Sometimes I want luxury, and sometimes I want quantity.
Last week I talked about the Three Best Credit Cards for Free Nights in Luxury Hotels.
But what about going to the other end of the award chart? A lot of times when I am traveling I just need a pillow and a roof, since I plan to be out exploring the city all day. What credit card sign up would net me the most free hotel nights? (20 in all!)
Posted in Club Carlson, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, SPG
Tagged Club Carlson, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, Starwood
Starwood Preferred Guest’s Cash & Points redemptions are some of the best values in travel. While most hotel points are worth a fraction of a cent and dropping, SPG Cash & Points redemptions can get 2, 3, or even more cents of value from Starpoints.
Cash & Points stays are not pure awards where you use points for a free room. Instead, they are awards where you combine (as the name suggests) some cash with fewer points than you would ordinarily need for a free night–stretching your cash and points farther. Also, unlike free night awards, Cash & Points awards are capacity controlled.
That means, kind of like airline awards, you need to search for space and be flexible to use Cash & Points awards.
Three weeks ago, Starwood increased the cash and points prices of Cash & Points awards. At the time, Starwood claimed there would be an increase in the availability of the awards. Ben and Summer have weighed in, saying they have found increased availability. And I agree. Availability has improved dramatically.
Here’s the new Cash & Points chart.
Where’s the best value?
That depends on your hotel preferences. If you want opulence, and you’d otherwise pay $500 or more per night, then the top tiers might have real value.
If you’re like me–and you like very cheap accommodation–then the best value will be at the bottom tiers–1,500 points and $30 is pretty incredible for four walls and a roof.
Searching for Space
Cash & Points space is capacity controlled. You can search for it on SPG.com here.
These search results are a little messy, though, so I prefer to use the Wandering Aramean’s search tool.
I did several searches for the same July weekend in cities throughout the world, and I found great Cash & Points availability.
New York, image from http://www.wandr.me/SPG-Award-Search.aspx/
Buenos Aires, image from http://www.wandr.me/SPG-Award-Search.aspx/
Rome, image from http://www.wandr.me/SPG-Award-Search.aspx/
Let’s look at some of the Los Angeles properties, which are available the same weekend.
The Sheraton Downtown wants $349 per night plus tax or 5,000 Starpoints plus $75 plus tax.
That works out to more than 5.5 cents per point in value from each Starpoint since 5,000 points would save $274 plus tax per night.
The other hotels have less of an eye popping cents per point value. The Sheraton in Anaheim is also a Category 4 that costs 5,000 points and $75.
But since it only costs $209, the cents per point on the Cash & Points redemption is around 2.8 cents.
Sheraton Ontario is a Category 2, so it only costs 2,000 points and $35.
But it only retails for $79 per night, so the 2,000 Starpoints only save about 2.2 cents each (and a 3,000 point Free Night Award is a better deal.)
Cash & Points Value
From Cash & Points awards, you should always be able to exceed two cents in value per point. Even on “bad” redemptions like the Sheraton Ontario, we can get more than 2 cents per point. And on some phenomenal redemptions, we can get 5 cents or more per point.
Cash & Points awards still remain the best use of Starpoints. The second best use remains transferring Starpoints to airline partners like US Airways, American Airlines, and Delta in increments of 20,000 to receive 5,000 mile bonuses.
The average value you can get from Cash & Points awards, even if you don’t value hotels at their retail rate should be over 2.5 cents per Starpoint.
Load Up On Starpoints
The Starwoord Preferred Guest from American Express earns 25,000 bonus Starpoints after spending $5,000 in the first six months. Those 30,000 Starpoints can be used for up to twenty Cash & Points award nights. Even at a conservative 2.5 cents per point estimate, 30,000 Starpoints are worth $750.
Because the SPG American Express earns one Starpoint per dollar, and because Starpoints are more valuable than any other type of point or mile, this is one of the best cards to put everyday spending (that doesn’t fall into other cards’ bonus categories) on.
The card has no annual fee the first year, and $65 thereafter.
Application Link: Starwoord Preferred Guest from American Express
Recap
Starwood has increased the amount of cash and points needed for Cash & Points awards, but they’ve simultaneously increased the number of hotel rooms made available for such awards.
Cash & Points awards remain the best use for Starpoints–delivering 2-5+ cents of value per point, and the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express remains the best way to stock up on Starpoints.
Update: Reading through comments here and on Twitter and Facebook, this promo is clearly targeted. About a quarter of us got the free night offer, a quarter are getting 2k or 4k points per stay, and half are getting nothing. Try your luck, and leave a comment, tweet, or facebook comment.
Reader Daniel tipped me off about an incredible Starwood Preferred Guest promotion called Bonus Beginnings. He told me to go to https://www.spgpromos.com/bonusbeginnings/ and type in my SPG account number.
I am now signed up for a free weekend night at any Category 1-6 SPG hotel after one paid night at any SPG property.
I typed in my number, and I got an email saying I had registered and what I had registered for.
The email says that if I book and make one paid stay at any SPG property by February 28, 2013, I can get a free weekend night at any category 1-6 SPG property worldwide between now and February 28, 2014.
Conveniently the email included some terms and conditions because I couldn’t find any anywhere else online.
The free night can be any Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night. The terms and conditions imply there may be some non-participating properties, but again, I can’t find the list.
The last part of the terms and conditions says that registration closes today, so head over and register RIGHT NOW.
The rest of the paragraph confuses me. It talks about a “member [choosing] his or her offer.” I wasn’t given a choice. By googling “SPG Bonus Beginnings,” I do see that promotions were run under the Bonus Beginning name in 2012 that did involve some choice of your bonus, but I don’t think I had any choice in this promotion.
Is Bonus Beginnings Targeted
I don’t see anything saying it is, and I’ve searched all my email inboxes without finding any emails about the promotion. That tells me I wasn’t targeted, and I am enrolled. The best thing for you to do is type in your number and see if you are enrolled.
My Plan
Daniel reported success signing up his account and a family member’s. He also said that in one account, he had already made a cheap stay for about $60 and that his free night award has already been deposited into his account.
I have signed up already, so I beat the registration deadline, now I have to beat the stay deadline of February 28. I think I may book a hotel for one night on my mid-Atlantic swing next week. If I can find a hotel for under $100, I can get one good night sleep now and one aspirational redemption in the next year. That’s an incredible return for $100.
The last deadline to hit is to redeem for a stay before 2/28/14. I can redeem for up to a category 6 hotel–full list. Category 6 is the second-highest category, and free nights go for up to 25,000 Starpoints normally. Does anyone have any suggestions for a great Category 6 hotel? I’d probably use my free night this summer in Europe to save myself hundreds of euros.
You
Did you register successfully? Did you get an email confirmation?
Recap
Tip Policy
Please send any tips you have for incredible promotions, redemptions, fares, or anything else. If you ask me to keep the tip secret, I will. Daniel told me about this deal on Saturday right before the MileValue dinner in Los Angeles and asked me to keep it secret. I didn’t blog it or tell anyone at dinner. He then reconsidered and told me I could share the promotion, and here it is. If you have any tips, let me know.
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Grab dinner with me in Tampa on Saturday or Baltimore next week.
The continuation of Tahsir’s round-the-world first class trip report that started here.
During my trip around the world, I stumbled upon some cash + points availability at the brand new W Bangkok. This hotel opened a few weeks ago (December 7th) and it is absolutely beautiful. For 4,800 Points & $60, this hotel should be one of the better options in the heavily Starwood-saturated Bangkok.
We were picked up from the airport and taken to the W, which is kind of far from the main area of Bangkok. This hotel is located on Sathorn Road whereas other hotels are located on Sukhumvit Road. It’s not a huge deal as a taxi ride will cost you $2 to get from place to place. The BTS sky train is also right next to this hotel so that is an even cheaper alternative to taxis.
The W opened on December 7th, and the night we came in, they were getting ready for their grand opening. When checking in, I asked the hotel staff if any suite upgrades were available and he stated that suites wouldn’t be ready till next year as this was only their soft opening. It made sense because they weren’t even selling suites on the SPG site. He did, however upgrade us to the Wonderful Room, which is a bit more spacious. The hotel, like other W hotels, is beyond trendy.
LED Room Numbers
The Exterior
Check In Area
When walking in, you are immediately astonished that this hotel has a lot of space. W hotels often don’t allocate much space to their rooms, at least in New York. Here in Bangkok, they gave a ton of space to walk around and because the hotel had just opened, no one had even stayed in this room yet! The bathroom is massive and features a bathtub, rain shower, and separated toilet.
TIP: This hotel is NOT for families because the bathroom is see-through. The sliding doors are see-through and so is the shower. I learned this the hard way when we all had to turn off the lights just to take a shower or go to the bathroom! Our room was one of the lucky ones because most rooms are partitioned by a yellow or purple see through wall. Our wall was just a wall but had some remnants of see through in it towards the end of the wall.
There is a tablet that controls everything in the room from air conditioning to TV and even the lights. For some reason, it wasn’t working when we arrived but the idea seemed cool! The internet was given to us because of our Gold status and we even got two free complimentary drink coupons for the “Woobar” downstairs.
Although it’s one of the newest additions to the Bangkok Starwood list, the W does have a few drawbacks. For starters, it’s hard to catch a taxi and because the hotel is so new, most of the cab drivers don’t know or don’t want to drive there. This is a major headache if you have a morning flight to catch like we did. At 7AM, we woke up and didn’t get a cab till about 8:45 AM. The hotel does offer hotel transportation at inflated rates. It was 2,800 Baht or $90 for an S-Class hotel transfer.
After coming back to the hotel from the city, I noticed that there were two cards on our table. One addressed to my dad and one addressed to “Ms. Tahsir Ahsan” We all got a good laugh at this because they always seem to make a mistake on my name.
A Letter Addressed to “MS.” Tahsir Ahsan
The W has a few areas to eat within the hotel. The main restaurant is the Kitchen Bar. They offer sit-down and food to go and although I didn’t try it, it looks like it’s a good place to eat.
The Kitchen Bar “Food To-Go”
The pool at the W Bangkok is probably the coolest part of the entire hotel! At night, it functions as a celestial pool. Lights shine from the bottom of the pool and replicate the stars. While checking in, they mentioned that we should make sure and see the pool at night. I recommend that everyone go and see the pool. Unlike other hotels, the pool is open 24 hours!
The Celestial Pool
The gym is located next to the pool and is very modern with a pathway created by pebbles. There is a ton of equipment and towels for everyone!
If you come to this hotel in the next few months, the front of the hotel is still sort of under construction. The W was built on a historical site and because of that, one building in front of the hotel was unable to be torn down. When asked what the plans of that building were, the management stated that they planned to convert the building into the Presidential Suite!
Overall, the W Bangkok is set to be the newest and trendiest hotel in the Starwood list for Thailand. Their attention to detail and service are among the best I’ve seen to date. I highly recommend staying at the W because it is away from the hustle and bustle of Sukhumvit Road.
Stay tuned for my next post!
Worst Award Ever?
As part of Starwood’s end-of-year recap of the Starwood Preferred Guest program, some annual facts and figures are given. The one that blew me away?
Someone redeemed 870,000 SPG points for a pair of business class tickets from Los Angeles to Rome.
Before I tell you how to do the same for less than a fifth of the cost, there are several amazing things about this.
SPG Flights is a revenue-based chart that converts your points to cash tickets. Here’s the chart.
The maximum value you can get out of a Starpoint when using it for an SPG Flights redemption is about 1.3 cents. This makes SPG flights among the worst redemptions for SPG points, well below
How to Get Two Business Class Tickets from Los Angeles to Rome for 160k SPG Points
One benefit of SPG Flights is that you can get any seat, any time if you have the points. There is no hunt for availability like with award seats. But with a little flexibility, you can get the exact same seats for 160k SPG points, saving 710k SPG points.
Here’s how.
1. Transfer 60k SPG points to a Delta account. Tomorrow transfer 60k more SPG points to the same account. The next day transfer 40k SPG points to the same account. This is because “Starwood Preferred Guests can transfer up to 79,999 of their Starpoints® per transaction per program within a 24-hour period to [partner] frequent flyer programs.” And we want to maintain 20k increments to get all the bonus miles we are entitled to.
Transfers will not post to Delta miles instantly, taking a few days to a few weeks.
This will post as 200k Delta miles–160k + 40k in 5k bonuses.
2. Search for two seats in business class on the direct Alitalia flight from LAX-FCO. You can ask a Delta agent to search, but I search on expertflyer.com. See How to Use Expert Flyer.
3. Call Delta to book the award space you found online with the recently-transferred 200k miles in your account and about $200 in taxes total.
Sample dates: October 16 – 22, 2013.
Voila! For 160k SPG points, you’ve got 2 business class roundtrips Los Angeles to Rome–a savings of 710k SPG points.
Drawbacks
Of course, I’m not being completely fair. I totally cherry-picked those dates to find space on Alitalia. Most days had only one business class seat.
And buying the tickets through SPG Flights means SPG buys you a cash ticket, which will earn miles. A lot of miles in this case–19,062 redeemable and status miles with the 50% bonus for flying a paid business fare.
But even so, it’s pretty clear that 870k SPG points should not be used for a pair of business class flights.
What would I use them for?
I would get a pair of roundtrip Emirates A380 First Class tickets from New York to Dubai for 270k Japan Airlines Mileage Bank Miles by transferring in 220k SPG points.
That would set me up for onboard showers in perhaps the nicest first class cabin in the sky.
Then I would SPG-property hop using Free Night Awards, giving myself 70k SPG points for hotels.
Then after this first class vacation–not just flights–for two, I’d still have enough for two more identical vacations with 580k SPG points remaining.
How to Get SPG Points
SPG points are hard to get. You can get them by staying at SPG hotels. You earn 2 points per dollar that you spend at the hotel, 3 per dollar if you have Gold Status or higher.
You can also get them by getting the SPG credit card from American Express. The card comes with a 25k Starpoint sign up bonus–10k on first purchase and 15k more after $5k in spending in the first six months.
I don’t yet have the Starwood card, but I will soon. The highest bonus I’ve ever seen for the card is 30k points. Beyond the sign up bonus, the main benefit of the card is 1 SPG point per dollar on spending. Every reward card offers one mile or point per dollar, but one SPG point is worth more than one of any other type of mile or point.
Application link: Starwood American Express (25k)
Recap
Starwood is bragging about an 870k SPG point redemption for two business class flights when the same thing is doable with 160k SPG points.
I showed how to save 710k points by transferring to Delta and booking the same flights with miles. I value the 710k points saved at $17,750+ conservatively. (Yes, really!)
To kickstart your SPG point collection–the most valuable points out there–check out the American Express credit card with a 25k point sign up bonus.
Application link: Starwood American Express (25k)
There are some great deals and tips kicking around the web that were already written up perfectly. I have added a few notes, and hopefully the aggregation will be useful.
1) Mile Nerd flags the opportunity to earn 15 American Airlines miles per dollar on donations during October–Breast Cancer Awareness Month–to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
Donate through the link on this page. Full terms and conditions:
If you were already intending to donate, this is a great deal. Here is my previous post on the implications of earning miles for charity donations.
2) Million Mile Secrets writes about a new tool that automatically checks you in for your Southwest flight 24 hours before departure, so that you can get in the A boarding group. That’s important because Southwest has open seating, so the first ones on get the best seats and bin space.
I checked in for my Southwest flight to Chicago last week only about 12 hours in advance. I got a C boarding group. I did get a second-row window seat–my preference for flights when I want to sleep–because no one had wanted to ask the very old lady to stand up in the middle seat. It was a totally full flight, though, so I didn’t mind.
Here are my two best tips for a good Southwest seat:
3) The Points Guy flags a pretty incredible Starwood promo that rebates 30-50% of the cost of a full points (not Cash & Points) award on a short–but incredible–list of resorts. This promo, in many cases, gets you the room for the same number of points as a Cash & Points award without the cash component!
You have to register by November 30 and stay by December 21. There are some great warm weather locations and some great ski locations, so this could be an incredible deal for many people.
4) Flying Blue has released its quarterly discount awards. You can fly on select North America to Europe routes for 25k Flying Blue points roundtrip in economy or 50k in business. AMEX Membership Rewards transfer to Flying Blue at a 1:1 ratio. The bad news is that Flying Blue levies surcharges that can approach $1,000 per person.
Here is a list of the North American cities with promos.
5) It’s Free Giveaway Friday. I’m working through my last few gogo single-flight internet passes. I had the chance to use one myself coming from Chicago to Los Angeles. It was great for writing blog posts and listening to Spotify.
Friday’s winner of the gogo pass was Ketan. Lucky him: he can read MileValue for free from 35k feet.
Comment below for your chance to win a single-flight gogo internet pass that expires 12/31/12.
Gogo internet is available on select planes on Air Canada, AirTran, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, United, US Airways, and Virgin America.
If you ever have something travel related that you want to give away, let me know.
Posted in AAdvantage, Flying Blue, Free Giveaway, Rapid Rewards, SPG
Tagged American, Flying Blue, Free Giveaway, gogo, Southwest, Starwood
Starwood Hotels Offering 20% Discount on Starpoints Purchases
Per this thread on FlyerTalk, Starwood is offering a 20% discount on all Starpoint purchases through November 30th. Purchasing Starpoints normally costs 3.5 cents per point. With this promotion, you can buy Starpoints for 2.8 cents each.
To purchase, simply follow this link and input your Starwood Preferred Guest information along with your payment selection.
I see that Starpoints top your Mile Value Leaderboard. Is this a good deal? Should I take part in this promotion?
Starpoints top the Mile Value Leaderboard due to Starwood’s versatile number of frequent flyer transfer partners. Better yet, for every 20,000 Starpoints you transfer to frequent flyer programs, Starwood will kick in 5,000 additional miles. That’s a 25% bonus for every transfer! A complete list of Starwood airline transfer partners can be found here.
Though you can purchase Starpoints through this promotion for 2.8 cents and I value Starpoints at 2.44 cents, there are still a few ways that this deal could make sense. For one thing, my valuation is strictly based on airline transfers, and many people don’t find that to be the best use of SPG points.
One of the best ways to extract maximum value out of Starpoints is through their Cash & Points hotel awards, where you pay a small amount of cash along with Starpoints for an award night.
I found several examples of hotel award redemptions that got more than 2.8 cents value per Starpoint.
Pulling up some dates in May, I found the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel for approximately $270/night. With the Cash & Points option, you would pay $60 + 4,000 Starpoints for a room.
To see what value we get out of the Starpoints, I subtracted $60 from the $270 room rate. We are using 4,000 Starpoints for the remaining $210 balance due on the room rate.
$270-$60= $210 $210/4,000= 0.0525
We are getting 5.25 cents per Starpoint, an incredible value!
Another place to get more than 2.8 cents per Starpoint is at Starwood’s luxury properties. I found exorbitant room rates at the W Hotel in Bali later this month, but Cash & Points award nights were still readily available.
It will cost $425 per night at this property or $150 + 8,000 Starpoints. Crunching the numbers, we should subtract $150 from $425 to get $275. In essence, we are using 8,000 Starpoints to save $275 in cash. This redemption is not as lucrative as the Sheraton Frankfurt, but we still get 3.43 cents in value for each Starpoint.
If this were a property you were dying to try, or you absolutely had to stay here for your trip, purchasing the Starpoints would make sense. You would be buying the Starpoints for 2.8 cents and redeeming them for 3.43 cents.
It’s pretty clear that if you value hotel rooms at their retail rate, this can be a good promotion.
How many Starpoints can I purchase through this promotion?
Starwood caps the number of Starpoints individuals can buy at 20,000 per year. If you have not already bought Starpoints this year, you can purchase up to 20,000 in increments of 500.
Can I buy Starpoints and transfer them to someone else?
According to Starwood’s terms and conditions, “Starpoints may be transferred between two designated Program accounts sharing the same residential mailing address.” Spouses can easily transfer between each other, but attempting to transfer to others is a clear violation of Starwood’s terms and conditions.
Purchase United Miles With Up To A 60% Bonus
According to this thread on FlyerTalk and View From the Wing, United is running a purchase miles promotion with a minimum 30% bonus, and up to a 60% bonus if enough people take part.
Dubbed “People Power” and in the same vein as communal deals on Groupon and Living Social, United is encouraging frequent flyers to spread the word about this promotion. The more people who buy United miles, the more the bonus rises, maxing out at a 60% miles bonus if more than 4,000 people participate.
The link to this promotion can be found here, which ends on October 19th. As of the time of this writing, 427 people have bought miles, a little more than 10% needed to break the 4,000 participant barrier. As it stands, buying United miles at this time in the People Power promotion will get you a 30% bonus on your purchase. If no one else bought miles, you would be getting them for about 2.9 cents per mile. If enough people take part and the 60% bonus is achieved, you will be purchasing miles for about 2.3 cents per mile.
When do the miles post to my account? How will I know which bonus I receive?
According to the terms and conditions below, the amount of miles you purchase should post to your account within 48 hours. Bonus miles, whether the current 30% or anything up to 60%, will post approximately seven days after the promotion ends on October 19th.
Is this a good deal?
United miles are some of the most valuable currency out there. Per the Mile Value Leaderboard, I put their value at 1.81 cents per mile. Oneway awards on United can be booked for half the price of roundtrip tickets. United belongs to the largest airline alliance, the Star Alliance, and allows you to redeem your miles for travel on dozens of partners. For a complete list of Star Alliance members click here.
United’s website displays Star Alliance availability with relative reliability, and you have the option of adding on a free oneway to your award ticket. For more reading on my valuation of United miles and the free oneway trick, make sure to read my past posts Free Oneways on United Awards and How Much are Mileage Plus Miles Worth?
Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this deal, even if more than 4,000 people take part and the bonus kicks up to 60%. Buying miles at 2.3 cents only makes sense if you have a specific award in mind and need to top off your account to reach that goal. The fact that we don’t even know if the 60% threshold will be attained makes me worry as well. This is rolling the dice on a gamble that won’t pay off if it hits.
If you are looking to buy miles for use on Star Alliance carriers outright, read my post about the US Airways 100% Share Miles Bonus which is available until October 31st. In this deal, you can share miles between Dividend Miles accounts and essentially buy up to 50k US Airways miles for 1.1 cents each. This is a fantastic deal and one which I maxed out with no specific redemption in mind; that’s how highly I thought of the promotion.
Though the United People Power promotion might sound like an interesting play, I would steer clear and instead focus on the US Airways share miles bonus if you are simply looking to boost your Star Alliance mileage balance.
Recap
At first glance it may seem like the Starpoints 20% discount is not worth your time. However, there are specific stays, especially Cash & Points reward nights and stays at luxury properties, where this deal could make sense.
Though the United People Power promotion attempts to incentivize people to purchase points in bulk, the math doesn’t add up. United miles are still prohibitively expensive with this so-called deal. The best way to obtain cheap miles for Star Alliance redemptions is through the US Airways share miles promotion.
Posted in Forum Buzz, SPG, United, US Airways
Tagged 20% off Starpoints, 60% United bonus, People Power, Starwood, United
How lucky are they?
For the wedding, I’m staying with some friends at the Westin Pittsburgh. There is something in the room that we hung on the door knob that declined housekeeping during the stay in exchange for a $5 coupon per day or 500 SPG points per day.
Since 500 SPG points are worth more than $10, I told my friend to take that option. This was slipped under our door this morning:
I assume that at checkout we turn this in for the 500 points.
I’m really pushing these old articles, so I can enjoy my day in Pittsburgh instead of writing. (Best Of tab coming soon.)
Free Oneways on United Awards is my most viewed post of all time. As far as I know, it’s the first post to explain how to add a free oneway to any international award (or award to Hawaii) that uses United miles.
The United-award free oneway is especially awesome because it can be enjoyed even by people who are based at tiny regional airports, and it can go more places than an American Airlines free oneway.
The Four Rules of an American Airlines Stopover and Free Oneway
The Four Rules… is a must read if you want to take advantage of the well-known but poorly-understood free oneway available on American Airlines awards. In it, you’ll see a link to my first post about free oneways on AA awards that you might also want to click.
Free First Class Next Month
I first published a 30-part beginner series in March. This series was for ultra beginners and had short posts on everything a beginner should know. I’ve been reposting the series in a better order with updates, added screen shots, and improvements. That is ongoing. (See the post right below this one.)
If you want to see the whole first series, click here.
The Mile Value Calculator is an incredible tool I designed to figure out how much value you’re getting from your miles on a particular award. Hint: it’s not cash price of ticket divided by miles used.
I’ve put 12 posts in the Anatomy of an Award category. They show step-by-step the process of conceiving and booking actual awards I’ve booked for myself or through my Award Booking Service.
How to Exploit the Southwest-AirTran Merger
This is very salient to me right now because I’m writing this post on a Southwest flight from Burbank to Tampa. I saved several thousand points on the award by using the trick detailed in the post linked above. The details of the award booking are in this Anatomy of an Award post.
I have videos of my computer screen as I book free oneways with several types of miles. Hopefully I’ll add more soon. Check it out.
How to Book Any PointBreaks Hotel for $35/night
This is the cheapest way to get hotels, and it’s a simple, repeatable trick that is well within the rules of the Priority Club program.
The Cheapest Ways to Get to Hawaii
I was born in Hawaii, and I go back about once a year, so I compiled the cheapest ways to get to Hawaii.
Lists of Possible Avios Awards and International Gateway Cities
I’ve made lists of all possible Avios awards from New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.
I’ve also made a list of all possible international gateways on American Airlines awards. This is crucial since stopovers can only be at the North American International Gateway City on AA awards.
The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card temporarily increased its sign up bonus from 25,000 SPG points to 30,000 SPG points after $5,000 in spending within six months of getting the card. Here are the stats:
Issuing Bank: American Express
Absolute Value of the Sign Up Bonus: $732+
Rebate Percentage of the Sign Up Bonus: 14.6%+
This card’s sign up bonus is denominated in SPG points (Starpoints), the proprietary points of the Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program. Starwood operates the most interesting hotel loyalty program by far because its points have a variety of valuable uses.
The three main uses are:
1) Transferring the points to tons of airlines. SPG points are transferable at a 1:1 ratio to almost every major airline–the notable exception being United. Plus if you transfer 20k SPG points, you get 5,000 bonus miles, so if you transfer in increments of 20k points, you get 25k miles, which is a fantastic 4:5 (1:1.25) ratio.
2) Using the points for “Free Nights.” Booking all points awards means no cash outlay on hotels.
3) Using points as part of “Cash & Points” awards. For instance, instead of spending 10k SPG points on a Free Night at a category 4 hotel, you can spend 4k points and $60. The Free Nights and Cash & Points award chart is here.
How much value you get out of 30k SPG points will depend on how you use them, so before you can decide whether this is a good deal for you, you should have an idea how you’ll use the points.
Using the points for flights
If you’ll be transferring the points to airlines, I’d value them at 2.44 cents each.
The reason is that their highest value transfer option, according to my values, is US Airways at 1.95 cents per mile. If you transfer SPG points in tranches of 20k, you will get the 4:5 transfer ratio mentioned above, meaning each SPG point is worth 2.44 cents (1.25 * 1.95).
Of course, few people will transfer all their miles to US Airways, and I’m not suggesting you do. The best transfer strategy is to wait until you have an award in mind. (SPG transfers are NOT instant like Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards, but let’s gloss over that here.)
Then use the SPG points to top off an existing miles balance to get the award you have in mind. Using transferable points to top off is by far their best value because topping off takes a balance from not good enough to good enough–a huge marginal improvement.
When topping off, you should transfer in increments of exactly 20k Starpoints to get max value. I would say if my top off was 10k miles or more, I would just go ahead and transfer 20k to get the 5k transfer bonus as long as I thought I wouldn’t be orphaning the extra miles.
If my top off was smaller like 4k, then I might not make a full 20k transfer. There’s no firm cutoff here, but just be thinking about the 5k bonuses when transferring.
I don’t have a mathematically sound way to value the extra benefit of being able to top off multiple accounts from a transferable points program, but I’ll say that value is roughly cancelled out by the fact that sometimes you’ll transfer SPG points to less valuable programs like Delta or British Airways.
That means, if you intend to transfer the SPG points to airlines, the sign up bonus points are worth about 2.44 cents each, for an absolute value of $732 for the bonus.
Using the points for hotel stays
Using the points for hotel stays presents challenges in valuing them. I think the biggest challenge is valuing what a night at a hotel is worth. The maximum value for a hotel stay is the retail rate, but for most people, their subjective value should be much lower.
If you’re content staying in hostels, couchsurfing, using Priceline, or renting an apartment, you shouldn’t value a hotel room at the retail value. I wouldn’t pay more than $100/night to stay in any standard hotel room in most cases. I wouldn’t ordinarily pay more than $50 really, so I value the hotel redemptions very poorly.
I suspect many readers would value the chance to stay at very nice properties much more highly than I would, so I’ll lay out a framework for valuing SPG points when using the to get Free Nights or Cash & Points awards.
Free Nights
Free Nights awards are generally a worse value than Cash & Points awards unless you’re very cash poor and point rich. I’ll show you why on the Starwood chart:
Let’s look at the worst properties–category 1. A Free Night costs 3k SPG points. A Cash & Points Redemption costs 1,200 SPG points and $25. That means for $25 you save 1,800 Starpoints. Since Starpoints are worth 2.44 cents when transferring to airlines, saving 1,800 Starpoints is worth $43.92.
That means Cash & Points is a better deal than Free Nights in category 1. Doing the match for categories 2-7 achieves the exact same result that Cash & Points is a better value in all categories.
Cash & Points
But what value exactly does one get from a Cash & Points Redemptions? You can use my Mile Value Calculator to figure that out.
[wpcalculator idcalc="1"]
In the Value box, use the lesser of the retail price and your subjective value of the room you’re getting. In Taxes and Fees Paid, put the cash contribution. In Miles Used, put SPG points used. And in Miles Foregone, put SPG points foregone by not booking a paid room.
The calculator will spit out how much value you are getting from each SPG point for your award. If this number is higher than 2.44 cents, Cash & Points awards are your best option for SPG points.
Most bloggers claim exactly this–that SPG points are best used for Cash & Points awards. That’s probably true for most people, but it’s not true at all if you–like me–never pay anywhere near retail for a hotel room.
Once you have your Cash & Points value, if it’s higher than your transfer-to-airlines value, multiply the cents per point times 300 to get the value of the sign up bonus for you.
Absolute Value
The absolute value of the sign up bonus for the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express is 300 times the cents per point value you’re using (or 30,000 * $/point). For me, there is no other adjustment because the card doesn’t have any other perks I value, and the annual fee is waived the first year.
One perk that many will value is that the card starts off your SPG elite status quest with two stay credits or five night credits.
I would use the card for airline-mile transfers so 30,000 points times 2.44 cents per points is $732. People using the points for Cash & Points awards will have a higher value.
Rebate Percentage Method
For low spenders like me, the rebate percentage method of valuing a sign up bonus is much more important than the flashier absolute value method as I explained last week. For this, divide your absolute value of the points by $5,000, the spending requirement.
For me, this produces a rebate percentage of 14.6%. That’s OK, but it’s far from spectacular and lags behind many cards with more modest spending requirements.
Final Verdict
I just had a churn last month, so I have two months to decide on this card–and who knows if this sign up bonus bump will last until October. It’s not in the top ten of absolute value bonuses for me. More importantly, it’s not in the top ten of rebate percentage bonuses.
But I have gotten a lot of the cards above it, and I love transferable points, so I might get this card, and I will keep you posted on my decision.
Should you get it? Well that depends on whether you’d use the points for airline transfers or Cash & Points nights, whether you’re a high spender looking at the absolute value of the offer or a low spender looking at the rebate percentage, and whether you’ve gotten the better cards.
Bonus
There is an identical business version of this card. It’s the same offer, so if one makes sense, why not get both? You probably have a business. 
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I have earned millions of points, primarily though credit cards, to travel the world in first class for pennies. This blog will show you how to earn and redeem points to do the same!