Through November 30 United is offering up to 15,000 bonus miles for transfers of hotel points into miles. The amount of the bonus varies by the number of miles transferred it, at exactly 50,000 miles the bonus is at its biggest — 30%.
- Transfers of hotel points into 5000 – 9999 miles will earn 1,000 bonus miles
- Transfers of 10,000 – 19,999 miles will earn 2500 bonus miles
- Transfers of 20,000 – 49,999 miles will earn 5000 bonus miles
- Transfers of 50,000 miles or more will earn 15,000 bonus miles
Eligible hotel transfer partners are Starwood, Wyndham, Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, Hilton, and Club Carlson.
They’ll total all of the hotel points transferred by November 30 to determine the number of bonus miles you’ll receive, the total doesn’t all need to come in one transfer or from one program.
The bonus isn’t big enough to get me to transfer hotel points to United miles without a specific purpose in mind — such as topping off an account towards a particular award level (e.g. to get to 100,000 miles for a business class award to Europe, 120,000 for business to Asia, etc).
With most airline programs, when there’s a transfer bonus from hotel points, the biggest bang comes from transfers in from Starwood. That’s because with most airline programs 20,000 Starpoints transfer to 25,000 airline miles. We’ve seen 100% bonuses with US Airways, where 20,000 Starpoints become 50,000 US Airways miles. There I’m pretty tempted to go big.
Starwood is not a great transfer partner with United, points transfer at a ratio of 2:1 instead of 1:1. The conventional wisdom is that it’s ultimately a function of the strong sway that Chase holds with United (since the issuer of the co-branded United Visa was such a huge part of the airline’s bankruptcy and also provider of hundreds of millions of dollars of liquidity through pre-purchase of mmiles), that Chase moved against the Starwood American Express being a more lucrative way to earn United miles than Chase’s own offerings. I’d stay away from moving Starpoints into United miles unless really necessary and the only strategy to get enough United miles for a specific award.
Register by November 30. Bonus miles will be credited by January 31.
This sounds like a great deal if you have a bunch of ultimate rewards points that you want to convert to United miles.
You could start by transferring those UR points to Hyatt points 1:1. Then transfer the Hyatt points to United miles and reap a 20%, 25%, or 30% bonus.
What a great way to get 1.3 United miles for every 1 Ultimate Rewards point.
@Peter Amling – unfortunately Hyatt points do not transfer to United 1:1.
100,000 Hyatt -> 50,000 United + 15,000 Bonus United = 65,000 United.
So going Chase -> Hyatt even with this bonus leads to a loss of 35% of your points compared to transferring directly to United.
Isn’t Wyndham good value here – especially for those who took advantage of open sky promotion recently?
This isnt a very good deal as the conversion rates are poor. For Hyatt it is 2.5-1 so converting to Hyatt then back to United would leave considerably less.
That would be great, but hyatt transfers to united at 2.5 pts/mile.
Thanks for the clarification. What a terrible deal.
@MileageUpdate @pointsdude you aren’t factoring in the conversion bonus, still not a good deal of course
Wyndham is pretty good (the Discover America promo gave me in effect miles at under 1 cpm), and Marriott travel packages where you get 50K miles and 7 days in cat 1-5 Marriott properties would also be good (you now get 65K UA miles). Also, if you have a zillion Club Carlson points thanks to their promos this year, this is a way to cash those in.
I’m not getting this. Would you show me what 50,000 Club Carlson points would yield?
@Jim Well, 300,000 Club Carlson points would be 54,000 United miles normally + 15,000 bonus = 69,000.
The link to the Registration Site doesnt work.
It’s working for me, what error are you getting?
Safari and Firefox can’t find the server.
@Jim – specifically, 50K Club Carlson transferred by itself usually yields 8,000 UA miles; so, 9,000 total with this bonus.
Thank Ryan, got it.
I never knew there was a huge bonus from US Airways ever on a point transfer like Gary mentioned. That is why I monitor his blog several times per day. Who knows when he will mention 99 cent fares to some crazy place.
Registration Site is working fine for me … thanks for posting! But I don’t think it is such a good deal for my situation.
This is a decent value from Marriott if redeeming a travel package…
I,d rather redeem Club Carlson points at Rad. Blu hotels in Europe than transfer to any airline, I currently have 600k points between me and my wife, 12-15 days at Rad Blu Oslo, Bergen, Copenhagen etc
I’m still not convinced that there is no Grand Slam this year. I’m making no moves at this time.
@Red let’s keep our fingers crossed! maybe no harm to register just in case?!
@gba, it’s best to accumulate more Marriott points to reach the 270K points threshold for the Hotel + Air Package whereby you get 7 nights at a Cat 5 hotel PLUS 120K airline miles on many airlines including United. See more here: http://milepoint.com/forums/threads/the-best-use-for-marriott-points.31282/
how many points would i get from 50,000 Marriott Points?
Agree with others that Wyndham is actually a pretty good deal for this promotion, especially since their transfer options work out quite nicely for hitting the sweet spots in the various transfer thresholds: http://www.foodwineandmiles.com/2012/10/the-key-to-getting-good-bang-for-your.html
FWIW, Mileage converter at http://webflyer.com/programs/mileage_converter/ will show what your base transfer would be.
Here’s the link to find what hotel transfers would get into UA.
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/transfer/hotel.aspx
The UA site has the following fixed ratios:
HHonors – 10:1
SPG – 2:1
IHG – 5:1
Carlson – 8:1
Hyatt – 2.5:1
Choice – 5:1
Wyndham – 2.5:1
Marriott is variable based on pts redeemed b/w 2.5-5:1
Even if you value a United Mile at .02, I still cant see a hotel that if is good for. maybe if you have Carlson Wyndam or Choice pts and arent ever going to stay it might be worth it. But horrendous conversion rates on the rest.
I agree with the last post. This really seems like a bad deal. Your headline makes it sound like something amazing… and now i cant get these 5 minutes back. what a waste
In the post itself I wrote, “The bonus isn’t big enough to get me to transfer hotel points to United miles without a specific purpose in mind”
Did it actually take you 5 minutes to read?
I figure it’s strategically useful to some, since transfers from hotel programs to United take place every day, folks doing it should certainly register for the offer and collect the bonus (as opposed to transferring without the bonus!)
@27: Well, yes. Though I would add Marriott travel packages to that. But given that Club Carlson has been handing out points like Halloween candy, I would imagine there are lots of people with more points than they can really use (especially since some of CC’s best deals aren’t just staying at the Radisson Blu somewhere when room night are $400 a night; cash and points only requires 5/10K and can really knock a lot off a bill). And I got Wyndham points for under a cent per mile conversion during the Discover America promo WITHOUT a bonus. Outside of the Manhattan properties, Wyndham doesn’t really do much for me… but less than a cpm for United? I’m in.
Complete waste others time and your time
It’s not bad info. I think it’s good that he put it out there. Why are people getting so nasty?
@Jeff – Yes I did in fact register, but not making any moves at this time.
Ha maybe I was rounding a bit. 2 minutes to read, 3 more wondering why you are posting this. Maybe that quote, should have been the first line of the post.
Sorry for not being the nicest today, but usually you have such solid content, it’s just a bit of a let down