22,500 MRP or $175 Amex for preview

[thinze3]

Marriott called me today and offered 22,500 MRP or an Amex gift card worth $175 if we sat through a 90 preview Tuesday at Oceana Palms. I think this is the most I've ever been offered.

Funny thing is that we are not going to be there. This is a room I booked for another Tugger because I had expiring DC points.

 

[Quilter]

Just checked into Grande Ocean. They are offering $175 (+$25), 20K MR (+ $25) or 250 DP (+$25)

 

[NYFLTRAVELER]

What do you mean by +25?

 

[BocaBoy]

What do you mean by +25?

The extra $25 is for picking up your gift from the lobby concierge a day or more ahead of the presentation. First time I have ever encountered that. We got the same offer for our upcoming check-in at Harbour Club. They claimed this offer is good only until the end of 2015 because they want to fill the holiday slots at SurfWatch and they are opening a new sales center across the street from Grande Ocean as of January 1.

My question is whether this is really an enhanced short-term offer or whether it is the standard choice of gifts at Hilton Head?

 

[NYFLTRAVELER]

I remember last December at Surf Watch I received $100 gift card and 250 DC Points for attending the presentation.

 

[thinze3]

Marriott called me today and offered 22,500 MRP or an Amex gift card worth $175 if we sat through a 90 preview Tuesday at Oceana Palms. I think this is the most I've ever been offered.

Funny thing is that we are not going to be there. This is a room I booked for another Tugger because I had expiring DC points.

22,500 MR points is worth a minimum of $338 to me (1.5 cents per point), but I usually use 1.7 cents as my trigger to use MR points instead of cash.

 

[ScubaKat]

22,500 MR points is worth a minimum of $338 to me (1.5 cents per point), but I usually use 1.7 cents as my trigger to use MR points instead of cash.

We are currently sitting in Oceana Palms for this presentation. I opted for the $175.. I really need to learn how to use our MR points more efficiently. Low pressure.. More like they didn't even try to sell us anything since our weeks are resale and are not eligible to convert anyway. He did mention that there was a promo back in October that would have allowed us to enroll our post 2010 week for just the enrollment fee. Yea... Don't think so.

 

[Quilter]

You were actually typing the post during the presentation?

 

[pchung6]

22,500 MR points is worth a minimum of $338 to me (1.5 cents per point), but I usually use 1.7 cents as my trigger to use MR points instead of cash.

How do you calculate the 1.5 cents per MR point? I really like to know what is the best way to convert my 250k MR points I've accumulated over years.

 

[dioxide45]

How do you calculate the 1.5 cents per MR point? I really like to know what is the best way to convert my 250k MR points I've accumulated over years.

We recently got close to 1.5 cents per MR point. They key is to getting this high of a value is using them to convert to Travel Packages where you get 7 nights in a hotel and then the maximum permitted air miles.

We converted to a united package, though we only took a five day package. We are using the hotel stay in Paris in a hotel that would cost over $3000. We then used 120,000 of the 132,000 United MileagePlus miles for round trip tickets to Europe.

Still, you can do much better than we did. Book the 7 night packages. They are a better redemption. A lot of people will convert two packages, get 240,000 air miles and then use them for two business class round trip tickets to Europe. So two weeks in Europe with round trip airfare. You can usually get very close to if not more than 2 cents per MR points with this route.

 

[ScubaKat]

You were actually typing the post during the presentation?

Yes, was waiting for the survey guy to come sign us out.. :rofl: Came on to check if Marriott by some miracle opened enrollment for post 2010 as stated by the sales guy. Didn't think it would have been a post I would miss on TUG. The sales guy did say to make us feel good.. Our two current weeks are worth approximately 5600 points which would have cost us 67k to purchase direct. His dimished II availability didn't really stand up since we are here in a 2BR oceanfront at Ocean Pointe thanks to II with our 1BR trade.

Love our view from Pomleto!

 

[Fasttr]

Came on to check if Marriott by some miracle opened enrollment for post 2010 as stated by the sales guy. Didn't think it would have been a post I would miss on TUG.

See THIS thread on the topic. It was possible, but you had to buy points to do it. I believe they re-upped the offer through Dec 30th, but they also upped the point requirement to do so.

 

[ScubaKat]

Thank you! That thread was very informative! He did mention there is availability to purchase additional points to enroll which we were not interested in since we are now tied to a school schedule and have a touch enough time getting away 4 weeks a year. He said the offer in October was to enroll just for the $2395 enrollment fee and no point purchase requirements. That would have been tempting since it would save on our II fees with all our stays from trades.

See THIS thread on the topic. It was possible, but you had to buy points to do it. I believe they re-upped the offer through Dec 30th, but they also upped the point requirement to do so.

 

[Quilter]

Beautiful view. Looks like you're in the 2 bedroom side of a 3 bedroom? Enjoy your weather. We went to OP several times between Christmas and New Year. It was always blustery. The last time it rained all but one day.

Thinking out loud (that can be a mistake ). . . if you combined the cost of the points and the enrollment fee and then divided it between your 2 resale weeks what would then have paid for resale? Don't take m/f's into consideration because my next thought is reselling the points to recover some of the costs.

Discussion?

 

[Quilter]

We recently got close to 1.5 cents per MR point. They key is to getting this high of a value is using them to convert to Travel Packages where you get 7 nights in a hotel and then the maximum permitted air miles.

Yes this is the best way to use the points. This thread sent me to compare points value for our overnight stays on the way home from GO. It's just too easy to find $79-$99 for the night at FI or RI. Since we'd only be there from late night to breakfast it doesn't make sense to find a more expensive hotel just to get high value out of the points.