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Marriott is buying Starwood and Starwood Preferred Guest members are nervous.
Marriott’s CEO spoke directly to members in a new video, and says “Devaluing points or member benefits is not the way to preserve and strengthen these programs.” With due respect to the Marriott’s distinguished CEO, I do not think he’s familiar with the Marriott Rewards program.
Starwood is offering a discount of up to 25% on purchased points through December 31. Starwood points are the most valuable loyalty currency.
If you need to top off most any frequent flyer account this could be strategically useful.
These are among the most valuable points because of their flexibility, and because of the value of the programs that Chase partners with. Here are my 8 favorite things to do with the points:
American has come out with its award chart changes. These have been much anticipated, because we really haven’t seen changes to the saver award chart in a big way since the introduction of one-way awards in 2009.
While United and Delta were busy raising award pricing, American was focused on integration of two airlines. In some sense we had a couple of years where American AAdvantage was just more generous than their competitors. Now they’re making changes that narrow that gap.
My single favorite card for earning valuable rewards points has just gotten better with an offer of 50,000 points as a signup bonus. These points transfer to a variety of airline miles and hotel points.
There was a brief targeted test of 50,000 points with a higher annual fee two years ago. But otherwise we haven’t seen an offer like this for the card since March 2012.
Three Chinese firms were supposedly seeking government permission to make a bid to buy Starwood Hotels. Hyatt was rumored to be the lead bidder. There had earlier been speculation about a Starwood-IHG (or Wyndham) merger. Wyndham hired away enough Starwood talent that it’s recently been referred to as Wynwood.
Starwood’s CEO, whom I interviewed on stage earlier this year, made clear he expected to sell by the end of the year. And it looks like he made good on that promise.
Through November 30 American is selling miles for as little as 2 cent apiece. That’s cheaper than they usually sell miles.
On average I value American miles at 1.7 cents.
They’re worth more if they put you over the top for a specific award. And they’re worth more if you redeem them for something you’d be willing to pay full or close to full price for otherwise.
While there’s little chance the gap between American AAdvantage and Delta SkyMiles will disappear, it may just narrow enough so that other priorities push me to Delta. I never thought I’d even go through the exercise to see if Delta made sense for me.
The same Chinese man who bought a ceramic cup at auction last year and paid with his American Express card earning 422 million points is back at it again.
Billionaire art collector Liu Yiqian paid $170.4 million for Amedeo Modigliani’s “Nu Couche” at auction on Monday. With his American Express card. He uses a Hong Kong-based card than earns 1.5 points per Hong Kong dollar spent.
Alaska Airlines is offering up to a 50% bonus when you purchase or gift miles.
That’s actually a pretty good deal compared to other airlines with similar bonuses, because the starting price on their points is lower.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
