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.

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 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.