The Offer
- Receive a 50% bonus when you transfer your American Express membership rewards points to Starwoods Preferred Guest (SPG). For example, transfer 1,000 American Express membership rewards and receive 500 SPG points.
The Fine Print
- Must transfer a minimum of 1,000 points
- Valid until October 31st
Our Verdict
There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how this bonus was targeted, originally it was speculated that it was only for Platinum or Centurion cardholders but that doesn’t seem to be the case. American Express offered a similar targeted bonus of 50% between October 16th – November 30th but apart from that have never offered a transfer bonus to SPG (you can view a full list of transfer bonuses they have offered here).
I find SPG points both valuable and difficult to earn, but I still don’t think I’ll participate in this deal (mainly because I’m not targeted, but let’s just pretend I am to make the narrative more interesting). The reason being that while I do find the points valuable, I don’t find them twice as valuable as American Express membership rewards points and so a transfer rate of 2:1 doesn’t appeal to me.
Where do you find the targeted offer? Via email?
Wish I would have been targeted for this. I needed another 8k, immediately, in SPG points for my honeymoon. I considered buying (for $280) since my redemption was over 7 cents per point, but ended up transferring 24k MR points. I have no immediate plan for MR points and I calculated the cost to MS that amount at roughly $144. So there are situations where the transfer makes sense, but I recognize those situations are vanishingly rare at a 3:1 (or even 2:1) ratio.