at ski resorts, Carribean Islands in teh middle of spring break, etc. The limitations on spg rooms is no-where near those of airlines.

I've used hundreds of thousands of spg points, with a calculated value of between 3 and 8 cents on every use. Getting them for 1.25 cents is an easy call.

I would assume the standard one point per dollar applies after the 5K bonus is maxed out. I don't see why it wouldn't.

If you want to buy points at 2.49 cents - about a break-even.

Thanks
My daughter got married last week I can probably use the month float

This may be in this thread somewhere but I did not find it. I need to pay some taxes. Can I still do the double Starpoints deal and be on time with the IRS if I pay Monday, or do I have to have a check postmarked Monday to be in time now?

Thanks in advance.

As I understand it, and expect to do it tomorrow, if one pays $5K in taxes with the SPG AmEx, they will wind up with 10K points for a "convenience fee" of $124.50, or points at .01245 each. If they put more than $5K for taxes on the card, they will wind up with more than 10K points, but the points beyond 10K will cost .0249 each, that is twice as much as the first ones. So up to $5K spend on taxes, a good deal; after $5K spend on taxes, perhaps a marginal one. (Not the same as buying US dollars for 80 cents each, unless absolutely certain that will be using the points soon for value >.0249 each, and would have chosen to spend the money that way in any event.)

As one without any experience redeeming SPG awards, I am encouraged to hear your positive feedback about your experience in this regard. (When redeeming awards, is it of any consequence if you are SPG Gold?)