What’s The Best Use Of 35,000 SPG Points?

Contents

1 Introduction
2 Marriott 3x Transfer
3 Best Options
4 Final Thoughts

Introduction

American Express has just recently increased the sign up bonus on their two SPG cards:

The Personal card requires a total spend of $5,000 and the business card requires a total spend of $8,000. The only bonus categories are SPG properties (and now Marriott/Ritz-Carlton with a reciprocal earning agreement) – they earn 2x points. For the purposes of this post we’re going to assume that the minimum spend requirement is all on 1x purchases. This means after the minimum spend requirement has been met you’ll have:

40,000 SPG points if you signed up for the personal card
43,000 SPG points if you signed up for the business card
83,000 SPG points if you signed up for both cards

Marriott 3x Transfer

Before we get started with what the best uses are, it’s important to remember that you can transfer SPG points to Marriott points at a rate of 1:3. If you transferred all your points to Marriott you’d end up with:

120,000 Marriott points if you signed up for the personal card
129,000 Marriott points if you signed up for the business card
249,000 Marriott points if you signed up for both cards

Best Options

Airline Transfers

SPG let’s you transfer points to their massive list of airline partners at a rate of 1:1. You can view all those options below:

SPG Airline Transfer Partners (1:1 unless otherwise specified)
AeroMexico	Asiana Airlines	Korean Air
Aegean Miles+Bonus	British Airways Executive Club	LAN Airlines LANPASS Kms
Aeroplan/Air Canada	Cathay Pacific Asia Miles	Lufthansa Miles and More
Air Berlin	China Eastern Airlines	Qatar Airways
Air China Companion	Delta Air Lines SkyMiles	Saudi Arabian Airlines Alfursan
Air France KLM Flying Blue	Emirates Skywards	Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Air New Zealand & Air Points (65:1)	Etihad Airways	Thai Airways International Royal Orchid Plus
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan	Gol Smiles	United MileagePlus (2:1)
Alitalia MilleMiglia	Hainan Airlines	US Airways Dividend Miles
All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club	Hawaiian Airlines	Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
American Airlines AAdvantage	Japan Airlines (JAL) Mileage Bank	Virgin Australia Velocity
Avianca LifeMiles

In addition to that for every 20,000 points you transfer you, you get a bonus 5,000 miles. That means:

50,000 airline miles if you signed up for the personal card
53,000 airline miles if you signed up for the business card
103,000 airline miles if you signed up for both cards

Our Verdict

This is a good option for those that need more airline miles (especially in a program that doesn’t transfer from Chase UR, American Express Membership Rewards or Citi ThankYou Points). Obviously the best value comes when you’re transferring exactly in increments of 20,000 points.

Marriott Flight & Hotel Packages

Marriott offer flight & hotel packages, these give you airline miles and also seven nights at Marriott properties. They have several different packages available, airlines are separated into each of these five packages as follows:

Package Zero (this is the United package. These come with a bonus 10% miles over the next best package)
Package 1
Package 2
Package 3
Package 4

The only packages/airlines worth considering are Package Zero (United), Package 1 & Package 3 (Southwest). The rest of the packages give a much lower amount of miles/points that isn’t worth considering. This leaves us with the following airlines:

United (10% bonus)
Southwest (companion pass, this will only work until March 31st, 2017)
Aeromexico
Air Canada
Alaska Airlines
American Airlines
British Airways,
Copa Airlines
Delta Air Lines
Frontier Airlines
GOL/Varig
Hawaiian Airlines
Iberia Airlines
Virgin Atlantic

Below is an image of those packages mentioned above.

As you can see above, if you want additional miles or free nights at a higher category property the package becomes more expensive in Marriott points. You get the best value when you redeem your Marriott points for more miles, as after the lowest level you’re basically just trading your Marriott points to miles at a rate of 1:1. For example you could pay 200,000 Marriott points for a 7 night category 1-5 package with 50,000 Southwest points or pay 270,000 Marriott points and get 120,000 Southwest points (in this case you’re paying an extra 70,000 Marriott points for 70,000 Southwest points – something pretty much everybody would be happy to do).

Even if you get both cards you won’t have enough Marriott points to get the packages with the most miles (these are also the best value mentioned above) but Chase does offer Marriott credit cards. The best offers currently are as follows:

Keep in mind that the Chase Marriott Business card is excluded from the Chase 5/24 rule, but the Chase Marriott Personal card is not.

Our Verdict

If you can get enough points for these packages they can represent good value, just make sure you’re actually able to use the seven night certificates and have a solid plan for them as well. You can also pay additional Marriott points at a later stage to upgrade your seven night certificates (it should also be possible to downgrade them, but this is more difficult).

They also have five night packages, unfortunately these are restricted to time share owners only. If you don’t own a time share and have recently gotten a five night package please let us know in the comments.

SPG Award Nights

Unlike other hotel loyalty programs, it doesn’t cost a lot of points for some SPG redemptions. Their award chart is as follows:

Category one & two properties are 2,000/3,000 points on weekends, but only category three properties and above qualify for the fifth night free benefit.

If you’re redeeming for category 6 & 7 properties then you’re not going to get great value, but 3-5 and especially 1-2 category properties can provide a lot of value. Let’s look at just how many free nights you’d get from the personal card sign up bonus + minimum spend requirement (40,000 points).

Category one: 20 – 13 free nights
Category two: 13 – 10 free nights
Category three: 5 free nights (plus ability to get fifth night free, so six total nights would be possible)
Category four: 4 free nights (plus ability to get fifth night free, so six total nights would be possible)
Category five: 3 – 2 free nights
Category six: 2 – 1 free night
Category seven: 1 free night

Obviously in a lot of those cases you’re going to have some left over points as well.

Our Verdict

I personally find a lot of value in SPG stays but everybody is different and it really depends on what level of luxury you want and where you want to travel to.

Marriott Award Nights

Marriott also offers a fifth night free benefit, they do not have any category restriction like SPG. Their award chart is as follows:

This is similar to SPG, although I personally don’t find as many useful properties in the lower categories. Let’s look at just how many free nights you’d get from the personal card sign up bonus + minimum spend requirement (120,000 points after transferring from SPG at a 1:3 rate).

Category one: 20 – 16 free nights (plus ability to get fifth night free)
Category two: 16 – 12 free nights (plus ability to get fifth night free)
Category three: 10 – 8 free nights (plus ability to get fifth night free)
Category four: 8 – 6 free nights (plus ability to get fifth night free)
Category five: 6 – 4 free nights (plus ability to get fifth night free)
Category six: 4 – 4 free nights
Category seven: 3 -4 free nights
Category eight: 3 free nights
Category nine: 3 – 2 free nights

Our Verdict

As I said before, I find less useful properties in the bottom tier for Marriott. That being said three free nights in their top tier properties is pretty good value. Just make sure you see what’s actually available before locking Marriott in as an option.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully this post helps some readers decide on what to do with their points, I enjoy writing these posts so I hope you enjoy reading them. I’d like to know your thoughts on what you think is the best value and what you will be using your points on in the comments below.