United is offering a 30% transfer bonus on hotel points. While most hotel points transfer to airlines at pretty bad rates, there is one path that is a really great one if you want to accumulate United miles.
New 30% United Transfer Bonus a Great Choice for SPG & Marriott Transfers
Let me be clear on something first since the title could not make this clear by itself – do not transfer SPG points directly to United! While most airlines accept transfers at a 1:1 ratio from SPG, it is actually 2:1 with United. But, you can still transfer your SPG points to Marriott to take advantage of this in a real way.
Link: 30% United Transfer Bonus
- To qualify for this offer, members must register for the promotion between October 9, 2016 and 11:59pm EST November 30, 2017 (“Promotional Period”).
- A member must earn award miles as a result of one or more points to miles conversion transactions from any combination of MileagePlus hotel partner programs that offer a points to miles transfer program that are conducted during the Promotional Period (‘Qualifying Activity’) in order to qualify for MileagePlus Hotel Points-to-Miles bonus miles (‘Bonus Miles’). Qualifying Activity must be completed by 11:59pm EST November 30, 2017.
- Limit of bonus is 25,000 miles
The Sweet Spot for this United Transfer Bonus
The real sweet spot for this transfer bonus is with Marriott’s Flight and Hotel packages. For 270,000 Marriott points (or a transfer of 90,000 Starpoints to Marriott), you can get a 7 night certificate for a Category 1 – 5 plus 132,000 United miles – normally.
With this transfer bonus, you would actually get an additional 25,000 miles for a total of 157,000 United miles and 7 free nights for what may have started out as 90,000 Starpoints. That is a really good deal!
United does not give the same kind of premium awards at the price that Aeroplan does (and they ran a similar transfer bonus 2 months ago) but there is still a lot of value within their program. Even with the premium on partner awards, that many miles would give you a roundtrip between the US and Europe – without surcharges (which Aeroplan does have) – and an extra 17,000 miles for another award.
Featured image courtesy of Markus Mainka / Shutterstock.com
Followed your link, registered, switched my Marriott earning preference to miles, but found they’re offering only a 20% discount to switch. Sure wish they would’ve mentioned beforehand that a minimum transfer of 8,000 miles is necessary.