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There are some good hotel pooling opportunities out there

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A lot of people will tell you not to hoard points and miles, and there are some good points to be made in favor of that argument, but at the same time speculative point hoarding has worked out for me more than once. My wife and I have signed up for Marriott and Starwood cards the past year or two with no firm plans (other than having a few Starwood points lying around for the occasional low-level redemption as needed), but with the merger letting us trade Starwood to Marriott at a 1:3 ratio and with both chains letting spouses transfer points to each other, we had more than enough points pooled for a Marriott flight and hotel package.

I hadn’t done one of these before, so it was a new experience. You have to do it over the phone, but the process was quick and painless and the customer service rep said the points should show up in about three business days. If you’re not familiar with these packages, they give you one week at a category 1-5 Marriott hotel (or more if you’re willing to shell out extra points) plus a bunch of airline miles. In my case, it cost us 270,000 Marriott points (or 90,000 Starwood points) for one week at a Marriott plus 120,000 British Airways Avios. And right now there is a 35% Avios bonus for transfers from hotel points, so assuming everything works out I’ll get 162,000 Avios for my Starriott points. That’s darn near a 1:2 Starwood/Avios ratio, well above the usual transfer rate for Starwood points. 

It works out even better for my personal situation since my household has a steady demand for Avios. Specifically, as I’ve mentioned before, we use them for family travel between CLT and MGA, a route where tickets are usually in the $600-900 range (there isn’t a ton of demand for CLT-MGA traffic) but are only 30,000 Avios. Even after taking taxes and fees into account we’ll be getting at least three cents per Starwood point with the transfer to BA.

Yes, AA low-level availability is weak and getting worse but so far we’ve always been able to use Avios on this particular route. Having the flexibility to travel outside of high season helps. And occasionally we need a last-minute redemption, so the lack of close-in booking fees is nice as well.

Ironically, the one-week hotel stay is an afterthought in this transaction. I’ve read that the one-week certificates can be difficult to use, so we’ll play it by ear. I’m doing this deal assuming I won’t get any value from the hotel certificate so if I do it’s a bonus. Apparently at least one of the Marriott chains has rooms (Residence Inn, I think?) which can sleep six people, so I think I’ll go for something like that in an area which can entertain the family for a week.

Obviously, not everybody lives near an AA hub and not everybody has travel needs like mine, so this is very much a YMMV situation. The Marriott packages aren’t for everybody. But you know what might be for everybody? Pooling Hilton points!

One of the nice things about the HHilton Cchanges (besides the dropping of superfluous letters) is that you can now pool your accounts with others:

Beginning in April, Hilton Honors members will be able to combine – or “pool” – their Points with up to 10 friends or family members for free. A total of 11 members can pool their Points for stays in great locations for family reunions, bachelorette parties or any other event that brings people together.

And unlike Starriott, there does not seem to be a requirement that you be married to these 10 individuals or live at the same address. So if you have any family members who have good credit and a willingness to play along (presumably the same people whose Bluebird cards you used once upon a time), you now have a way to get around Citi’s 24-month and Amex’s lifetime Hilton bonus restrictions. Time to start hoarding?

Some charts and tables for Starwood and Marriott points

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Plenty of folks have already written about the opportunities opened up by the merging of the Starwood and Marriott programs. I’m not looking to restate what they said, so go read them instead (here, here, here, here, and here). I just wanted to offer up a few additional thoughts on the matter.

Starwood points convert to Marriott at a 1:3 ratio, so here’s what the combined award charts looks like for holders of Starwood points when you convert Marriott points to Starwood points:

starwood-marriot-table

Graphing it, you get this:

starwood-marriott-chart

Note the constant Marriott slope vs. the asymptotic Starwood line, which would suggest that a category 17 Starwood redemption would go for infinity points. (And it would probably be located in the Maldives.) The point is, you can get some good values on Marriott properties with your Starwood points as the Marriott chart is (for now) cheaper than the Starwood chart. A year ago I did a side-by-side comparison of the major chains and pointed out that Marriott was heavy in categories 2, 3, and 4 domestically:

hotels by category 2

That means you’re looking at 3 to 7,000 Starwood points per night at a whole bunch of previously unavailable hotels. Internationally, the distribution looks like this–there are still a bunch of category 2’s, but also a bunch of category 7’s:

hotels_international

I know everybody’s looking at flights and miles, and I am too, but I’m also taking another look at Marriott redemptions. For those of us with big families, an influx of points that can be used for low-level redemptions opens up possibilities.

However you plan to take advantage of inefficiencies brought about by the merger, act sooner rather than later since a devaluation here is inevitable.

Will the Starwood merger allow you to assemble a Marriott card portfolio, and would you even want to do that?

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As you know, Marriott is buying Starwood, which is a bummer, so I’m trying to figure out a silver lining. Presumably Starwood credit cards will become Marriott credit cards at some point. Right now, you can get both a business and a personal Marriott card from Chase, assuming you don’t get tripped up by the 5/24 rule, which would allow you the privilege of two “free” Category 1-5 rooms per year for $184, assuming you hold on to the cards and pay the annual fees.

If you get two Starwood cards converted to Marriott, Chase would probably grandfather you in and let you have two of each type of Marriott card, assuming the portfolio went to Chase. (See here for a discussion of how many Chase cards you can have in total.) So now you’re looking at four free nights per year at a little under $400.

In terms of annual free credit card hotel room value, Marriott leaves something to be desired. The IHG card is a no-brainer since the fee is only $49 and you can take your free night at any hotel in the chain. The Hyatt card isn’t quite as generous, as the free night is only good for Category 1-4 hotels, but it’s pretty easy to find a Hyatt hotel in those categories that costs much more than the card’s annual fee.

As for the Marriott card… yes, you can make it worth your while but it’s not as easy as with the other two cards. Even so, having one or two cards can be useful in case you want a quick trip to an area where other chains don’t have good coverage. But four cards? Or even eight cards for credit card power couples? That feels like you’re locked in. It’s a credit-card timeshare, albeit one that’s cheaper and easier to get out of than a real timeshare.

Marriott cards currently give you 15 nights toward elite status, but unfortunately you cannot stack elite nights from both the personal and business cards so I doubt that four cards would do you much good in that regard, unless something gets screwed up when they merge the Marriott and Starwood programs. Which is of course a possibility given how mergers of IT systems usually go.

Of course, I guess it’s possible that Amex holds on to the portfolio and they don’t even offer a free night, rendering this discussion moot.

My wife and I only recently got around to getting the Marriott cards so I don’t yet have a good feel for exactly how valuable the free night benefit is for our household. If any of you have thoughts on the matter, I’m all ears.

Hotel categories: international version

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This is a follow-up to a post from a few weeks ago breaking out hotel redemptions by category. That post looked at the number of redemptions by category for domestic hotels; this post will do the same thing for hotels outside the United States. Here are the number of hotels by reward category for the four major non-IHG chains:

hotels_international_3

 

And, as a reminder, here are the points required for redemption for each category/hotel combination:

hotels by category 3

 

If we take the numbers from the first table above and convert them to percentages of the total number of hotels for each chain, here’s what we get:

hotels_international

 

Observations:

  • The international distribution is more balanced than the domestic distribution, with no category going above 30% of the total for any chain. And though the absolute numbers are lower, everybody has proportionately more hotels in higher categories.
  • Once again, Hyatt’s pretty strong on the low end, though of course there’s the standard Hyatt not-enough-locations issue.
  • Marriott’s distribution is bifurcated, with a lot of Category 2 and Category 7.
  • As it does domestically, Hilton has a lot of Category 4. I’m not too pleased with the Category 4-ization of Hilton’s rewards program, but then their points are relatively easy to come by, so I guess it balances out.
  • Most of the Hilton Category 1 properties are concentrated in a few countries: Egypt (about which, see Travel Is Free here) and China have 7, Turkey has 8, and Mexico has 9. (You may recall the U.S. has only 2.)

Your thoughts?

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Saverocity is Journalistic in Nature, please obtain Professional Representation prior to attempting anything discussed herein. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.