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Paying Marriott MF

Saintsfanfl

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First, the OP didn’t state his objective as buying Marriott travel packages. Granted, if that is his objective, I agree with you 100%. In MY case, I pay the MFs with the CSR and use the very valuable points for high value transfer to frequent flyer programs. Oh, did I say ymmv. Peace.

Hence why I said from the beginning that it depends on how you use them.

Even if you do not do a travel package taking your math blind of .009 vs .022 it is actually .018 vs .022 because you get 6 points with SPG and 3 only UR points with CSR. One would only need to nudge the value a little to break even or come out ahead.

If you look at it closer you could book a 5 night travel package, never even use the 5 nights, and you still come out a little better than 1:1 miles when compared to UR. This is of course assuming 6 points per dollar on the maintenance fee spending.
 

bazzap

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Hence why I said from the beginning that it depends on how you use them.

Even if you do not do a travel package taking your math blind of .009 vs .022 it is actually .018 vs .022 because you get 6 points with SPG and 3 only UR points with CSR. One would only need to nudge the value a little to break even or come out ahead.

If you look at it closer you could book a 5 night travel package, never even use the 5 nights, and you still come out a little better than 1:1 miles when compared to UR. This is of course assuming 6 points per dollar on the maintenance fee spending.
Not sure I follow the “math blind” so here is how I look at it:

MR: 5x@.09=$.045
SPG: 2x@.027=$.054
UR: 3x@.022=$.066

Analyses comparing the “best” use of MRs vs. the assumed value of URs are incomplete and misleading, imho. Reasonable people can differ and it really does depend on one’s travel objectives, minimum spend, favorite Airlines, etc...Aloha.
 

Saintsfanfl

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Not sure I follow the “math blind” so here is how I look at it:

MR: 5x@.09=$.045
SPG: 2x@.027=$.054
UR: 3x@.022=$.066

Analyses comparing the “best” use of MRs vs. the assumed value of URs are incomplete and misleading, imho. Reasonable people can differ and it really does depend on one’s travel objectives, minimum spend, favorite Airlines, etc...Aloha.

The issue is your assumption that MR equals .09 per point. That is the blind math I was referring to. Both MR and UR can be more valuable than your assumptions. Again it all depends on how someone uses them. If one is taking advantage of a 5-night travel package then it is a no-brainer, which you agreed.

It is a waste of time using someone else's assumption on the value of a point. Each individual can simply calculate their own based on their use.
 

SueDonJ

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How does one get a five night package certificate? I heard that it exists but only see 7 night packages advertised on marriott.com

You need to own a Marriott timeshare to be able to get a 5-night travel package. It is exclusive to Marriott timeshare owners only.

Right; I heard that too. Thanks.
Was anyone actually able to get a package?
Just trying to verify the validity of the info.


I know there's a long thread on PointsGuy where people question the validity of the 5-Night TP's for timeshare owners (and many PG members have done anything and everything to try to get them as non-owners,) but it's very odd to me that someone would question it here. This is an ownership benefit that's been around for ages with many TUGgers successfully ordering them.

In my experience the Owner Services reps are also able to process these, although it's been a few years so I don't know if it's now required to order them via a Marriott Rewards rep.
 

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Well, my wife just got the Marriott card and we have to spend $3,000 to get the 80K. So best value would be MF for sure at 5/$1

I was thinking to spend $5,000 for MF to get 112,000 MRP (80,000 + 25,000 + 7500 (adl. user bonus)) . Transfer these to United for 50,000 miles and get 30% more so total of 65,000 united miles.

Am I understanding this correctly.

Sam
If you have the ability to accumulate more MRPs or transfer from a card like Chase to MRPs, and I see that you own at Marriott, at 235K MRPs, it will net you 132K United Miles plus 5 nights stay at cat 1-5 hotel (we normally book Cat 9 at 345K or Cat 8 at 300K). With the current United promotion, you get 157K instead of 132K. If you are only using the Marriott card now and do not already have the MRPs, you may not be in time to make use of the United promotion of 30% bump up to a max of 25K United miles as the deadline is on Nov 30th 2017. The credit card monthly bill needs to close before you get those points in your MRP account, and even then it takes several days after the close.

I prepaid my Vistana and Marriott MF last month because of the United promotion so that when my SPG card closed (yesterday), those points were captured as I am needing as many MRPs as I can to make it for the United promotion. I try not to touch my Chase UR points for this as it is a good place to hold the points and move them to whichever point system as needed. Looking at it right now, I will be able to get 2 full Marriott 5-night packages within a week.
 
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VacationForever

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In my experience the Owner Services reps are also able to process these, although it's been a few years so I don't know if it's now required to order them via a Marriott Rewards rep.

I had called owner services for several of the packages, the reps did them without issue, and then the last time when I called, the Owner Services rep said she could not do it and transferred me to a Marriott Rewards rep and the MR rep did it. I do not know if Marriott streamlined their operations for travel packages.
 

Quilter

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Yes UR can give high value transfer to airlines like Singapore Airlines. But for an airline like United, you are better off getting Marriott's 5-night package as it is equivalent to about 1 point of United miles to 1 MRP. Unfortunately UR does not transfer to Delta as I find that Delta's mileage redemption is very reasonable unlike United's very inflated numbers.

Can you give details how the travel package gives you an equivalent of 1:1 for United miles?

I think my last travel package cost 235K MRP. If I subtract the miles (120K) it would seem I'm still paying 115K for 5 nights at the hotel. I agree that the miles portion is a good deal, but you're also committing a chunk of points for a hotel stay.

Do you have Marriott convert the hotel certificate back into points?
 

VacationForever

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Can you give details how the travel package gives you an equivalent of 1:1 for United miles?

I think my last travel package cost 235K MRP. If I subtract the miles (120K) it would seem I'm still paying 115K for 5 nights at the hotel. I agree that the miles portion is a good deal, but you're also committing a chunk of points for a hotel stay.

Do you have Marriott convert the hotel certificate back into points?

With United, the normal conversion on the 235K package is 132K, not 120K. When you subtract 132K United miles from 235K MRPs, you are getting a 5-night stay at a Marriott Cat 1-5 hotel for 103K MRPs, which brings to about 20K per night and roughly $200 per night including taxes. Right now the promotion gets better, for 235K MRPs, you get 157K United miles, which now brings you to 78K MRPs for 5 nights, which is 15.6K per night... roughly $156 per night including taxes. I would say it depends on the hotel, many are closer to the $156 than the $200 per night for Cat 1-5.

I personally prefer the conversion to Delta even though it only nets 120K but Delta also requires much fewer miles for their business class. However, United flights are more direct to/from Asia and our trip for the 2 of us in Dec 2018 will cost us 720K United miles round trip. I cringe whenever I think about it but that's what our conversion next week will help us towards that number. I already have 360K+ miles in my United account. We fly DeltaOne to/from Europe and United Polaris to/from Asia. With Delta, I can normally get 160-200K round trip per person, bringing to 320K to 400K for the 2 of us.

I do not convert the hotel portion of the points back to MRP. I just try to use them. For instance, in Dec 2018, we had initially planned to only use a 5-night stay in Singapore (Cat 8), and use points (UR points) in Hong Kong for 3 nights. But since we need the extra miles for our United account, we sucked it up and decided to convert a 2nd 5-night package for our stay in Hong Kong (Cat 9) and make that a 5-night stay. We will be on a cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong and plan to use the hotel nights to add on to our trip.
 
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AlmostRetired

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The Chase Sapphire Reserve will get you 3 percent back when used for MF's. My MF is 3800 so 3 percent back gets me $114. When used for travel this goes 1.5 more or becomes $171. I am not including the 300 credit that goes towards the card fee because I would earn that credit during the year anyway. My MR signature card gets 5X 3800 or 19,000 MRP. I will take the $171 used for travel.
 

Saintsfanfl

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The Chase Sapphire Reserve will get you 3 percent back when used for MF's. My MF is 3800 so 3 percent back gets me $114. When used for travel this goes 1.5 more or becomes $171. I am not including the 300 credit that goes towards the card fee because I would earn that credit during the year anyway. My MR signature card gets 5X 3800 or 19,000 MRP. I will take the $171 used for travel.

A $171 travel voucher or 19,000-25,000 airline miles. Again it all depends on how you plan to utilize. Some people fly first class to Asia and some never fly at all.
 

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If you have the ability to accumulate more MRPs or transfer from a card like Chase to MRPs, and I see that you own at Marriott, at 235K MRPs, it will net you 132K United Miles plus 5 nights stay at cat 1-5 hotel (we normally book Cat 9 at 345K or Cat 8 at 300K). With the current United promotion, you get 157K instead of 132K. If you are only using the Marriott card now and do not already have the MRPs, you may not be in time to make use of the United promotion of 30% bump up to a max of 25K United miles as the deadline is on Nov 30th 2017. The credit card monthly bill needs to close before you get those points in your MRP account, and even then it takes several days after the close.

I prepaid my Vistana and Marriott MF last month because of the United promotion so that when my SPG card closed (yesterday), those points were captured as I am needing as many MRPs as I can to make it for the United promotion. I try not to touch my Chase UR points for this as it is a good place to hold the points and move them to whichever point system as needed. Looking at it right now, I will be able to get 2 full Marriott 5-night packages within a week.

Actually we should have it before Nov 30 as card closes Nov 12 but we will wait. I just applied for SPG card and it should be here soon. We should have the 235,000 points in no time. We will use it in Europe in 2019.
We will wait until United has a promo like it and do the transfer. Have tons of miles (over 1 Mil in UR alone) so not in a hurry at all. Will transfer from UR if needed only as I do not think it is a good ratio.

Thanks all for the great advice and feedback.
 

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A $171 travel voucher or 19,000-25,000 airline miles. Again it all depends on how you plan to utilize. Some people fly first class to Asia and some never fly at all.

I missed something..... you get 1 for 1 MRP to airline reward points or better yet you are getting 1.3 airline miles for every 1 MRP. You take that 19000 (or 25000) points and fly first class to Asia with that. I will tell you what... I have 400K MRP ..you get me 20 to 16 first class tickets to Asia and I will not only give you 4, I will stop taking greyhound with my 171 when I travel and and maybe start flying. Who Knew.
 

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I missed something..... you get 1 for 1 MRP to airline reward points or better yet you are getting 1.3 airline miles for every 1 MRP. You take that 19000 (or 25000) points and fly first class to Asia with that. I will tell you what... I have 400K MRP ..you get me 20 to 16 first class tickets to Asia and I will not only give you 4, I will stop taking greyhound with my 171 when I travel and and maybe start flying. Who Knew.
Now you are just are being ridiculous. What Saintsfanfl was referring to is that for folks like me, every MRP counts towards helping me get the travel packages. I have 2 round trip DeltaOne tickets for my Europe trip in April 2018 and will have 2 round trip United Polaris tickets in Dec 2018 for my Asia trip. Small amount of cash does not get me those tickets. Accumulation of various credit card points, airline points and hotel points get me there. I am also putting in my plan to get us the DeltaOne tickets back from Europe in April 2019 - we are cruising to Europe from the US.
 

AlmostRetired

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Now you are just are being ridiculous. What Saintsfanfl was referring to is that for folks like me, every MRP counts towards helping me get the travel packages. I have 2 round trip DeltaOne tickets for my Europe trip in April 2018 and will have 2 round trip United Polaris tickets in Dec 2018 for my Asia trip. Small amount of cash does not get me those tickets. Accumulation of various credit card points, airline points and hotel points get me there. I am also putting in my plan to get us the DeltaOne tickets back from Europe in April 2019 - we are cruising to Europe from the US.

While I will agree with "it all depends on how you plan to utilize" after my quote, not sure I appreciated "Some people fly first class to Asia and some never fly at all". Today has been a tough day, so maybe it touched a nerve and yes I was purposely being ridiculous.

I had my reservation from Feb 19th the 24th cancelled at the Ritz Carlton in San Juan cancelled last month for obvious reasons. With my work discount the cost per night was coincidentally 170 per night, government tax 22.07 and resort fee of 30.60. The room rate would have been over 600 a night plus tax and fees. If you do the math each 3800 in MF got me a 600 room. I will gladly send anyone the confirmation email that validates the 170 per night if they private message me their email address. I was taking Southwest utilizing the companion pass. So with the 100,000 points for for getting the reserve card ($1000 or $1500 used for traveling) and the southwest points from the travel package, travel cash is king for me. In 2017, It funded 4 RT tickets to Aruba, 2 RT tickets to Punta Cana, 2 RT tickets to New Mexico, 2 RT to Florida for December Key West trip (cancelled) and until cancelled, San Juan. All documented in posts this year.

If you look I have posts discussing a 7 night travel package to Barcelona in 2016 when AA was offering a bonus and a 5 day travel package this year to get the Southwest companion pass. I even discussed what the $ value of the packages were worth. I referenced in a post a 2001 travel package Marriott had that included 4 round trip tickets anywhere in the world AA flew. So there are many tools we all have to try and accomplish what we are looking to accomplish at any given point in time and often it changes. It all depends on how you plan to utilize it.
 

Quilter

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With United, the normal conversion on the 235K package is 132K, not 120K. When you subtract 132K United miles from 235K MRPs, you are getting a 5-night stay at a Marriott Cat 1-5 hotel for 103K MRPs, which brings to about 20K per night and roughly $200 per night including taxes. Right now the promotion gets better, for 235K MRPs, you get 157K United miles, which now brings you to 78K MRPs for 5 nights, which is 15.6K per night... roughly $156 per night including taxes. I would say it depends on the hotel, many are closer to the $156 than the $200 per night for Cat 1-5.

I personally prefer the conversion to Delta even though it only nets 120K but Delta also requires much fewer miles for their business class. However, United flights are more direct to/from Asia and our trip for the 2 of us in Dec 2018 will cost us 720K United miles round trip. I cringe whenever I think about it but that's what our conversion next week will help us towards that number. I already have 360K+ miles in my United account. We fly DeltaOne to/from Europe and United Polaris to/from Asia. With Delta, I can normally get 160-200K round trip per person, bringing to 320K to 400K for the 2 of us.

I do not convert the hotel portion of the points back to MRP. I just try to use them. For instance, in Dec 2018, we had initially planned to only use a 5-night stay in Singapore (Cat 8), and use points (UR points) in Hong Kong for 3 nights. But since we need the extra miles for our United account, we sucked it up and decided to convert a 2nd 5-night package for our stay in Hong Kong (Cat 9) and make that a 5-night stay. We will be on a cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong and plan to use the hotel nights to add on to our trip.

We live close to DTW so it would seem Delta would be my first choice in airlines. However, I've had the opposite experience as you and most of the time the Delta flights I've looked for have the highest requirement for miles. Your post peaked my interest.

Asia isn't one of our destinations. Business class to Europe is our primary use of miles. I have found that using UA miles for Lufthansa flights to be a decent option (when there are no strikes). 70K for Business class one way.

I tried doing a trial purchase to compare Delta to United. DTW-VCE. I couldn't find business class on Delta. Does Delta call their Business Class by another name?

While I generally dump my travel package miles in either United or AA, this past March I got the Southwest package to get the Companion Pass.

Travel packages have worked well for us. However, in order to get the airline miles bargain, you do need to commit a chunk of MRP to a hotel stay. in 2000 we began with the higher end hotels. The Champs Elysee was a Cat. 6 at that time. As hotel points inflated we changed our search to properties in lower categories. In the most recent years we have favorite Cat. 6 properties.
 

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We live close to DTW so it would seem Delta would be my first choice in airlines. However, I've had the opposite experience as you and most of the time the Delta flights I've looked for have the highest requirement for miles. Your post peaked my interest.

Asia isn't one of our destinations. Business class to Europe is our primary use of miles. I have found that using UA miles for Lufthansa flights to be a decent option (when there are no strikes). 70K for Business class one way.

I tried doing a trial purchase to compare Delta to United. DTW-VCE. I couldn't find business class on Delta. Does Delta call their Business Class by another name?

While I generally dump my travel package miles in either United or AA, this past March I got the Southwest package to get the Companion Pass.

Travel packages have worked well for us. However, in order to get the airline miles bargain, you do need to commit a chunk of MRP to a hotel stay. in 2000 we began with the higher end hotels. The Champs Elysee was a Cat. 6 at that time. As hotel points inflated we changed our search to properties in lower categories. In the most recent years we have favorite Cat. 6 properties.
If you go to Delta website directly, you can check off award flights and business class it should return the results to you. Business class is called DeltaOne.
 

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If you have the ability to accumulate more MRPs or transfer from a card like Chase to MRPs, and I see that you own at Marriott, at 235K MRPs, it will net you 132K United Miles plus 5 nights stay at cat 1-5 hotel (we normally book Cat 9 at 345K or Cat 8 at 300K). With the current United promotion, you get 157K instead of 132K. If you are only using the Marriott card now and do not already have the MRPs, you may not be in time to make use of the United promotion of 30% bump up to a max of 25K United miles as the deadline is on Nov 30th 2017. The credit card monthly bill needs to close before you get those points in your MRP account, and even then it takes several days after the close.

I prepaid my Vistana and Marriott MF last month because of the United promotion so that when my SPG card closed (yesterday), those points were captured as I am needing as many MRPs as I can to make it for the United promotion. I try not to touch my Chase UR points for this as it is a good place to hold the points and move them to whichever point system as needed. Looking at it right now, I will be able to get 2 full Marriott 5-night packages within a week.
Where can I find the details of the current United promotion you refer to above (that is ending on 11/30/17)?
 

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Thanks. Can you get this bonus with redeeming a travel package or is it restricted to direct points to miles redemptions at this website only? If you can get this bonus with a travel package, that would be pretty appealing.
I'm hoping so. Usually they do but sometimes they don't. I'll let you know when they hit my account. It's been a week since I did 3 travel packages for 396k United miles and haven't seen the extra 25k miles yet. I think it does say miles will post by January.
 

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I'm hoping so. Usually they do but sometimes they don't. I'll let you know when they hit my account. It's been a week since I did 3 travel packages for 396k United miles and haven't seen the extra 25k miles yet. I think it does say miles will post by January.
Please do report back. I am travelling this week and somewhat busy and I intend to call in to convert 2 packages next week when I am back.
 

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Please do report back. I am travelling this week and somewhat busy and I intend to call in to convert 2 packages next week when I am back.
From the Terms and Conditions:
(d) Bonus Miles will be credited into the member's account on or before January 30, 2018.
 

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From the Terms and Conditions:
(d) Bonus Miles will be credited into the member's account on or before January 30, 2018.

I seem to recall some people having posted that miles were showing up in their accounts very quickly. However, I cannot recall if that was just the base miles for the travel package or bonus miles as well.
 

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I seem to recall some people having posted that miles were showing up in their accounts very quickly. However, I cannot recall if that was just the base miles for the travel package or bonus miles as well.
I was whoring (LOL!!!) for more United miles recently and got an United Chase card (again) and spent 3K on it the first month and the bonus showed up immediately. We will see about this one.
 
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