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Marriott to United Promotion - 30% Bonus

StevenTing

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Luanne

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This works for any hotel you have points with. I just transferred some from Hilton. I just got the email from United today.
 

Bob B

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Hey, good luck if you can ever find flights on United to use your mileage points. Someday I'll find a saver award in first class on a trip I'm taking. IMO, they are the worst.
 

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Hey, good luck if you can ever find flights on United to use your mileage points. Someday I'll find a saver award in first class on a trip I'm taking. IMO, they are the worst.
Hmm, we've gotten Saver awards for our entire family of four to Maui for this year, and for dh and I for 2020.
 

Seaport104

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Hey, good luck if you can ever find flights on United to use your mileage points. Someday I'll find a saver award in first class on a trip I'm taking. IMO, they are the worst.

Get the united credit card, availability is much better. Having their credit card gives you mch better availability and super saver fares. Although the super saver fares might be a thing of the past now that they have gone to dynamic pricing with their award charts.

The past 2 years, I have been able to book super saver 45,000 miles roundtrip from Newark to Oahu nonstop and Mexico for 35,000 miles RT nonstop
 

Luanne

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Get the united credit card, availability is much better. Having their credit card gives you mch better availability and super saver fares. Although the super saver fares might be a thing of the past now that they have gone to dynamic pricing with their award charts.

The past 2 years, I have been able to book super saver 45,000 miles roundtrip from Newark to Oahu nonstop and Mexico for 35,000 miles RT nonstop
I didn't think of the credit card thing. Dh does have a United card and when we book using his account there are often flights marked that he sees them because of his status.
 

normab

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My experience with United:

I have found decent availability for economy class on United. However, unless you are platinum, or maybe even gold, there are few business class tix or upgrades listed for United flights.

While working, we both had good United status (platinum or gold) and could find those business seats with points, and the upgrades were there too. Once we retired and our status dropped to silver, we rarely have seen availability of the business class seats, and we have waitlisted upgrades numerous times and they never come through. We believe they are held for the platinum elites.

The exception re business class has been partner flights, although not so many “saver” rewards. We were able to fly Air Canada business class using United points and it was wonderful. We have also seen availability for European destinations, but they are not always the best connections, I.e you may have a 12 hour wait for the second leg... I have never seen anything but economy class on actual United flights using United miles.

YMMV, this is just our experience.

Norma
 

NboroGirl

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My experience with United:

I have found decent availability for economy class on United. However, unless you are platinum, or maybe even gold, there are few business class tix or upgrades listed for United flights.

While working, we both had good United status (platinum or gold) and could find those business seats with points, and the upgrades were there too. Once we retired and our status dropped to silver, we rarely have seen availability of the business class seats, and we have waitlisted upgrades numerous times and they never come through. We believe they are held for the platinum elites.

The exception re business class has been partner flights, although not so many “saver” rewards. We were able to fly Air Canada business class using United points and it was wonderful. We have also seen availability for European destinations, but they are not always the best connections, I.e you may have a 12 hour wait for the second leg... I have never seen anything but economy class on actual United flights using United miles.

YMMV, this is just our experience.

Norma

My DH (and therefore me, by association) is permanent platinum on United because he's flown 2 million miles with them. We rarely see upgrades anymore, either. Even when we use miles or dollars to upgrade, we are usually placed on a waiting list, even when I can see several seats available in 1st class. And if the flight involves a layover, then we sometimes get upgraded on just one of the two legs of the flight, but not both. That is really frustrating because it costs the same whether or not you get the upgrade for the entire way or just half way. I think you need to be 1k or Global Services now to reap any real benefits.

He rarely flies for business anymore so there's little chance he'll make 3 million (permanent 1K), and with United changing the criteria for obtaining status, even if he did reach that level I'm not sure that would even apply anymore.
Boy, I sure do miss being Global Services back in the day. We were treated like royalty and ALWAYS got upgrades. :banana:
 

VacationForever

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My DH (and therefore me, by association) is permanent platinum on United because he's flown 2 million miles with them. We rarely see upgrades anymore, either. Even when we use miles or dollars to upgrade, we are usually placed on a waiting list, even when I can see several seats available in 1st class. And if the flight involves a layover, then we sometimes get upgraded on just one of the two legs of the flight, but not both. That is really frustrating because it costs the same whether or not you get the upgrade for the entire way or just half way. I think you need to be 1k or Global Services now to reap any real benefits.

He rarely flies for business anymore so there's little chance he'll make 3 million (permanent 1K), and with United changing the criteria for obtaining status, even if he did reach that level I'm not sure that would even apply anymore.
Boy, I sure do miss being Global Services back in the day. We were treated like royalty and ALWAYS got upgrades. :banana:
Actually if you get a successful paid upgrade, i.e money plus miles, on only one leg of 2 legs, United gives you a full refund for the upgrade. It is spelt out on their website and they did that for me as well.
 

NboroGirl

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Actually if you get a successful paid upgrade, i.e money plus miles, on only one leg of 2 legs, United gives you a full refund for the upgrade. It is spelt out on their website and they did that for me as well.

This happened to me twice a few years ago for 2 different trips. I don't remember if I used money/miles to upgrade, or if I just used miles to purchase 1st class tickets but could only get one leg in first class and was wait-listed for the other segment. One time was coming back from Alaska where I got first class from Anchorage to Denver, but coach from Denver to Boston, and the other time was coming back from Maui. Yet I had to pay the full amount in miles even though I didn't get 1st class for both segments. The first time it happened I wrote to United to complain and was told that's just their policy.
 

VacationForever

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This happened to me twice a few years ago for 2 different trips. I don't remember if I used money/miles to upgrade, or if I just used miles to purchase 1st class tickets but could only get one leg in first class and was wait-listed for the other segment. One time was coming back from Alaska where I got first class from Anchorage to Denver, but coach from Denver to Boston, and the other time was coming back from Maui. Yet I had to pay the full amount in miles even though I didn't get 1st class for both segments. The first time it happened I wrote to United to complain and was told that's just their policy.

I am not sure if it is the same thing. I always book First Class/Business Class using points or cash when travelling with my husband. When I travel alone internationally, I book Economy Premium/Plus for myself and then I add an upgrade, which is usually on waitlist. When I add the business class upgrade, United refunds me the Economy Premium/Plus fees that I had previously paid and takes points + cash for my upgrade request immediately. If they only upgrade me for one leg of the 2 legs, I get full refund of cash and points. The leg that is not upgraded I remain on Economy Premium/Plus, essentially for free as well. You need to look at their policy, it spells out clearly that if you don't get the upgraded class, they issue a refund.

I notice that if you book First or Business class, instead of an upgrade request, and only one leg is First/Business class, the miles that are charged is adjusted down accordingly at time of booking.
 

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Hey, good luck if you can ever find flights on United to use your mileage points. Someday I'll find a saver award in first class on a trip I'm taking. IMO, they are the worst.

I have a nice saver award to Newark in December.

My favorite way to use United miles is finding international flights on Lufthansa. Love Lufthansa when they're not striking.
 

frank808

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I have been lucky to get saver fare Economy awards (45k miles roundtrip)for our next 5 trips. This is from HNL to MIA, FLL, IAH, SEA and FAR. Couple of flight are during the summer months of June and July 2020. First class saver awards I have not seen in a very long time.

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Bob B

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I have a nice saver award to Newark in December.

My favorite way to use United miles is finding international flights on Lufthansa. Love Lufthansa when they're not striking.

Somehow Newark in December has not been on my travel list. Vegas in October, Palm Springs or Orange County in the fall, FL in the high months. Now those I would like to see.
 

Luanne

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Somehow Newark in December has not been on my travel list. Vegas in October, Palm Springs or Orange County in the fall, FL in the high months. Now those I would like to see.
Well if you wanted to be in NYC over the holidays it might be. :D
 

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We transferred Marriott points and used this promotion to get enough United Miles for a fight from EWR to LHR and DUB to JFK. Our flight from EWR to LHR is a saver flight in which we are flying plus.
 

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We transferred Marriott points and used this promotion to get enough United Miles for a fight from EWR to LHR and DUB to JFK. Our flight from EWR to LHR is a saver flight in which we are flying plus.

What time of year are you going?
 

NboroGirl

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After registering for it using the link in the OP, I just logged into my account on Marriott.com and selected "convert points to miles", and entered my United Mileage Plus account number, and the 30% bonus miles get added automatically. You can get UP TO 25,000 miles with this deal.

So I just kept playing with points numbers until I found the right amount that will give me the maximum 25,000 miles, which seems to be 68182. Even with the bonus this doesn't seem like a good use of Marriott points. Given that I round their value up to a penny a point, I can get maybe a one way ticket somewhere on United which would cost approx. $680 in points. Is this currently the best use of our MRPs???
 
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So, it appears you get ~.6 United miles per Bonvoy point using this method. So, 1 Bonvoy point = 1.3 (valuation of United miles) * .6 = ~.8, which means you are not really gaining or losing any value based on the current valuation of Bonvoy points. This is better at least that losing money on the transfers.

Thanks Steven! I transferred 60k bonvoy points from attending presentations this year to United so now I have enough for 2 tickets to Kenya.
 

Quilter

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After registering for it using the link in the OP, I just logged into my account on Marriott.com and selected "convert points to miles", and entered my United Mileage Plus account number, and the 30% bonus miles get added automatically. You can get UP TO 25,000 miles with this deal.

So I just kept playing with points numbers until I found the right amount that will give me the maximum 25,000 miles, which seems to be 68182. Even with the bonus this doesn't seem like a good use of Marriott points. Given that I round their value up to a penny a point, I can get maybe a one way ticket somewhere on United which would cost approx. $680 in points. Is this currently the best use of our MRPs???

According To TPG you’re capped at 25k “bonus” miles so you can transfer 180k Bonvoy points...

“When transferring 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points (the preferred transfer ratio to earn the standard Marriott transfer bonus), you should end up with 27,500 United miles from the initial transfer and Marriott bonus and an additional 8,250 miles from the promotion United is running — making a grand total of 35,750 miles. You’re essentially transforming each Marriott point into 0.6 United miles.

Since you’re capped at receiving 25,000 bonus miles, you shouldn’t transfer more than 180,000 Marriott points if you’re trying to maximize the promotion. United would dole out 24,750 bonus miles on top of the 82,500 from the regular transfer for a total of 107,250 miles.”
 

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we transferred 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy Points. Marriott added another 15K points. United gave me 27,500 miles.
United said we were eligible for a bonus of 30% additional miles from a United promotion which will be given in January 2020. We used 83K United Miles for flights at the times we wanted.
 

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So if I need approximately 50,000 united mileageplus points, what is the amount of bonvoy membership points should I transfer? Sorry I am a little confused. Please advise.
 

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So if I need approximately 50,000 united mileageplus points, what is the amount of bonvoy membership points should I transfer? Sorry I am a little confused. Please advise.
To get the most out of it I would transfer 120,000 mrp for 55,000 united miles.

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