Almost. My understanding is 20K Starpoints gives you 25K US Airways Dividend Miles & then the US Airways "Blockbuster" Promo gives you 50% more for a total of 37,500 US Miles

100% correct ^

American Airlines is the only airline that I am aware of that gives you lifetime status based on an accumulation of miles from any source. Because of this, initially I transferred my SPG to American to get the 5K bonuses. American, at the time, had all kinds of bonuses of its own. There are challenges which also give mileage opportunities. Once I achieved lifetime platinum status I started saving my SPG for hotels. However, somewhere along the line BA had a double points promotion which meant that 20K SPG points turned into 50K BA miles.
So I would suggest reading some of the threads of the airlines and see if you like how they work. You, I see, are also from Chicago. This is a good location for AA flights to California, Mexico, east coast. They fly most of where I fly. They also do not charge to change your AA Award ticket.
So, I would say consider AA, and that between SPG and AA you could end up doing very well.

Just curious as to how you only figure the value at 1.3 cents? If you transfer to ANA you can get a VS upper class seat from JFk to LHR for only 63,000 miles for a $2,230 seat, 3.5 cents. Or you can get a round-trip C cabin ticket from LAX to HKG with 4 stops for 105,000 for a regular round trip which would be $3,618.20 or 3.44 cents / mile on UA, throw in 4 stops and it easily goes over 3.44 cents / mile.

I'm talking about the difference between transferring Starpoints to miles and buying flights through the relatively new SPG Flights option. I agree with you - you can get some tremendous values from Starpoints transferred to miles. It's only when you use SPG Flights that you're essentially capping the value of your Starpoints at 1.3 cents each.

Would any savvy FF ever use the SPG Flights option? Short of needing an emergency ticket I just don't see the value.

Dont forget, in order to get the 50% bonus, you need to sign up for the promotion before you make the transfer.

Nobody that values their Starpoints at more than 1.3 cents each should. Some don't value them that high, or have far more than they could ever use.

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agree completely

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The main problem here is too much reliance on a form of currency,
that is dependent on the issuer (Starwood) itself not going bankrupt.
I can theoretically do see the tremendous value of SPG,
but what if this goes down or Hilton or any hotel chain,
in this economy.

If airlines can go down, so can hotels -
Hilton was bought at the peak valuation
It would be like LTCM collapse 10 years ago.
From that point, MR is better than SPG, but hopefully we can see it coming.

So you think that Starwood is more likely to go bankrupt than American Express (if by MR you meant Membership Rewards)? I think they're both very unlikely to go bankrupt (both have positive earnings and cash flow), but with the problems in the banking industry I would be more worried about AXP. I have far more confidence in the viability of either of those than in any of the legacy airlines.

My head tells me HH is a no brainer for amassing points and FF miles. However I think their properties are somewhat sterile (like Marriott) and I really prefer *woods properties for their unique feel and vibe.

With that said I know I have seen calculations done by some comparing the programs and HH crushes SPG. What price do I put on my preference for staying at *woods properties however? Right now with the FFN promotion I'm going to be getting a few nights to use. After that I will have to re evaluate and see if Hilton is still on my mind.

I was pretty loyal to SPG and Platinum for several years. I then became somewhat annoyed with the program because I never seemed to get any suite upgrades and all I kept reading about was all the great stuff others got.

I decided to give Hilton a try and also sign up for the HH AMEX card. Basically I let SPG fall down to Gold and then also achieved HH Gold via the credit card spend the first year. This really worked for me over the last two years and I have to say I really didn't miss the SPG Plat. benefits (because I didn't feell I got too many of them). HH Gold worked well and like others have posted I like the free lounge or free breakfast upgrade and I even got a couple of suites (at Hamptons of all places) and a couple of really nice upgraded rooms at several Hilton hotels. I ended up racking up a nice chunk of HH points due to stays and also via the credit card especially due to the 3 points per $ you used to get for restaurant purchases. Basically I still put all of my charges on the SPG AMEX with the exception of those that I could earn bonus points on by charging them to the HH AMEX. Sadly the HH AMEX restaurant earning options changed this year so I put that spend back on my SPG AMEX. The new HH Surpass card wasn't of interest to me since I didn't see the huge increase in benefits from HH Gold to Diamond (search the HH forum for discussions on this!).

As stated, I was pretty happy with this until SPG began offering the "Stay 2 get 1 Free" option this year which pushed me back to Starwood for most of my stays. I am on track to make SPG Plat. again soon and I will see if I actually feel that I get some benefits out of it this time around. If not...its back to what I described above once the status expires. HH Gold is safe for a while due to credit card spend. For me the two programs and the credit card options offered work really well and I would suggest looking into it. It also helps that Hilton has properties where I sometimes need to be and Starwood doesn't.

Berkshire owns Amex.
Even if Buffett lets go of Amex,
the US govt will not let Amex go bankrupt.
It is one of the chosen few. Mark my words.
So MR may ultimately be more valuable than SPG if you are passive.
But I think you can see it coming and move the points if need be.

I passed on Bear Stearns the day the govt stepped in for it.
I learned my lesson.
Warren Buffett stated in his annual report recently, that the markets think it is better to be a bankrupt company backed by the fed and allow it to borrow money at a low rate than a good company which has to borrrow money at high rates.

I bought Citi shares the day the Govt announced that they will "give up" their preferred shares and convert them to common stock valuing common stock at 10$ per share. It was trading at 1$, now about 3-4.^
Best decision I made. However,
this did not offset all my poor decisions in the past years yet.

What was the restaurant earning options change? As someone who is looking at HHonors I was under the impression that all charges to the room would earn HHonors points. As well as 3 points in other restaurants, is that not the case?

I alternate years between HH Amex and SPG Amex, maintaining Gold status in both programs. Next year I'll nudge that up to Diamond in HH...I can't do $40k in 5 months.

For me, my main objective with hotels is diversification. The three big programs have very different strong points. My business travel took me to places that had good Marriotts, so that's where I did most of my real stays. (I'm in the process of reevaluating this a bit.) I do most CC use through SPG Amex. I know I can get HH points through AA easily. So no matter where I go, I always have a pool of points in all three programs.

For actual hotel stays, Marriott and HH yield the best return without promotions. But SPG frequently has the better promotions. (Marriott's "Megabonuses" are getting kind of tired.)

For credit cards, SPG and HH both yield excellent return - better than Marriott.

I personally find that Marriott's conversions out to air miles are very valuable - moreso than Starwood's. I keep Starwood 100% focused on actual hotel stays. But I've run a few of those 120k chunks through AA from Marriott: without Marriott I wouldn't be Lifetime Gold. One year, when I knew I needed a bunch of West Coast U.S. trips, I moved Marriott points into WN - paired up with ten Hertz car rentals, I had 100 credits which is a little more than 12 free tickets thanks to the Companion Pass. OK, I'm not otherwise a big WN flier, but for a fat stack of free nonstop trips to various West Coast cities I thought that was a pretty sweet deal.