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United MileagePlus is offering a 30% transfer bonus on converting hotel points to airline miles. That’s not usually a great deal, but it looks like Marriott is included with this bonus — which means that 60,000 Marriott points should convert to 35,750 United miles under this promo. That’s an excellent deal if you’re in the market for miles. Don’t forget to register before you convert points.
The Deal
- Convert hotel points to United MileagePlus miles and get a 30% bonus.
- Direct link to register for this promotion
Key Terms
- Must first register for this special offer
- Valid on transfers through November 30, 2018
- Earn 30% bonus miles on all points-to-miles transfers, up to 25K miles
- Bonus miles will post by January 30, 2019
Quick Thoughts
Generally speaking, converting hotel points to airline miles yields abysmally poor value. You generally only want to do this if you have points languishing unused in your hotel account and/or you have a pile of airline miles about to expire without some activity.
However, Marriott is a notable exception. Normally, Marriott points convert to airline miles at a rate of 3:1. There is also a standard bonus of an additional 5,000 miles when you convert 60K Marriott points (i.e. 60K Marriott = 20K airline + 5K standard bonus = 25K airline miles). Further, United offers a 10% bonus when transferring to Marriott — which puts the ratio at 60K:27.5K. This 30% bonus would be on top of that, so you should get a total of 35,750 United miles for every 60,000 Marriott points transferred.
That’s a solid deal in the sense that 35,750 airline miles are generally more valuable than 60K hotel points (of course, it depends on how you would use either).
As always, we have added this offer to our Current point transfer bonuses page.
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i was at the transfer page, it showed 60000 (point) -> 22000 (miles), even if you add 5000 miles, it is 27000 miles. with 30% bonus you get 35100 instead of 35750? looks like the 10% only applies to 20000 original miles & not to the 5K bonus,
Hi, Does anybody know whether the 30% Bonus also applies to Marriott rewards travel packages redemptions? Normally they are 7 Nights + 110, 000 Miles with United. You would max out the offer but with 135K miles this would even be more UA miles then before the Starwood/Marriott merger…. one to keep in mind as united is doing the 30% promo for several years now. regards
When does the 30% bonus come in? I went to the transfer page and am at the last step before I press “convert”, but it is only showing the 10% bonus. Does it come in after “convert”?
Also is the 25,000 miles a one time thing? Like can I do 25,000 today and 25,000 tomorrow? Or is it 25,000 total?
The bonus comes in on the United end after you convert (you wouldn’t see it on the Marriott end). They do it cumulatively based on your transfers and the 30% bonus likely won’t post until the end of January 2019 (see under “key terms).
With this promo, you can earn a max of 25K bonus miles. In other words, you can do three transfers of 60K.
60K Marriott–>25K United + 10% bonus for United = 27,500 + 30% bonus (8250) = 33,750
Do that 3 times and you’ll earn the 30% bonus (8,250 miles) 3 times for a total of 24,750 bonus miles and you’d effectively be done.
Can one transfer 180000 Marriott points to United (thus getting pretty close to the best yield without going over) all in one calendar date, or does one need to transfer smaller number of points each day?
Just so everyone is aware, the bonus points on 60k transfers are not showing up on the transfer screen, but million mile has confirmed with Marriott that they will post. Still, probably worth taking screenshots: https://millionmilesecrets.com/news/transfer-marriott-points-to-airlines/
Always a good tip to take screen shots of everything!
Can you please cover the Down Grade Amex SPG Luxe card is doing. Opened the card received platinum status and just received a letter they made a mistake and are downgrading me to Gold elite Status. I had the Ritz Card, then opened the SPG luxe to achieve Platinum for the merge and now I am being downgraded with a letter stating inadvertently sent incorrect information and on Jan 1 you are downgraded…. HELP! anything we can do?
The SPG Lux card was never slated to come with Platinum. The SPG Lux card comes with Gold status — you need to spend $75,000 to get Platinum status with it. I’m not sure exactly what you mean here?
if you sign up for the Ritz card before August, you will get Marriott Gold status which will convert to Platinum Elite status in August. I did this and received platinum status. Now I received a letter stating i will only get Gold status and it ends dec 31, 2018
Where did the letter come from? Chase? Marriott? Amex? Where does the SPG Lux card come into it?
Here’s what I can say:
-Marriott’s executives confirmed with us many times that status from the Ritz card that you got before August will last until Feb 2020. I have no reason to doubt that’s true. At this point, almost everything they told us pre-merger was totally accurate.
-If they don’t intend to honor it the way they told us, they won’t and there isn’t much to be done about it. Thems the breaks.
However, I wouldn’t get too emotionally attached to anything today. Either we’ll keep the status in January or we won’t. I’d bet every dollar in my pocket that we keep it. (Note: I only have $1 in my pocket right now, but I’d feel the same way if there were more dollars there….I promise :-).
But what were you saying about the SPG Lux? Did you get a letter from Amex about your status? If yes, I’d totally disregard that. They don’t have anything to do with your Chase Ritz-Carlton card and its benefits (like elite status).
The Marriott 5K mile bonus is on each 60K, then the UA 30% bonus. Last time it took right up to the last day for the bonus from UA to post (Jan 30?). But it did.
I transferred 180K Marriott points to United last week. My United Mileage Plus account currently shows a balance of 82,500 points. So the transfer went through AND the Marriott bonus went through. However, the bonus from the United side has NOT yet posted to my account. I just called United and was told that their bonus points would not post until Jan. 30 and she doubted it would be any earlier. This really throws a wrench in my plans because I was intending on using 90K points to book a trip to Hawaii. . .in early January. So now I’m going to have to spend $215 to buy an extra 7,500 United points just so I can book my rewards trip. : (
I wish that would have been made clearer on the front end. Generally speaking, I try to avoid United at all costs, and this has only re-inforced that sentiment.
Like some of the other comments, I have been using a Starwood AmEx for years and recently picked up the new American Express Luxury SPG Card. The 100,000 point initial bonus was nice, but after reading some of these comments, I doubt I’m going to continue using this as my primary card. It just seems like the SPG (now Marriott) program/points have been devalued too much.
[…] Hat tip: Frequent Miler […]
I just might do this. I go through United miles quickly since I live in a United hub – they are just easy to use. Plus more and more for personal travel, I have been doing extended trips where I prefer to stay in an airbnb. Thanks for the info.
I will do this for the full bonus as it is the only way that I can send a message to Marriott without hurting myself.
I in effect bought well over a million Marriott points using plastiq and an spg Amex card in early July, points that I value
At about half of what I did at the time, due to a dozen things that marriot has and hasn’t done.
I also have perhaps too many united miles — the right amount if my family can travel, if the award chart (in economy) doesn’t change too much, and if availability remains fairly close to what it is today.
Thanks for posting this, and thanks for making it simple. Hope that Marriott hires you away from frequent miler .
How many maximum Marriott points I can move to hit 25K miles United maximum bonus?
I need now extra 55280 United points to cover all tickets for next trip.
[…] United MileagePlus is offering a 30% transfer bonus on converting hotel points to airline miles. That’s not usually a great deal, but it looks like Marriott is included with this bonus — which means that 60,000 Marriott points should convert to 35,750 United miles under this promo. That’s an excellent deal if you’re in the market for miles. Don’t forget to register before you convert points. LEARN MORE! […]
If this is a good deal then SPG points have undergone a huge devaluation as this equates to spending 1 cent on marriott cards to earn 1.19 united points. (30000 spend for the 60k->35750) Compared to before, even without any promotions or packages earning 1.25 united points for 1 cent spend on SPG (20000 spend for 25k united). Even chase freedom currently earns 1.5 united points for 1 cent of spend.
Yes, it’s been long-established that the SPG cards underwent a huge devaluation to the point where it makes no sense to spend on them as you could do better with a cash back card. We’ve known that would be the case since April unfortunately.
But that devaluation didn’t make Marriott points more valuable. If you have 60,000 Marriott points and your choice is to spend them on a hotel or convert them to 37,500 United miles, I’d say the conversion is a pretty good deal (which of course depends on your relative value of United miles and/or your plans for either set of points). While it is possible to get more value out of 60K Marriott points than it is 37.5K United points, there are probably more scenarios where you can get more value out of 37.5K United points. That doesn’t mean everyone should do this — just that it is a good value.
If you earned that 60,000 points by spending $30,000 on the SPG cards at 2x, I’d ask why on Earth you did that :-). Hopefully you either earned your Marriott points via SPG before the merger and/or you are a business traveler earning tons of Marriott points on stays paid for by your employer.
[…] 消息來源 FrequentMiler, […]
This is now the third year in a row where UA has offered a transfer bonus — each time beginning in the second week of October. Might want to put this in your calendar to avoid premature transfers next year.
[…] Hat tip to Frequent Miler […]