@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I need to decide as well. Have right at 300k points. Question for anyone. Are all the SPG properties going to become Marriott ones? If so, I might convert to Marriott points and would have 1.2 million of those which should let me book something very nice for a week. I also like the idea of transferring to Alaskan Airlines as @K-in-Boston suggests as I have another trip to Australia in the works but it is very very difficult to get first class Qantas reward tickets.
HOw did you get 300k points? And converting would give you 900k Marriott points. I think you could get much more than a week., Marriot gives you fifth night free on award bookings.
Both myself and g/f got the personal and business cards at 35K points each for 140K and combined them into my account Some stays contributed points. Also bought some points recently as they were 2.2 cpp which is lower than I value them so... Also have added quite a few from my Diners Club card. It's not a 1:1 exchange but that's the card we use quite a bit for groceries that earn 3X points per $1 spend.
Will still need to decide if the Marriott transfer is the route that I want to go. Have an existing 325K Marriott/Ritz points so the 1.2 million points would give us a nice trip but I need to familiarize myself with the vacation packpages that they offer. I had been planning on possibly using the SPG points for a stay in Bora Bora and that's why I asked if all the SPG properties are going to become part of Marriott .
There has been no mention anywhere that any of the (formerly) Starwood-owned properties would not become Marriott properties.
Agreed @simplynoir. Whatever announcement may or may not be made next week, I seriously doubt that it will be in place immediately. But if they're moving to revenue-based redemptions and cutting Gold/Platinum benefits, I may begin looking elsewhere. The rumors make it sound like someone at Marriott took a look and said "What are the best parts of Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest? OK, those are gone!" There was a comment made by someone somewhere else that rather than making this an expansion on everything that made people loyal to these brands, that it was more about removing a competitor.
@simplynoir wrote:Yeah, I remember that comment being made over on the DoC article and on the churning reddit. I'm seriously not liking this if all holds up. The new tiers I think are a compromise between the two programs so I don't have much of an issue with that but the dynamic pricing is the point that has left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm hoping as someone theorized on FT that they're using the "leak" to test the waters on how the travelers will receive the news and will adjust accordingly.
If that's true, hey Marriott there are a bunch of us that are ready to abandon ship and go with the new sheriff in town:
We don't know what the changes are going to be, but I think its going to be negative no matter how you cut it. Someone posted a question about marriott packages. I used this package in the past. For 270k Marriott points I got 120K Alaska airline miles and a 7 night cert at a cat 1-5. I paired this off with a signup bonus on an alaska airline card. This allowed me to fly from NY to Tokyo (2 night layover) then on to hanoi via JAL in F (not all programs let you build in stopovers - AA won't if its longer than 24 hours). I also flew back to NY Hong Kong to NY in CX F. All of this was from the marriott package and one alaska airline card signup. I didn't use the cert on that trip. I believe I used the certificate on a trip to Europe and it covered four or five nights for me in Istanbul (think I got at least $460 on the cert in value and could have gotten more if I stayed the full 7 nights but I wanted to move on). I did these trips last year so not sure if there have been any devaluations, but at the time I get a lot of bang for my points. Its def worth looking at the marriott packages to see if you can leverage them.
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