American Airlines Advantage Program

[DanO]

Thought I'd post here. Just received an email from AA:

Convert your hotel points into AAdvantage® miles
Planning a trip and don't have enough miles? Convert your hotel points into miles and redeem them for award travel or cabin upgrades.

2017 Conversion Bonus
Earn 25% bonus miles when you convert hotel points
From now through June 15, 2017, convert your hotel points to American Airlines AAdvantage® miles, and you’ll earn a 25% bonus on the amount of miles you receive from the conversion.

That means converting your hotel points into 20,000 AAdvantage miles will earn you an extra 5,000 bonus miles. Don’t wait, you’re getting one step closer to your adventure, convert today.
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Marriott

10,000 Marriott Rewards points = 2,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
20,000 Marriott Rewards points = 5,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
30,000 Marriott Rewards points = 10,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
70,000 Marriott Rewards points = 25,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
140,000 Marriott Rewards points = 50,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles

Convert your Marriott Reward points Opens another site in a new window that may not meet accessibility guidelines

 

[kds4]

I received the same email. I haven't travelled on AA recently, so for me this is an opportunity to keep my FF account active so my AA miles don't expire by converting a small number of MR points.

As far as converting a large number of points, I think the better value is a 5 night travel package. For 200,000 MRPs, you can get 50,000 AA miles and 5 nights at a Marriott Vacation Club Resort (based on Category 7). Plus, you still get the 25% bonus as travel package redemptions qualify.

From the T&Cs section at the bottom of the email: "Conversions for hotel and air packages from hotel partners are included for this offer."

So, that 5 night Category 7 travel package for 200k MRPs will net you 62,500 AA miles or you can just spend 140k MRPs for the miles alone. To me, the 60k extra MRPs for 5 resort nights is a 'no-brainer' if I needed a cheap way to get there.

That's only 12,500 points per night. Redeeming a Cat 7 property 5 night MR stay would be 140k (35k per night) for an average of 28,000 points per night (with the 5th night free benefit).

Overall, I'd say this is a good offer for a travel package redemption (if you are an AA member).

 

[hangloose]

Good choice if using a MRP vacation package via AA. Might as well take advantage of the bonus. We did this last year and it worked well.

Only challenge I have with AA is that I have a hard time using my FF miles for lower point saver flights. . I have better luck with Delta or others.

 

[AlmostRetired]

Through April 30th, you get 30 percent off purchasing Starwood points. 30,000 points is about $735.
This converts to 90,000 MRP if your u need points to get to a travel package.

 

[kds4]

Through April 30th, you get 30 percent off purchasing Starwood points. 30,000 points is about $735.
This converts to 90,000 MRP if your u need points to get to a travel package.

I received an email from Starwood about this as well yesterday, but I didn't do the math all the way through to calculate an MRP conversion. Good catch. Keeping up with how to leverage all the hotel and airline loyalty programs across one another is about as challenging as mastering the Marriott timeshare program.

 

[kds4]

So, 410z' post got me thinking about how to best leverage this AA offer strictly for miles (and not a travel package) using MRPs as the currency of choice. None of the calculations that follow include the current promo offer of a 25% bonus.

Marriott Reward Points exchange to AA FF miles at a rate ranging from 5:1 to as low as 2.8:1 (depending on the volume transferred).
SPG Starpoints exchange to AA FF miles at a fixed rate of 1:1.

There is a 'sweet spot' where MR and SPG points will produce the same AA conversion value, and that is at the 30k MRP level.

30k MRPs exchange into 10k AA miles.
30k MRPs transferred to SPG become 10k Starpoints which also exchange into 10k AA miles.

I like the fact that with SPG you can transfer a smaller/customized number of points to FF miles. With MRPs, there are fewer options (perhaps due to the conversion ratios), with a minimum of 10k MRPs. These 'smaller' transactions are where I think Starpoints are a better choice than MRPs. Consider the 10k minimum MRP transaction.

10k MRPs exchange into 2k AA miles.
10k MRPs transferred to SPG become 3,333 Starpoints which exchange into 3,333 AA miles (or 60% more miles in this transaction).

Food for thought.

 

[Bob B]

So if I'm reading and calculating correctly;
60k MRP's = 20k AA miles; or
60k MRP's = 20k SPG

Wouldn't those 20k SPG get you 25k AA miles?

So if you're just looking to add AA miles, isn't MRP to SPG to AA the way to go, or am I missing something?

 

[kds4]

So if I'm reading and calculating correctly;
60k MRP's = 20k AA miles; or
60k MRP's = 20k SPG
'
Wouldn't those 20k SPG get you 25k AA miles?

So if you're just looking to add AA miles, isn't MRP to SPG to AA the way to go, or am I missing something?

You could redeem 30k MRPs twice to get to 60k MRPs. That would get you 25k AA miles (20k from the conversion as well as another 5k for the current 25% bonus offered).
You could also transfer 60k MRPs in one transaction to Starwood and that would get you 20k Starpoints. Converting from Starwood to AA will also get you 25k AA miles (20k plus another 5k as a 25% bonus), but wait...

If you transfer 20k Starpoints or more in a single transaction, Starwood will add a 5k Starpoint bonus to your transfer (which with the extra 25% AA promo bonus on that 5k points is worth an another 6,250 miles).

So, it would seem that 20k Starpoints will get you a total of 31,250 AA miles based on 20k base miles 1:1, a 5k Starpoints/miles bonus from SPG , and another 6,250 mile using the 25% bonus from AA for converting a total of 25k Starpoints (equaling a ratio of 1:1.5625). 1 Starpoint is worth more than 1 AA FF mile. At best you need 1.8 MRPs to be worth 1 AA FF mile.

That is why I would do this promotion (for a non-travel package objective) by going MR to SPG to AA.

 

[AlmostRetired]

If you have 145 k MRP and you purchase 30k Starwood points for $740. 30k Starwood get you 90k MRP. 235k MRP gets you a 5 night package for cat 5 and 120k AA. With the 25 % bonus, this becomes 150k AA.

My Monarch gets 130k MRP. My MF is 1400. 145k would cost about 1600 in MF. So the package would cost 1600 plus 740 = 2340.

Thinking about pulling the trigger on this tomorrow.

 

[kds4]

Just a note to those considering doing a large scale SPG transfer for AA miles. The 5k bonus Starpoint offer with Starwood applies to a single transaction of 20k points or more. If redeeming 40k Starpoints, I would do two separate transactions of 20k each. This way you can get the 5k Starwood bonus twice. That's worth an extra 6,250 AA miles on a 40k Starpoints redemption.

 

[kds4]

Is there a point at which doing the current AA promotion for just miles (instead of a travel package) stops making sense? I think so. Consider this (based on just using existing MRPs in someone's Marriott Rewards account).

I talked about redeeming 40k Starpoints above. Let's double that to a redemption of 80k Starpoints.

80k Starpoints will get you 120k AA FF miles (80k base miles at 1:1, a 20k Starpoints bonus (moving 20k Starpoints per transaction to get the 5k bonus 4 times) that is worth another 20k miles at 1:1, plus another 20k as a 25% bonus from AA under the current promotion. Now, let's assume the 80k Starpoints used were the result of a transfer from a Marriott Rewards account (at a rate of 3:1). That means those 120k AA miles ultimately cost 240k MRPs.

For 230k MRPs, the member could have redeemed a 5 night travel package for a Category 1-6 property AND gotten 125k AA FF miles as well.

240k - 120k AA miles
230k - 125k AA miles (plus a 5 night stay).

More food for thought.

 

[AlmostRetired]

I purchased 25k Starwood points for $612 after the 30 percent discount. This ensures I have enough MRP for a a cat 5 to 8 in my account. Thinking of going to Europe next April. Also, I can use it for Southwest given we did the companion ticket this year if we decide we no Europe in April. Used the Chase reserve, I get another 3 percent off that becomes 4.5 percent if used for travel. It showed up on Chase as purchased Starwood by Points.

 

[winger]

Since the U.S. Air merger, AA award seat availability have generally taken a turn for the worse, so I world think carefully about converting anything for AA miles.

 

[pwrshift]

The only time I use aa miles is for biz class flights on BA non stop from Toronto to London. Toronto is a hub for many airlines. UAs partner here is a bunch of airlines like Air Canada, Lufthansa, Swissair, and more. I have more points with UA because of that.

Brian

 

[hangloose]

Since the U.S. Air merger, AA award seat availability have generally taken a turn for the worse, so I world think carefully about converting anything for AA miles.

I find this challenging with AA as well for award seat availability post merger. I've got quite a few AA miles from these MRP travel packages that I struggle to use when/where I want to travel. If I do find seats, they are often poor flight choices (more connections, longer duration, extended layovers, etc). Far from ideal. I'm hopeful this will change, but not confident. If given the option again, I would have selected a different airline for my MRP travel packages.

 

[mas]

I've been using the 235K MRP's travel pkg for the last several years. I've gotten 144k AA miles for this (along with a 5 night 1-5 cat hotel) and used the miles for biz class air on AA or it's partners for 90K miles RT. The mileage has gone up some time last year to 57.5K each way which means with the AA CCard 10% rebate the RT cost is 105K miles - still a good deal in my estimation.

I've had very little problems finding a seat, however, you have to watch the routing as AA tends to want to route you through LHR, which carries a huge landing fee compared to other airports. This last year going through LHR was over $500 each way. I routed through either MUC or HEL and the cost was $6.50 to $12 each way--quite a difference!

 

[Steve A]

Mas:

We used a combination of AA ff points and Marriott Reward Points to fly business to LHR last summer via American. The add ones were absolutely minimal. Had we flown on BA, the taxes and other fees would have been huge, but not with AA.

 

[pwrshift]

BA does have outrageous fees and taxes, but AA doesn't fly to Europe non stop from Toronto.

 

[GregT]

I am about to do this -- do you have to request something in particular to get the bonus mileage or is the bonus automatically handled by the airline? Thank you!

Best,

Greg

 

[hangloose]

I am about to do this -- do you have to request something in particular to get the bonus mileage or is the bonus automatically handled by the airline? Thank you!

Best,

Greg

I've taken advantage of this promotion twice in recent years, last time was fall last year. Each time I purchased an MRP Travel Package (hotel & air), to make the most of my MR Pts. When AA credited the mileage to my account, it included the bonus automatically. Last time it was 20% bonus. This time it appears to be 25% bonus (even better). No additional action needed that I recall.

 

[Mr. Vker]

I am about to do this -- do you have to request something in particular to get the bonus mileage or is the bonus automatically handled by the airline? Thank you!

Best,

Greg

The bonus posts automatically-though usually several weeks after the initial miles.

While I agree that AA saver awards can be a challenge, we generally use them for OneWorld awards to SE Asia-Cathay or JAL. Also, we have decent luck with the Caribbean 10-11 months out. We split our MR travel packages between AA and SWA to cover most places we need to get to.

 

[taxare]

Greg, I did a five night package a few weeks ago and the miles posted in my AA account included the bonus. No need to do anything special.

 

[GregT]

Thank you all -- much appreciated!

Best,

Greg