goldie1977

Hello,
I applied for a Marriott Rewards Premier Credit Card and will receive 70,000 points after I spend $3,000 within 3 months. I want to use these points toward a SW companion pass. (I understand that they don't convert 1:1). I don't want the points/miles to hit my SW Rapid Rewards account until January 2017. Marriott Rewards wants me to choose between points or miles. If I select miles it wants me to give them my frequent flyer account number. The website says that "Once frequent flyer miles have been requested, miles will automatically be transferred to your frequent flyer account." Will these points/miles get posted to my SW Rapid Rewards account as soon as I earn them within the next 3 months? How can do this so they don't transfer to SW Rapid Rewards until Jan 2017? Would I be better off selecting points instead of mileage? I would appreciate advise on how to do this.

Tanic

Select points for Marriott Rewards. Let the points sit in your Marriott account until you decide to transfer them to WN. Only then will you provide your Rapid Rewards number. Welcome to FT!

illinidad

Do NOT transfer to SWA until Jan 1, 17 at the very very earliest if you want the pass for both 17 and 18. Even though the transfer takes a day or two to complete, SWA counts the date the transfer was requested as the effective date in their system. If you make the request on 12/31/16, you will only get the pass for 17

robbert

If you can, wait until you have enough Marriott points for a travel package. That's much more efficient. You can transfer between spouses accounts if that helps.

goldie1977

Thank you all for the great advice! I'll try for the travel package in January 2017 and the companion pass for 2017 and 2018.
Thanks a million!

flyer4512

Marriott just bought Starwood. Grab a SPG card and those points will transfer to Marriott at at least 2/1, probably higher.

You are choosing an airline for Marriott points you earn on paid stays going forward

toomanybooks

Has there been some sort of announcement about this?

If not, I would not make such assumptions.

flyer4512

2/1 would be VERY low.................Where I stay in Clearwater Beach there is a Marriott across the street from a Sheraton. Sheraton is on the gulf with a beach, Marriott is on the Inter coastal with no beach.

Marriott is 40K /night , Sheraton is 10K/night............Sheraton is nicer

Similar redemption rates where I stay in Boston

Consensus is 3/1 on the forums. If it's not 3/1 I will transfer all 200K SPG points to Delta for 250k DL.............I can get 25K nonstop MSP/BDL flights booking 330 days out, I fly that route 3 x's a year

Tanic

Typical bonus for the SPG Amex is 25k pts, while typical bonus for MR Visa is 70k pts. So if a Starpoint is worth 3x a MR point, the bonus is a similar value. Still not a bad way to get more hotel points.

However Starpoints do not transfer to WN, so you would be betting that the hotel programs merge before 1/17.

toomanybooks

I think it quite likely that SPG point holders will get screwed by Marriott. I have read those threads and there is a lot of wishful thinking there.

I know what SHOULD happen, but have no faith that it WILL.

flyer4512

2/1 is getting screwed. 4/1 is what it takes to stay in a comparable Marriott where I stay.

If Marriott screws the loyal SPG members they risk losing a lot of customers.

I would redeem my ~200K SPG for $2100 in Amazon gift cards before I took 200K Marriott Points

toomanybooks

4:1 is about what I think a fair arbiter would decide. As you say, there are a lot of 40k/10k similar hotel pairings

Maybe 3.5:1. This is derived from the numbers on a Marriott Travel Package. I think I would rather have 270k Marriott for that (=7 nights Marriott cat. 5 plus 120000 WN plus 2-year CP) than 77k SPG.

flyer4512

If they merge after 1/2017 you can still use the points............The point was to get MORE ( eventually ) Marriott Points..........not credit card earning value, CP or when they post.

I find MR to be 4/1 in the areas I stay for similar properties


Wait, so you are saying 1:3.5 but questioned me for saying 1:2 ?

Yes the Travel packages change things but do they stay at the same redemption levels and if you can still get CP via credit cards why redeem a vacation package ?

carraher

I hope I am misunderstanding this. I was getting ready to transfer enough partner points to qualify for two more years of CP. A message from SWA indicates that my status is unavailable due to system maintenance. It includes the following:

"
**Companion Pass Qualifying Points are earned from revenue flights booked through Southwest Airlines, your points earned on Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Cards, and your base points earned from Rapid Rewards Partners. Points purchased for personal use or as a gift, transferred points, points earned from program enrollment, Tier bonus points, flight bonus points, and Partner bonus points (with the exception of the Rapid Rewards Credit Cards from Chase) do not qualify as Companion Pass Qualifying Points."

When did transferred points become ineligible for the companion pass? Had I known of this change earlier, I would have used them on hotel stays rather than save them to transfer at less than a 1:1 ratio. If the change is recent, at least I could have applied them yesterday and gotten CP for only 2016 rather than two years.

toomanybooks

Assuming nothing has just changed, that must be referring to points transferred from one person to another.