Value of Marriott Reward Points

[MALC9990]

It does take time to prepare, but the rewards can be incredible. Any idea what that trip would have cost on a cash basis?

Brian

Booking today for fully Flexible First Return London to Sydney with BA via Singapore for departure in Jan and return in Feb would cost just shy of $29,000 for 2 Pax.

BA reward tickets are fully flexible so a fair comparison would be with a Fully Fexible paid ticket.

I always try to leverage my II exchanges to use when we do one of these trips with MR travel package hotels to fit around the TS weeks.

 

[winger]

....

I always try to leverage my II exchanges to use when we do one of these trips with MR travel package hotels to fit around the TS weeks.

We do what it takes to make a vacation work- including using MRP's, if it makes sense. To us, this is where the combined value of the MRP's and our TS "portfolio" really shines.

As a good example, two summers ago, the family used secured two very nice TS units (one Marriott, one Diamond) weeks in Williamsburg, 5 nights at a very nicely located Residence Inn in Washington DC, and r/t air for four of us (the last two items courtesy of MRP's). Although the flights were coach, the voyage was priceless for us.

 

[JoeMO]

Penny Per Point

I have always come back to an general value of one penny per point. I have used points to get a free night and if the room would have cost me around $100, it cost me 10,000 point. I have always used the rule of thumb of just moving the decimal place two spaces to the right and you convert the points to dollars. When I check in to a Marriott and they give me 500 points, I look at it as $5. I f I accept the gift instead, it is something that would cost around $5. If you check into a Residence Inn, they give you 200 points or something from the market that is around $2.

Granted, you can use your points wisely and get more for you money, like staying four nights and getting the 5th night free. Then you are getting more than a penny per point. I have got 5 nights at the Wentworth Inn at about 150,000 points. The starting rental price is $300 a night, for a total of $1,500. I usually got upgraded and access to the lounge, so it may have been worth twice that.

But it seems when you average it all out it reverts back to the mean of about a penny a point. I use this as the standard I evaluate offers. If they are offering me 10,000 points to take a tour I look at it as them offering me $100. I looked into using my points for a cruise that would have cost me about $2,000. It would have cost me 180,000 points

Well that is my two cents on my one cent per point rule.
Joe

 

[pwrshift]

Joe ... I understand your reasoning for rounding off to make calculations easier, but at 1 cent a point you're shorting yourself IMO. Using your $300 per night example for a 5 night stay for 150,000 points, my value calculation at the price Marriott evaluates them when buying points at $0.0125 cents per pt, your $300 actually works out to a $375 value...$75 more than your estimate. So if the hotel would cost $375 a night too you'd be better to pay cash and get credit for 5 stays and earn points. You might be better to calculate with 2 cents a point.

 

[MALC9990]

Here's another example of getting great value for MR points. I recently used a 5 day travel package to get 120,000 BA FF miles into my BAEC account this cost me 250,000 MR points. I used the 5 nights at a cat 6 Marriott in Mallorca already. With those FF miles and an addition 30,000 FF miles already in my account and this years BA AMEX 2-4-1 voucher I was able to book 2 first class returns to Miami from London for Oct 2012 costing me 150,000 BA FF miles. When I priced up these two fully flexible first class returns to Miami they came in at £20,220.32.

At today's exchange rate from £ to $ that's about $32,350. Since the exchange rate of MR points to BA FF miles on the package was 2.08 MR points per BA FF mile - I calculate that 150,000 BA FF miles requires 312,500 MR points.

So I assessed my value per MR point for this trip as 10.35 cents per MR point. Since Marriott will sell me MR points at 1.25 cents per point - I continue to see using Travel Packages to convert my MR points to BA FF miles and use together with my annual BA AMEX 2-4-1 voucher to get the maximum value for my MR points.

The 5 night stay at the Marriott in Mallorca would have cost me 120,000 MR points and so I could say that the 5 nights were free or that the points required to get the two First returns was even less - either way this was a fantastic deal and I hope to continue this for 2013 with next year's 2-4-1 voucher.