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To the surprise of many in the miles & points world (including me) Starwood has launched another points promotion in which it’s offering a discount of 35% on purchases of 5,000 points or more. This mirrors an offer we saw back in April and is the best discount Starwood has historically offered on its currency.
While Starpoints can be used to use to book award nights at properties in the Starwood and Marriott portfolios there are other uses that may offer better value and I’ll go through those uses in this post.
The Offer Rules
- Buy 5,000 or more Starpoints to get a 35% discount
- Transactions must be completed by 11:59 PM ET 20 July 2018 to be eligible for the discount.
- Purchased points do not count towards Preferred Guest, Gold Preferred Guest, or Platinum Preferred Guest Status.
- Transactions are final and nonrefundable. All other terms and conditions of the Starwood Preferred Guest Program apply.
- SPG members can buy up to 30,000 Starpoints per account per calendar year
The Math
The good news is that, as usual, Starwood doesn’t penalize you for buying Starpoints in small amounts.
If you purchase 5,000 Starpoints (the minimum needed to trigger the 35% discount)……
…or the full 30,000 Starpoint allowance….
…the cost per Starpoint holds steady at 2.275 cents.
Should You Buy Starpoints?
The answer, as always, is that it depends on how you plan to use the Starpoints you buy and, if you’ve read my posts on buying SPG Starpoints before, the details below will look very familiar.
Buying For Redemptions Booked Between August and December 2018
As of August 2018 all Starpoint balances will be converted to Marriott points at a ratio of 1:3 and a new award chart will be in place which will cover most Marriott & Starwood properties.
We know from this award chart that, between August and December 2018, most of the more expensive award night redemptions will cost just 60,000 Marriott points (20,000 Starpoints).
20,000 Starpoints per night is considerably less than you’ll pay at a lot of the higher end Starwood properties today but, sadly, this news is incomplete.
Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere this doesn’t mean that Marriott/SPG loyalists will be able to book resorts like the St Regis Maldives and the Al Maha Resort for 60,000 Marriott Points/20,000 Starpoints from 1 August 2018.
Marriott has already confirmed that the all-suite properties are not accounted for in the new award chart so we don’t actually know how many points they’ll be charging for an award night – it could be anything
Do not buy Starpoints thinking that you’ll be booking accommodation in Bora Bora for 20,000 Starpoints/night – that’s just not going to happen.
We also don’t yet know which properties will fit into which categories in the award chart so, while it’s probably safe to assume that the more expensive regular Starwood and Ritz Carlton properties will cost 20,000 Starpoints/night, we have no real idea where all the other properties will sit – they may be priced well or very badly….we simply don’t know.
Even when it comes to the properties that aren’t of the “all-suite” variety it’s not a forgone conclusion that 20,000/night will be a good deal.
20,000 Starpoints would cost $455 in the current sale and that’s still quite a bit of money to be spending on a hotel room – don’t assume that you’ll be getting a bargain come August.
I suspect that good value will come from properties that are currently sitting in the middle of the SPG award chart and which will probably cost 25,000 new Marriott points in the new award chart. Most of these properties currently cost the equivalent of 30,000 Marriott Rewards points (based on the 1:3 conversion ratio) so there may be savings on offer come August.
Buying For Starwood Reward Night Redemptions
Between now and August the current SPG award chart will still be what we have to use for Starwood redemptions (click to enlarge):
At a cost of around 2.28 cents a point I don’t see much value here at the middle or high value properties.
A category 4 property charges 10,000 points for an award night so, if you were to buy Starpoints in this promotion, that award would essentially cost around $228 – that’s hardly great value and it doesn’t get much better the higher you go up the chart.
If you can book category 1 or 2 property for 2,000 – 3,000 points a night the effective cost would be around $46 – $70 per night….and that can be a great deal.
Buying For Marriott Reward Night Redemptions
Until 1 August 2018 the existing Marriott Rewards award chart will continue to be the one to use when booking most Marriott properties. This is what it looks like:
Starpoints now transfer over to Marriott Rewards at a rate of 1:3 so, a purchase of 15,000 Starpoints would net 45,000 Marriott Rewards points which is enough for a top-level redemption.
15,000 Starpoints would cost $341.25 in this promotion….
…and when top-tier Marriott properties can go for considerably more than $500/night……
……this can be a great use of Starpoints.
Buying For Marriott Flight & Hotel Redemptions
This is a lot of people’s top reason to buy Starpoints but it’s worth pointing out that Marriott hasn’t yet announced what the Flight & Hotel charts will look like come 1 August so we can only base our calculations on Flight & Hotel redemptions made before then.
All the current Marriott Flight & Hotel packages charts can be found via this link and here’s an example to illustrate why they are a popular option:
Three facts to keep in mind:
- Starpoints convert to Marriott Rewards points at a rate of 1:3
- Starpoints cost 2.275 cents each in this promotion.
- You’ll need to have Starpoints or Marriott Rewards points already in your account to make the most of this situation
If you were to buy the full 30,000 Starpoints you could convert them to 90,000 Marriott Rewards points, add them to your existing Marriott Rewards points and then redeem them for one of the Flight & Hotel packages.
If you were to, for example, redeem 270,000 Marriott Rewards points for a 7-night Category 1-5 package you would get 7 nights in a hotel and 120,000 miles/Avios thrown in on top.
As 150,000 Marriott Rewards points would buy you 7 nights in a Category 5 hotel anyway you would have essentially traded the other 120,000 Marriott Rewards Points (270,000 – 150,000) for 120,000 airline miles/Avios.
A 1:1 conversion from Marriott Rewards points to airline miles is a great transfer ratio and would mean that the 30,000 Starpoints you purchased would have converted into airline miles at a 1:3 ratio….which is fantastic!
Buying For Airline Transfers
This is my preferred use of Starpoints because I get really good value out of them this way and because I don’t have to go though the hassle of booking a hotel stay like the Marriott Rewards Flight & Hotel packages require me to.
On of the reasons why Starpoints are so popular is because they can be transferred into to a large number of major airline loyalty programs (35 in total) and, in most cases, Starpoints transfer over at a ratio of 1 Starpoint to 1 Airline mile.
That makes Starpoints a very versatile currency to hold.
On top of that, if you remember to transfer Starpoints in multiples of 20,000, Starwood adds on a 5,000 bonus:
With this in mind, 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 in the current promotion it would cost $455….
…and those Starpoints could then be converted to 25,000 airline miles (for most airlines).
Those airline miles have now essentially cost $455 which, for 25,000 airline miles, comes to 1.82 cents/mile.
That’s a very good deal and close to as low as you can usually buy airline miles for.
How To Buy Starpoints
Here’s a link to the promotion page.
Starwood sells Starpoints through Points.com so you will not get a “travel” category bonus when using a credit card like one of the Chase Sapphire cards. As such you should use whatever credit card earns you the points you value most or the card on which you need to hit a minimum spend.
Bottom Line
A 35% discount is the best offer we ever seen on Starpoints sales and this is definitely going to be the last chance to buy Starpoints at a discount…..but those aren’t good enough reasons to buy.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to book the higher end properties once August comes around please make sure you’ve read my warnings above.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to use for Starwood redemptions you’ll almost certainly be better off using them for lower category properties.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to use for Marriott redemptions you may be able to get some great deals during peak times….but make sure you work out the math.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints for Marriott Flight & Hotel packages make sure you remember that you can’t purchase enough points in this sale to book such a package outright – make sure you’ll have enough points in your account to book the flight & hotel package once the purchased points post.
- If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints so you can convert them to airline miles then make sure you do the math and make sure the airline you’re transferring them to actually releases the awards you’re hoping to book.
Note: Asia Miles is currently running a promotion in which certain hotel currencies can be converted to Cathay Pacific’s currency with a 50% bonus but Marriott and Starwood’s points are excluded – don’t buy Starpoints with the idea that you’ll earn a big bonus by transferring them to Asia Miles.
Featured Image: W Maldives courtesy of Starwood
[…] Generally speaking I’m not a fan of price discounts when it comes to points sales as I far prefer to be offered bonus points instead (unless its a Starpoint sale like the one currently running) […]