The Offer
Direct link to offer
- American Airlines is offering a 25% transfer bonus when you transfer hotel points to American Airlines AAdvantage Miles. You do not need to register to receive these bonus miles, just transfer as normal. Below are the hotel programs you can transfer from and their standard rates (remember to add the 25% bonus to this)
- Best Western: 5,000 points = 1,000 miles
- Club Carlson: 2,000 points = 200 miles
- Choice hotels: 5,000 points = 1,000 miles
- Hilton: 10,000 points = 1,500 miles
- Hyatt: 5,000 points = 2,000 miles
- IHG: 10,000 points = 2,000 miles
- Marriott: 10,000 points = 2,000 miles
- SPG: 2,500 points = 2,500 miles (you also receive an additional 5,000 miles when you transfer 20,000 or more points)
- Wyndham: 6,000 points = 1,200 miles
The Fine Print
- To qualify for this AAdvantage® 25% bonus mile offer, member must initiate the AAdvantage mileage conversions with participating eligible AAdvantage program hotel participants (“Hotel Partner(s)”) between 12:00 am Central time on April 28, 2017 and 11:59 pm Central time on June 15, 2017 (the “Promotion Period”), and must be in good standing in the AAdvantage program.
- Members can convert multiple times with multiple Hotel Partners.
- Conversions for hotel and air packages from Hotel Partners are included for this offer.
- This offer is non-transferable and cannot be combined with any other offers.
- Bonus miles will be posted by American Airlines to the qualifying AAdvantage member’s account within 7 business days after the initial conversion activity has been posted by the participating Hotel Partner.
- Bonus miles earned in this promotion do not count toward elite status qualification.
Our Verdict
There are only two partners really worth considering transferring some: SPG & Marriott (for the air + travel package).
SPG
If you transfer 20,000 SPG points normally you’d get 25,000 American Airline miles. With this promotion you’d get an extra 25% (including the 5,000 bonus miles) for a total of 31,250 miles.
Marriott
The standard Marriott rate isn’t appealing, but you can get a hotel + air package. For 270,000 Marriott points you can get seven nights at a category 1-5 property and 120,000 miles. With the bonus that would turn into 150,000 miles. According to US Credit Card Guide you can also cancel the hotel portion and get some miles back.
Final Thoughts
I personally find SPG points (and Marriott points via their transfer-ability to SPG) to be too valuable to transfer to airline miles. Award availability for American Airlines is a big big issue at the moment, so I really wouldn’t recommend this deal unless you’re thoroughly aware of these issues and don’t have any problems finding and booking space.
Award space is something that American Airlines desperately needs to address, because despite their win at the rigged Freddie Awards the amount of bad will they have in the community currently is at Delta & Hilton levels.
Hat tip to US Credit Card Guide
