Shorter Wait Time for Transferring SPG Starpoints to US Airways?

SPG Starpoints are among the most valuable of travel currency for many reasons. One of the top reasons is the ability to transfer Starpoints to many airlines at a rate of 1:1 – plus, a 5,000 mile bonus for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred. This makes each dollar spent on a American Express SPG card worth 1.25 miles when transferred to an airline. Given that there are no category bonuses for SPG cards (outside of use at a SPG hotel), this is the go-to card for many in non-category spend.

SPG Starpoint Transfer Partners

US Airway Promos

There have been some notable promos from US Airways lately – 100% Share Promo when transferring US Airway miles between accounts and the current Buy Promo where you can receive up to 100% bonus on purchased miles. Personally, I do not find the Buy Promo all that attractive at all. To maximize it, you need to purchase 50,000 miles (to receive 50,000 bonus miles) for a total of 100,000. To do so costs over $1,800! Yes, you can get a business class ticket to Europe (or even a Europe-North Asia business class ticket like I am doing in May) with that many miles, but I do not think there are many readers that would want to spend over $2,000 (when including taxes and fees on the ticket) for a business class ticket when you do not even earn miles (award tickets do not earn miles). However, if someone were going to pay close to that for an economy ticket anyway, it may be beneficial (such as using the 110,000 miles for business class to Australia – tickets routinely cost at least $1,600 to Australia in coach). So, to each his own! If you are interested in taking part in this promo, here is a link to the deal (I do not receive a commission for this).

Anyway, all of that brings me to the point of transferring SPG Starpoints to US Airways. With the future of spending US Airway miles still not entirely clear (apparently, you can still earn and redeem US Airway miles on certain carriers after the merger – see Ben’s post here), many would feel hesitant to transfer Starpoints to US Airways since it has always taken about 1 week (for me, it was exactly a week) to accomplish the transfer. But, if you are trying to use the US Airway miles you have left for upcoming travel, you may be trying to get extra miles to accomplish that!  You can hold a US Airways award for 72 hours, but that was typically not long enough to allow for Starpoint transfers.

Wait time may have shortened!

Transfer time for SPG to US Airways

However, I just made a transfer on Monday and had them post to my US Airways account less than 36 hours later! I do not know why that has changed from the previous week but that can be huge for people that need to transfer some Starpoints to book flights on US Airways. If you are in that boat and have held off transferring Starpoints because of the wait period, your wait may not be that long! This could be different for each user, but it is definitely something I am happy about!