We have been watching the merger of Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott, and the details of what that merger will mean for both of those loyalty programs' members, unfold for a long time now. We first thought the merger would happen August 1, and then Marriott changed the wording of all their marketing/press releases to a more ambiguous "August". But now we have a hard date.

Update 7/6/18: The most expensive, off the award chart all-suite SPG properties will actually be bookable for 60k Marriott Rewards in August. Read New Marriott Award Category Assignments & Strategy Moving Forward for further info. 

In August of this year, SPG and Marriott are merging their loyalty programs.

For the next six weeks you'll earn 250 SPG points each time you check in for your stay at a St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, Le Meridien, Tribute Portfolio, Four Points, or other participating Marriott/SPG hotel through SPG's mobile app.

There is not a cap to how many points you can earn through this promotion, but only check-ins through June 15, 2018 that you booked directly with SPG on its website or in the app will count.

When you're shut out from the majority of Chase cards, you loose access to tons of rewards and reward earning opportunities due to what everyone calls the Chase 5/24 rule. If you've opened more than five credit cards from any bank (with the exception of most business cards) in the last 24 months, then Chase will deny you for almost all of their cards (with the exception of these).

The Starwood Preferred Guest personal and business credit cards from American Express come with 35,000 bonus Starpoints for spending $5,000 and $8,000 respectively in the first six months of card membership. These offers end tomorrow, April 5, 2017.

Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.

The normal sign up bonus is 25,000 points per card.

Thanks to Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott's merger, SPG members can choose to link their account to either Marriott Rewards or Ritz Carlton Rewards.

Last September when this shift occurred, One Mile at a Time wrote a post about which account to link your SPG account to. It depends on your preferences.

You have two more days (including today) to transfer hotel points to Southwest for the purposes of earning a Southwest Companion Pass. Friday, March 31 is the cutoff. After Friday, any points transferred to Southwest will not count as "qualifying" towards the Companion Pass. That includes Marriott Travel Packages.

The Southwest Companion Pass, if you're unaware, is one of the best deals in travel. If you have the Southwest Companion pass, you can designate a companion who flies for just the taxes on every Southwest flight you fly.

I tend to toot Alaska MileagePlan's horn quite a bit because I myself am a big fan of Alaska miles. You get free stopovers on one way awards, Alaska has a great mix of partners from multiple alliances, and their award charts are filled with sweetspots. Their miles also aren't the hardest to come by, since Bank of America issues a personal and business co-branded Alaska card and SPG points transfer to Alaska.

One of the perks of the Alaska Airlines credit card (both the personal and business version come with one) is an annual Companion Certificate.

Since award space can be a scarce resource, it is important to note that not all transferrable points transfer to their partners instantaneously.

This is the third post of a four part series going over how long it takes each type of transferrable point to transfer to its partners.

The SPG cards' 30k offers end today 9/14/15. Presumably tomorrow the standard 25k offers will return.

The Starwood Preferred Guest personal and business credit cards from American Express now come with 30,000 bonus Starpoints, up from the normal sign up bonus is 25,000 points.