Clean Up Orphaned Hotel Points. 25% Bonus When You Transfer To American Airlines AAdvantage Miles
American Airlines is running a special to get you to convert your hotel points to airline miles.
I don’t generally consider such offers a good value. The only time I’ve ever transferred hotel points to an airline is through Starwood Preferred Guest’s pretty generous 1:1 transfer ratio along with their 25% bonus when transferring in 20,000 point chunks. Unfortunately, this promo excludes my two favorite hotel chains, Starwood and Hyatt. A 25% bonus on top of the normal 25% bonus Starwood gives would certainly be a bit tempting.
In this case, I would likely only consider transferring orphaned miles you might have in an account you’re not likely to use. Maybe you’ve got 20,000 IHG points that are gathering dust? Here’s a full list of programs participating with some sample valuations:
Best Western:
5,000 Best Western Rewards points =1,000 AAdvantage miles
Choice Hotels:
5,000 Choice Privileges points – 1,0000 AAdvantage miles
Hilton:
10,000 Hilton HHonors points =1,500 AAdvantage miles
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG):
10,000 IHG Rewards Club points = 2,000 AAdvantage Miles
Marriott Rewards:
10,000 Marriott Reward points = 2,000 AAdvantage miles
20,000 Marriott Reward points = 5,000 AAdvantage miles
30,000 Marriott Reward points = 10,000 AAdvantage miles
70,000 Marriott Reward points = 25,000 AAdvantage miles
140,000 Marriott Reward points = 50,000 AAdvantage miles
Carlson Hotels:
2,000 Club Carlson Gold Points = 200 AAdvantage miles
10,000 Club Carlson Gold Points = 1,000 AAdvantage miles
50,000 Club Carlson Gold Points = 5,000 AAdvantage miles
100,000 Club Carlson Gold Points = 10,000 AAdvantage miles
Wyndham Hotels:
6,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 1,200 AAdvantage miles
16,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 3,200 AAdvantage miles
30,000 Wyndham Rewards points = 6,000 AAdvantage miles
Ed, we are trying to put together a trip to Europe in July/August — a total of 5 people. We have lots of miles on various airlines as well as hotels points (mostly with Hilton) as well as substantial points with AMEX. We are considering the utilization of the service: “bookyouraward”. The objective would be to have them pull things together to use our miles/points to secure travel and accommodations. Do you have any idea whether they provide a valuable service? Also, should we be concerned about the security of our information? As you may know, they ask you go provide them with log-on info, including passwords. That is a concern, and especially with respect to AMEX since access to the travel website includes overall access to account information (not just travel).
In advance, thanks for any advice!
Dan
Dan, you’re going with the best in the business with bookyouraward.com. There is no service I would trust more. I wouldn’t be concerned with security, either. They book awards for tons of folks and I’ve never heard a complaint. They can certainly take the headache out of the planning part. Keep in mind 5 award seats can be very tough to find. Where are you guys thinking about going in Europe?
Thanks so much, Ed!
Our son is going to play in a golf tournament in Hamburg, Germany. We are going to start there, but our plans is to travel from there to Croatia. We have not yet figured out how we will get to Croatia from Hamburg, but we want to check out some cool sites on the way. I suspect that we will want to through Prague. When we get to Croatia, we are planning to charter a boat and travel south on the Adriatric Sea and check out places like Split and Dubrovnik. Have done anything like that? Not yet sure how we’ll decide on the charter and related itinerary. Any further thoughts would be appreciated! Dan