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Because of the way Starpoints can be converted in a wide variety of airline miles this means that targeted SPG members can effective buy airline miles for just 1.4 cents each!
I don’t recall seeing Starwood selling points any cheaper than this and, even with my conservative valuation, this is a very nice offer if you’re lucky enough to have been targeted.
All SPG members have been given a promotional offer (click here to see yours) and, from what I’ve seen, they range from 30% to 50% off the regular price of Starpoints.
Buying Starpoints
- Offer runs from 1 November – 31 December 2016
- Maximum purchase of 30,000 Starpoints per year
- Minimum purchase of 5,000 Starpoints to get the discount
Unfortunately I’m not one of the lucky ones so I didn’t get the 50% discount offer – I’ve been offered a 35% discount – and that isn’t particularly tempting to me.
With a 35% discount Starwood is offering to sell me Starpoints at 2.275 cents each….
…and that’s considerably higher than my conservative valuation of 1.8 cents for Starpoints.
Even if I was to convert the Starpoints to airlines miles (I’ll explain how in a moment) the miles would still be costing me 1.82 cents each – that’s more than I value any airline currency at.
The 50% Discount
If you’re lucky enough to have been targeted for the 50% discount things look a lot different.
With a 50% discount 30,000 Starpoints would cost just $525 and that values each Starpoint at just 1.75 cents……which is fantastic value.
Firstly here’s a basic Starwood award chart…..
…which shows that if you buy Starpoints at 1.75 cents each this would be the cost of an award night at each category:
- Cat 1 – $52.50 ($35 at weekends when nights cost just 2,000 points)
- Cat 2 – $70.00 ($52.50 at weekends when nights cost just 3,000 points)
- Cat 3 – $122.50
- Cat 4 – $177.00
- Cat 5 – From $210
- Cat 6 – From $350
- Cat 7 – From $525
The best value is to be had at the lower category properties but, if you’re booking for busy/peak times, $210 for a Cat 5 or $350 for a Cat 6 property may save you cash.
However, booking Starwood properties isn’t where the best value is to be had in this promotion.
The best value is to be had when you convert Starpoints to Airline miles/points.
Converting Starpoints To Airline Miles/Points
The reason why Starpoints are so popular are because they can be transferred into to just about every major airline loyalty program out there (36 in total).
Click thumbnail to view full list in new window
In most cases Starpoints transfer over at a ratio of 1 Starpoint to 1 Airline mile.
On top of that, when you transfer over Starpoints to an airline loyalty program in multiples of 20,000, Starwood adds on a 5,000 bonus
This means that the ideal number of Starpoints to transfer over to an airline’s loyalty program is 20,000, 40,000 or 60,000 (maximum allowed in one transfer is 79,999) as those transfers will earn you 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 bonus points/miles respectively.
How much are you getting the airline miles for?
If you were to purchase 20,000 Starpoints at 1.75 cents each it would cost you $350 and those 20,000 Starpoints could then be converted to 25,000 airline miles (for most airlines).
You’ve now essentially paid $350 for 25,000 airline miles which comes to a fantastic 1.4 cents/mile.
Bottom Line
You’d be hard pushed not to get excellent value out of airline miles that you’ve purchased for 1.4 cents each….but make sure you check on award availability before you dive in.
A lot of theoretical calculations will show just how great of a deal 1.4 cents/mile actually is but it’s still not much use if you can’t find award space in the first place.
Don’t forget to check what discount Starwood has chosen to offer you…and then do the math if you’re looking to book hotel rooms or check award space if you’re buying Starpoints to convert to miles. That way you won’t get any nasty surprises.
