2 questions:

1) Can I pay PART of my Fed tax bill with Official Payments/Starwood, the rest with a check? I owe a bunch and don't want to pay the conv fee on anything without double miles.

2) Anything other than United MP Visa giving double points for a local property tax payment?

Thanks.

Just one page back....

that would be the "I lend money to uncle sam at zero percent interest" dance?

The SPG AmEx card caps double miles for paying taxes at $5K, but I don't think there is any limit on how much you can pay with a United Visa card.

worth the charge and SPG rules?
 

Newbie US taxpayer here, so grateful for yr advice. I have the United MP Visa card and the SPG Amex by the way, but only got the latter recently, so haven't worked out the ins and outs yet. Apols if any of following seems a bit dumb!

I expect to have to make a payment of about $4,000 to settle my 2005 personal account and then $8,000 for the first 2006 payment.

This seems to raise fees of $99 and $196 respectively.

1) So given that United and SPG are both offfering double miles, I take it I'd be paying $99 for 8,000 MP or SPG points for the first $4000 in tax. Have I got that right and does that seem a good deal/rate of return?

2) But SPG says there are only double Starpoints for the first $5,000 payment. In which case, if I make the second larger payment with SPG Amex card, does that I mean I get single points or none? And if I make it with the United card, wd I get 16,000 miles for the $8,000 tax payment for a $196 fee?!

3) But the SPG Amex info also confusingly says that the Bonus Starpoints will be limited to 5,000 per account. Are Bonus Starpoints different to Starpoints? If not, it implies that actually you can only get double points for the first $2,500...

I'll stop befor I confuse myself more!

Is pre-registration required for the Starpoint tax promotion?

Not a bad deal.

With Starwood, you always get a 25% bonus (20,000 points = 25,000 miles) so for sure do $5,000 with Starwood. Cost is about 1 cents per mile.

If you go past $5,000 you get miles but no bonus miles with Starwood. If you did the whole $12,000 on Starwood you'd get 17,000 points at a cost of under $300 (2.49%).

If all you plan on doing is taking airmiles, stop at $5,000 with Starwood and put rest on United. Real deal would be to put it all on Starwood and enjoy several nights in the hotels. I am doing two nights at LAX for 7,000 points (value about $350) and there are even better options.

The link to the offer on the webpage above doesn't work for me. Was anyone able to find out what it is?
Thanks!

I have United MP Platnium and already get double miles...
 

If I have United MP Platnium and already get double miles...

Do I get triple miles if I charge my taxes?

:confused: EW

Does anyone know if I can use another credit that is not part of the list on their website to pay for the taxes and get the miles?

I maxed out the starwood card and don't have any of the other credit cards like UAL.

since the new US Airways mastercard give 1.5x, I was planning to use it for the remaining. 1.5x is not 2x, but not too bad either.

The WSJ reporter ran her story Saturday about the ff benefits of charging taxes. She notes the AMEX bonuses as follows:

"The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card, which yields points in the loyalty program for Westin, Sheraton and others, is offering double points on the first $5,000 of personal federal taxes paid. American Express Co. is giving away double Delta Air Lines miles on federal taxes too, but with a higher cap of 30,000 to 100,000 bonus miles depending on which Delta AmEx card that you use.

The cards are also offering separate 20% mileage bonuses on all base charges through April 30; register at americanexpress.com/deltabonus. With both bonuses, you'll earn 2.2 miles per dollar of tax charges."

In my situation, it's a no-brainer to "max out" the Starwood $5000 offer. I also have a Delta AMEX card, which I acquired on a promo last fall to "top off" my SkyMiles account for a particular award. As a OnePass platinum, I don't otherwise have much use for my SkyMiles AMEX card or the SkyMiles program in general.

That said, 2.2 miles per dollar of tax charges with a 2.5% fee is a "credible" offer. I'm personally "on the fence" regarding using it to pay my additional taxes. I'm leaning toward NOT using it, mostly because of the difficulty in finding SkyMiles reward seats. For example, if I could easily redeem 35,000 SkyMiles for a ticket to Hawaii, it would be worth paying slightly more than a penny for the miles (since, from the East Coast, it's hard to fly to Hawaii for $400). But given the heroic efforts required to obtain such a seat, it's hard for me to pre-pay for SkyMiles at more than a penny.

Any thoughts?

I think pgary gave us a bit of an extreme example with the No-Tell Motel example, but I agree with his general point: I value Starpoints based on what I'd otherwise pay for lodging in a world without points. I always look around (brand-agnostically, to some extent) at a given hotel market before I burn points.

The fact that a particular Starwood wants $300/nt. for a room doesn't mean much to me if that's out of line with the rest of the comparable market.

In some cases, if it's a rather known and predictable Priceline market, I consider that as my baseline, adding in a little bit of a kicker to account for (a) the fact that I have the right to cancel an award stay - usually up until 6PM on arrival date, and (b) an SPG Gold on an award is probably going to get a little bit better treatment than a Priceliner.

In Europe, I simply never use points because I don't want an American business hotel when I'm there. When I'm in Paris, the last thing I want is a hotel that makes me feel like I'm in Tulsa. :)

Even so, I value my Starpoints at about 3 cents each. I'm doing a 3,000 point stay at the Westin Kansas City this Saturday night. Pricelining it for one night would yield about $65 all in, booking a points-earning rate would be about $130 all in. I probably wouldn't realistically spend more than a Benjamin to stay there, so calling it a $90 value - 3 cents a point - seems fair.

Highest Starwood-specific rate I've seen was when I got a 1-bedroom suite at the W Chicago. That one was about $1200.

Highest one I've ever seen anywhere was for the Harry S Truman suite at the Kansas City downtown Marriott. That was $1500. (We were given that room for free in connection with catering business.)

And lastly, we had a suite at the Ritz in Naples, FL that had $900 on the door. It was August (hurricane season)...the place was empty and we paid about $190 for the room.

In all cases, I know the rooms aren't really worth nearly these numbers except in the rarest of cases. $1500 for a suite - even a giant Presidential suite - in Kansas City? :eek: Maybe for the Super Bowl that we'll get if we build that funky rolling roof. ;) These numbers are purely for entertainment purposes only and, of course, have no correlation whatsoever to the value of hotel points.

While I generally agree with your assessment of the value of SPG points (I also weigh their use versus what I could get a comparable room for on priceline for), I think you're being very unfair in your assessment of Starwood's int'l properties. Many (probably most) of their overseas properties do NOT feel like American hotels. Rather, they tend to feel rather local (in a luxurious way, of course). Indeed, I think the managers of their new "Le Meridien" properties would gasp in horror if you told them their properties felt like Tulsa. :cool:

Okay, perhaps the Tulsa blast was piling on a bit. It's just that when I go to Europe, I like to leave my usual world of Starwoods, Marriotts, and Hiltons behind in favor of truly local guest houses. I guess I'm attracted to them in part because they are represent the absolute opposite of the rest of my domestic U.S. travels where I'm always out for the best points promos, elite perks, upgrades, etc. Plus, the owners of those guest houses are usually very interesting people who care a lot about their guests and know a great deal about their city.

No disrespect intended to all of the big brands - I know they all have nice hotels all over Europe.