Quantcast

Personal Finance Digest

Former blog

Did you know Amtrak points are worth six cents each when redeeming for children?

By





Recent events have shown that American Express hates the laughter of children even more than the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. But you know who doesn’t hate children? Amtrak, that’s who.

You may remember that Amtrak Guest rewards points are worth 2.9 cents each on non-Acela trips. But did you know that kids travel half price on Amtrak? Here’s the verbiage:

On most trains and on most days, up to two children may travel at the half-price fare with each passenger paying the full adult fare. If a third child will be traveling in the party, reservations must be made for that child as an “Adult” and the full adult fare will be charged.

But what’s even better is that since Amtrak points are redeemed at a fixed value vs. the fare, the 50% off deal applies to award bookings too. So that means your points are effectively worth 5.8 cents each when buying tickets for your kids. As an example, let’s take a look at Charlottesville to Washington, DC on April 8. A regular adult value fare is $35:

…while a reward redemption is 1,208 points:

An adult with two kids pushes the total to $70, or 2,415 points (and only 4,175 points if you want to upgrade to business class):

Now you could argue that in fact you’re still getting 2.9 cents of value because you have to base your calculation on the discounted fare, not the full price fare. You could also argue that the 2.9 cent value itself is overstated since it’s used on the value fare, not the cheaper saver fare.

But the point is, if you’ve got multiple children the discounts can make this a cost-effective way to move a bunch of people from point A to point B. Plus there’s the fact that kids love trains. We haven’t been on Amtrak yet but we’ve taken the kids on our city’s commuter rail as well as the streetcar, both of which they love. We also took them to Union Station during our trip to Washington, DC last fall and of course they all loved riding the DC metro.

I know Charlottesville to DC is a short trip, but heck–I can do Charlotte, NC to DC for one adult and two children for only 5,934 points. Starwood is a transfer partner of Amtrak, and I’m pretty sure there’s no other way for 5,934 Starwood points (or 17,802 Marriott points if you prefer) to convey three people that distance, unless maybe you’re hitchhiking and Gary Leff or Matt or whoever drives by and you’re able to work out a deal. So if you have kids under the age of 12, adding some train travel to your trip might be worth looking into.

There are some good hotel pooling opportunities out there

By

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?

Annual Starwood category changes aren’t as bad as I would have expected

By

Given the large amounts of points and miles introduced into the system over the last several years, devaluations are simply a fact of life. It was thus a surprise to look at SPG’s 2017 list of category changes and see that a solid majority of the hotels are moving down in category, not up. I’ve summarized the category changes by region below:

You’ll note that North America is the highest, yet the U.S. actually makes out pretty well, with only 39% of the changes being category increases. What’s happening is that Canada is getting slammed: of 40 hotels changing category, 38 are going up. (Ow Canada!)

Seven hotels saw a change of two categories: five of those (Sthala, Auberge du Vin, Sir Savigny, Four Points Halifax, and Westin Toronto) were increases and two (Sheraton Grand Istanbul and Four Point Ft. Lauderdale) were decreases. If you’d been eyeing the Four Points Halifax, don’t worry: you have until March 7 to book at the old category level before the category change goes into effect.

Some charts and tables for Starwood and Marriott points

By

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.

Recent Comments

Disclosure

The owner of this website may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website.

Disclaimer

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.