honeymooners

I heard on betterbidding.com that there was a deal at the Westin Maui for $60/night during April thru June with 4,000 SPG Points.

Does anyone know of a way to get 4,000 points (buy, trade or borrow)? I have miles on America West and Alaska. I saw a credit card offer but it takes 8 to 12 weeks for the miles to post and I have 1.5 months until the honeymoon.

Any suggestions?

Lastly, where do I cash in that deal? The folks at betterbidding.com said flyertalk.com was the place to ask. TIA!

-Honeymooners

haveric

For starters, check out www.spg.com. The quickest way to get points would be stays @ Starwood hotels. You should be able to get credit card miles to post more quickly. My miles post to my Starwood Amex the same day the billing cycle closes....

Renard

That's the cash and points offer. It's 4000 points for each night at the $60 rate. I might be wrong but I bet there aren't a lot of folks willing to trade airline miles for SPG points...not sure how this type of thing works with the programs different terms and conditions. You could try on the coupon collection here on flyertalk.

mtacchi

I would suggest trying to trade for them, shouldn't be too hard. Try Coupon Connection

honeymooners

Thanks for the great advice! I'll try trading my points.
I'm a newbie so excuse my ignorance but can someone provide me a link or direct me to coupon collection or coupon connection?
Thanks!
Honeymooners

pinniped

Do you have either AA or UA miles? You can go either through Diner's Club's points program and then on to SPG. 2,500 air miles would yield 750 Starpoints, which isn't a terrible conversion rate. (Not great, but not terrible...) You may have to convert in blocks of 10k...not sure.

Diner's Club - if you don't already have one - does have an annual fee, but usually includes enough bonus points to offset at least one year's worth. Or...sometimes they'll waive the first year's fee and cha-ching...it's free!

The key point here is that those conversions are fairly quick and reliable. Certainly doable in 45 days as long as Diner's Club will open your account quickly.

Coupon Connection... I won't say "don't do it", but I will say "be extremely cautious" if you do it.

EC Traveler

You can get to Coupon Connection just by choosing a different forum at the bottom right of this screen. Be sure to read the sticky at the top of that forum which has trading rules listed in it. To be clear though...depending on your honeymoon length, you really need someone to book you a cash & points award for multiple nights, at 4000 points per night. So 5 nights is 20,000 points which, I personally agree, someone with SPG points would want a fair amount of mileage for. But good luck!

SanDiego1K

honeymooners is too new to FT to be able to see Coupon connection. Randy's team has put masks on both Omni and Coupon Connection so that newcomers participate in the airline and hotel forums first before coming into those forums.

Currently, you have to be registered on FT for one month to access Coupon Connection. However, Randy plans to increase that requirement.

SanDiego1K
Coupon Connection Moderator

AZ Travels the World

honeymooners, what are the specific dates you are looking for? The Cash and Points awards are capacity-controlled and may not even be available on your dates. Before you go to all this work to figure out how to get the points and get a C&P reservation, you should know whether it's even an option.

Post your specific dates so that one of us can check availability for you. (You can't do it yourself because one can't check availability on-line unless they have the sufficient points in their account for the award.)

pinniped

Honeymooners: I'm starting to think that the place you started - betterbidding.com - is your best source for a reasonably-priced hotel room in Hawaii.

Raising 20,000 or Starpoints very quickly isn't easy. Starpoints are valuable in part because they are somewhat more difficult to get than HH or MR points.

Chancing your honeymoon to a shady trade that might or might not be legit might leave you with a very disappointing honeymoon.

I know we're getting into the "stuff you didn't ask for" area, but perhaps take a look at the Starwood, HHonors, and Marriott boards for deals on Hawaii. Hint: if you're willing to endure one of those timeshare presentations, there are deals to be had. Compare what you find there vs. what the betterbidding.com information says and you will hopefully find something you can be happy with.

Good luck!