Members on these boards often talk about transfering airline miles to hotel points. I checked on the AA, US Airways and Delta sites and do not see anything about this. I would like to transfer Continental, US Airways, Delta, and United to Starwood points. How do I do this? What are the transfer rates?
Thanks!

You can't get there from here. There is no conversion process from any airline to Starwood, it's a one way trip only.

What hotels can you transfer to?

Out of your list, CO, UA and DL can be transferred to Hilton. See http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rewards/exchange.jhtml for more information.

Do any other hotel companies allow you to transfer. I'm planning a trip to spain, so I already have a few nights at the Hotel Alfonso in Seville. Hilton's only property in Spain is in Barcelono. I will only be in Madrid, Seville and Granada.

Hilton is about it for airline ff to hotels. If you have AmEx points or Diners points you can convert those to Starwood, Hilton, Marriott ect.

As far as I know, you can only do UA or AA to Starwood, with Diners as an intermediary. However, you get crushed value-wise going from DC -> SPG, so I probably wouldn't do it unless you are just topping off for a very big Starwood hotel award. (Especially if you would have to pony up a Diner's annual fee to open an account with them.)

As for what most of us have thought about: running a ton of miles through SPG at an acceptable loss and then back out to your favorite airline at 1 -> 1.25, it isn't possible unless you are willing to accept 1 -> 3/8ths, which is what you'd get using Diner's (even with the SPG 25% bonus on a 20K transfer).

The problem with airline to hotel conversions is that they no longer make sense based on higher and higher hotel reward limits.

You can convert Amex MR to Starwood 3:1 or you can stay at the Villa Real - Madrid for 35k MR/night or Villa Magna - Park Hyatt - Madrid for 40k MR/night. If you need the MR points then buy US EE or I Bonds.

You should think carefully before using airline miles/MR points for hotel rooms.

Sounds like these hotels run between 25,000 and 40,000 miles per night - compared to say $500 per night? (Not sure of what exact px is - but even if it's $1,000 per night, follow along...) At 30k miles for a $500 room, that's 1.67 cents of savings per mile.

Assuming you value premium cabin travel (First, Business) - the best bang for the mile is, hands down, international business class awards. The US-Europe J awards are 80,000 or 90,000 miles on most airlines (DL and UA are 80, AA [90]). For that, you get a seat that would cost +/- $6,000. That's 7.5 cents of savings per mile.

Three nights at hotel at $500 per night - or even $1,000 per - is still only half of the value of the J award seat. Even if you've already booked your flights for this trip, you can save those miles for a subsequent trip.

If you don't prefer to sit in front, you should still evaluate if you ever need to purchase short notice tickets for domestic travel. In that case, 25,000 miles could save you $1,500 (JFK-LAX) 6 cents value per mile - still a better bargain than the hotel award.

The flip side - if you always travel on deep discount tickets (ie: $300 tickets to europe) and don't mind Y seating, then the hotel award may make sense.

Always do the math!

In any event, have a great trip!

Oh no! Here we go again with another debate on the value of a mile .

Not looking to stir any controversies.

Mile valuation is a two part analysis --- (a) the math [factual] and (b) what is valuable to the owner of the miles [subjective].

Everyone has their own answer to (b). Beauty, or in this case, value, is in the eye of the beholder.

Frequent flyer miles are worth 1.7238 cents apiece. Don't you people know anything?

Actually, it's 1.7237999999999....

In theory you can get miles from American or United to Starwood if you have a Diners Club card, but it won't be very efficient. You can transfer AA or UAL miles to Diners Club points and then transfer Diners Club points to Starwood -- BUT each transfer tends to be a loss of value.