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American Airlines is offering a transfer bonus on miles converted from select hotel programs through May 31 2018. The terms exclude air and hotel packages, though it may still be a good deal on transfers from Starwood Preferred Guest if you’re in the market for American Airlines miles.
The Deal
- Get a 25% bonus on select hotel points converted to American Airlines miles through May 31, 2018
- The following partners qualify:
- Best Western Rewards
- IHG Rewards
- Marriott Rewards
- Radisson Rewards
- SPG
- Direct link to this promotion
Key Terms
- Ends at 11:59pm Central time on May 31, 2018
- Members can make multiple transfers during the bonus period and receive a 25% bonus on each
- Excludes air & hotel packages like Marriott Travel Packages or SPG Nights & Flights
- Bonus miles will post within 7 business days of initial conversion activity posting to your account
- See full terms and conditions on the promotion page above
Quick Thoughts
In most cases, conversions from hotel programs to airlines aren’t a particularly good deal. In this case, you probably wouldn’t want to convert from any program other than Starwood unless you have points expiring or unusable in the hotel program and/or you’re just looking to top off your American Airlines account for a valuable award.
The transfer rations are as follows:
The ratio for Starpoints is the best deal, with a 25% bonus on the miles. That should stack on top of the 5K bonus you get when transferring 20,000 Starpoints. Starpoints normally transfer 1:1, but when transferring 20K you receive a 5K bonus for a total of 25,000 American Airlines miles before the bonus. While the screenshot from AA’s site has a typo in noting that you’ll earn 5,000 bonus Starpoints, it should say AA miles. Again, based on past transfer bonuses, the 25% should stack on top of that, meaning that 20,000 Starpoints should yield a total of 31,250 American Airlines miles. The layout of the promo page actually doesn’t make it as clear as it has in the past that the bonus should stack on top of the 5K SPG bonus, but past bonuses have worked this way.
The Marriott transfers in the chart wouldn’t make sense as you could transfer those points first to Starwood at a ratio of 3 Marriott Rewards points to 1 Starpoint and then convert to airline miles from there.
As always, we have added this to our Current point transfer bonuses resource page, where you can see current and expired transfer bonuses.
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So I am having difficulty reconciling something. Please read below and let me know your thoughts:
Per above, “The Marriott transfers in the chart wouldn’t make sense as you could transfer those points first to Starwood at a ratio of 3 Marriott Rewards points to 1 Starpoint and then convert to airline miles from there.”
I don’t think this is correct.
According to the promotion, “if you convert 20,000 hotel points, you’ll get 5,000 additional bonus miles.” Theoretically, this means that a transfer of 70,000 Marriott points would net 25,000 AA Miles + 17,500 Bonus AA Miles (25% x 70,000 hotel points), which is a whopping 42,500 AA Miles!
I’ve been reading across various sites that people are transferring 20,000 SPG points, which gets them the 5,000 SPG bonus for 25,000 x 1.25 = 31,250 AA Miles. However, I am not yet convinced.
Following the 1:3 transfer in reverse (SPG–>Marriott), could I not transfer 3-4,000 more miles to Marriott for 11,250 additional bonus AA Miles??
[…] 25% Transfer bonus – Hotels to AA – Through May 31 […]
It would really help if travel blogs CEASE to support (such as publicizing on their blogs) programs that DEVALUE their rewards programs at what some would consider on the edge of ‘unethical’. For example, it is pathethic how AAdvantage program has devalued their program in the past few years, specifically the absence of saver awards on their metal. One can search (use Google, etc) on many specific examples, which I am not going to get into here.
That said, this 25% transfer promo is a HORRIBLE proposition- why support or transfer points into a program that is becoming more worthless as time goes on???
Speak for yourself. I’m finding a lot of value.