United is offering a 25% bonus on hotel points converted to miles through August 31.
- Registration is required
- You’ll earn a 25% bonus when transferring points into 5,000 – 80,000 United miles.
- The total number of hotel points transferred into United by August 31 will be totaled to determine the bonus, which will post by September 30 (so you don’t get the bonus right away).
When they ran a similar bonus in the fall (with a higher cap), Starwood was excluded. This time Starwood transfers — still a poor value to United — are eligible. Here are the partners who qualify:
Normally at Starwood’s 2:1 transfer ratio into United, plus transfer bonus, 40,000 Starpoints yield 25,000 United miles. This bonus brings you up to 31,250 miles. That’s still less than 1:1 when you’ll get 1.25:1 with most airline partners.
In general converting hotel points to United is a poor deal, although if you need to top off an account it can make sense (although you’ll have to wait a couple of months to get all of the points).
At a minimum, if you’re going to convert hotel points anyway then this bonus is better than not having the bonus. So don’t forget to register.
The only reasonable use of this promotion is Marriott travel packages.
With the United-Marriott ‘RewardsPlus’ tie-up, you get a 10% better deal on travel packages anyway.
This bonus can add an additional 20,000 miles on top.
Bear in mind, though, that the current bonus for transferring points into Aeroplan may be better depending on the Star Alliance award you’re looking to redeem, since many awards are less expensive with Aeroplan (eg 90,000 versus 140,000 miles roundtrip for business class US-Western Europe) though Aeroplan adds fuel surcharges onto some of their partners.
What are the normal transfer ratios between all the hotels and United?
@Jason — do you have some physical or mental impairment that prevents you from looking up this elementary information yourself?
Would you recommend transferring the 75k sign up bonus from the Citi Hilton card to United?
@Alexander Ceremony – I would not.
@Jason
They invented Google a little while ago…And it can give you that answer
So What you are searching is –
to united miles…..
And you would find the answer in most cases at the first hit… Amazing !
You know VFTW is for kinda semi advanced to advanced users. Basic question like yours i bound to annoy people here as Buck’s post kinda proves that…
@Jason
They invented Google a little while ago…And it can give you that answer
So What you are searching is –
(Replace this with your Hotel Program of choice) to united miles…..
And you would find the answer in most cases at the first hit… Amazing !
You know VFTW is for kinda semi advanced to advanced users. Basic question like yours i bound to annoy people here as Buck’s post kinda proves that…
@Justlooking @BuckSmith
Hey, you know there is something to be said for not being mean and rude. You should look into trying not to be a jerk. This board is to EDUCATE people as to what is happening out there in flyerland /pointsland. Just because you know it, doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t, and you could always just be NICE and give a simple reply of A.) the answer, B.) a link to the answer C.) state that simple internet search yields the answer, or D.) DON’T SAY ANYTHING IF YOU CAN’T BE NICE.
Seriously, you don’t have to be a jerk so just stop it. We were all newbies once.
@Jason
The United miles transfer at different rates depending on status so I don’t think this is quite an easy calculation. If you have status, then it is 1:1, if not, then it is less (sorry, can’t remember). So my assumption is that if I transfer my miles, they transfer at 1:1 and then will get the 25% bonus on top of that conversion rate. I could be wrong. I have never transferred points before but I am seriously considering transferring them. I am still learning how to maximize the points I do have and how to accumulate them for as little as possible as the rules are ever changing.
@Gary – Am I correct to assume that if you have status then you get the 1:1 transfer ratio and then the bonus on top of that rate? Also, if my transfer rate is effectively 1.25 miles per mile transferred, then would you recommend doing this transfer? I kinda don’t much care for United, but I don’t see many other options to transfer the Marriott points and the places that I wanted to use my Marriott points require 80,000 or more per night and I don’t have enough points for even one night at those prime spots.