Are any hotel points "transfer friendly"?
 

I earned 500k Marriott points in the past year, and anticipate similar travel this year.

I'd like to be able to gift/transfer spare points to friends and family.

Which hotel programs are friendly to transferring points/purchasing nights for friends and family?

I believe all of them allow you to book award rooms for any person you choose. You are not required to use all the points by yourself.

Heck, I would be happy to allow you to book me an award room in London just to show you how easy it is. :p

Seriously you can book an award room from your points for anyone.

Piece of cake: you can book awards for anyone.

Also look at the large Marriott travel packages that includes 120k FF miles. If you're simply in a situation where you have too many dang hotel points :o and you don't know what to do with them, the Travel Packages are a good way to move big chunks of Marriott points into FF miles at an attractive rate (essentially 1 for 1, assuming you actually have a use for the 7-night hotel award that is in the package).

The only reason I'm Lifetime Gold on AA right now is because of Marriott Travel Packages. ^ Otherwise, I'd still be hanging out at about 900k.

So...you might not have that many points that you have to give away. I mean, it all depends on how generous you're feeling, right? :)

On a similar note. . .which hotels points besides Starwood, if any, can be converted to ff miles on an competitive (close to 1 to 1) basis?

Marriott, when done as part of a travel package, transfers up to 120,000 FF miles at 1:1.

When you consider the fact that you earn 'em at a rate of 17 per $ at a full-service prop (or a tad more, if you are elite), that's a pretty healthy ROI. ^ For Starwood stays, it's three or four points per dollar (depending on status level), although Starwood places a far larger percentage of your overall earnings in targeted promotions, which can bring it up into the 6-10 pts/$ range.

(Perhaps off-topic, but this bugs me. I'm relegated to doing short bursts of Starwood activity 2-3 times a year. Marriott has targeted promos too, but compared to "regular" earnings they aren't a major driving force in whether you stay at Marriotts.)

Starpoints are King for day-to-day credit card spending, but if you actually stay at a lot of hotels, the Marriott Travel Packages are tough to beat.

Marriott & Hyatt will also allow U to transfer points without a fee into a friend's account to complete what s/he needs for an award. Hilton & Holiday Inn do so with an outrageous fee.