Deal has expired, view more transfer bonuses by clicking here.
The Offer
- Some American Express members are being targeted for a 50% transfer bonus to Marriott. Normally you can transfer 1,000 Membership Rewards points to 1,000 Marriott points. Under this promotion you’d receive 1,500 Marriott points.
The Fine Print
- No end date listed
Our Verdict
Membership rewards points are far too valuable to even remotely consider this transfer bonus in my opinion. Even if you doubled the offer to 1:3 I wouldn’t be tempted. This is the first Marriott transfer bonus we’ve seen, but in the past we saw 50% bonuses when transferring to SPG:
- October 23 – November 17th, 2016: 50% bonus
- October 12th – October 31st, 2015: 50% bonus
- October 16th – November 30th, 2014: 50% bonus
As always a full list of American Express transfer bonuses can be viewed here.
I have never gotten less than 1.3 cents for Marriott points so I think it is a great deal.
Depends on what you want to do with the pts. I try to get redemptions at ~0.8-0.9c per point which is not that hard if you do not redeem in mainland USA. MRs are actually not useful for me, but I only have a 40% bonus which is not as tempting. Back when it was SPG, 1MR would transfer to 0.33 SPG so the current bonus and conversion ratio is in line with what was back then. PS I definitely would not transfer without a redemption in mind – the point inflation is only accelerating.
I just want to throw it out there that I redeemed 200,000 Marriott points last week for 5 nights in Maui where the cash price was listed at $4,300, ~2.1 cents per point. So it is possible to get outsized value from Marriott points. But other than stacking 5th night free at a property during peak season, I’ve found it really hard to get more than 1.0 cents per point from Marriott points.
I agree with Doc’s verdict that this transfer bonus is not worth much. I personally value Marriott points around .5 – .7 cents per point.
Marriott points are great for fifth night at peak times. I am staying at a Marriott now peak time room $750 a night x 5 nights or 200k points.
I agree. I did 5 nights in Crete and 5 nights in London where I got 1.9 and 2.3 cents per point. To me this isn’t to bad an option if you have a trip in mind.
The question is, if you have to pay your own cash, are you willing to pay $4.3k to stay 5 nights at the place you stayed? The answer determines whether you got the valuation you claimed.
I am staying at Marriott right now. Without having points I would stay at a lower price hotel but it would not be as comfortable as Marriott
I see this line of thinking once in a while, that “how much you are willing to pay” is the actual value of a points or miles award. But I don’t think this takes into account the value you actually receive from the award. Say I’m only willing to pay $200 a night at this Hawaii hotel, does that mean the $4.3k for 5 nights award is only worth $1k? I don’t think so, because I would not be able to replicate the same level of quality or experience for $1k.
A lot of people play the miles and points game because you are able to get outsized value from the actual out of pocket costs.
I totally agree with you because I don’t agree with the line of thinking that “how much you are willing to pay” is the actual value of points or miles from which you got the award.
The point is that if you are presented with a choice between receiving $4.3k or 5 nights, which one will you choose? If you choose $4.3k which has a clearly defined numerical value, then the 5 nights obviously is not worth that much to you.
So yes, it’s only worth to you how much you are willing to pay cash for it.
I can appreciate this perspective, thank you. I think we may be saying two different things: the value of an award to an individual, which brings in personal spending preferences; and the market value of an award, which can be calculated by the cash equivalent.
TATC is correctr
we need like 1:2 and i would still doubt it
So tomorrow one can transfer 40k MR to 60k Marriott which will transfer to 33.75k Aeroplan after bonus… that’s not entirely terrible but not so great either.
Or you could transfer 40k MR to 40k Aeroplan
LOL… true!
I was just thinking to top off an account to get to 60k Marriott, i didn’t word it right. 😉
I have 90k Marriott points right now and personally I think it’s better to just transfer the whole 90k to Aeroplan if you want to get out of Marriott as opposed to topping off the account. If you’re only 10k or 20k away though, it might be worth it.
1:3 is actually good since it’s equivalent to 25% bonus to any airline miles (mostly).