Use Just 90,000 Starwood Points for Business Class Roundtrip to Europe or Asia and a Week’s Hotel!

by Gary Leff

In 19 tricks to know about Marriott Rewards I outlined ‘travel packages’ — redeem points for airline miles and a week’s hotel stay.

270,000 Marriott points get you 120,000 American Airlines miles and a full week at a category 1 through 5 hotel.

And through November 14 you get a 20% bonus transferring Marriott points to American AAdvantage so you’d actually receive 144,000 AAdvantage miles.

Earn a 20% bonus when you convert your Marriott Rewards® points into American Airlines AAdvantage® miles October 15 – November 14, 2016. This exclusive offer is valid on regular point conversions as well as Marriott Rewards® Travel Packages.

No registration is required and the 20% bonus should post within a week of when your initial transfer appears in your AAdvantage account.

Since you can now transfer 1 Starwood points into 3 Marriot points, it takes 90,000 Starwood points for 270,000 Marriott points.

So 90,000 Starwood points yields 144,000 American miles under this promotion (a transfer ratio of 1 Starpoint to 1.6 American miles) and a week’s hotel. (You can of course spend more Starpoints and thus more Marriott points for a higher tier hotel redemption.)

  • American charges 57,500 miles each way for business class between the US and Europe
  • American charges 60,000 miles each way for business class between the US and North Asia
  • American charges 70,000 miles each way for business class between the US and South Asia
  • Two people could fly economy roundtrip and have a week’s hotel for these 90,000 points


American Airlines Business Class, Boeing 787-9

Marriott travel packages are a great value, which I’ve argued for years. The last time travel packages were devalued, outside of annual category creep, was in 2008.

They’re an even better deal right now for transfers to American with this promotion.

Even without this bonus, of course, Marriott has a lucrative relationship with United that offers more miles than usual, a built-in 10% bonus.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  2. Of course, American has virtually no reasonable availability to Europe these days. Even recent good FInnair availability wasn’t much help (to me anyway, for summer ’17), because I had trouble finding connecting intra-Europe availability! I resigned to paying cash for positioning within US, but having to do that on both ends is just ridiculous.

  5. You left out the asterisk: That’s 7 nights but only at a Cat 1-5 hotel. So if you want to stay at a decent centrally-located luxury property in London, Rome, Paris, etc. you will be looking at an additional 120k MR points, which means another 40k from SPG. And of course if you want to bring someone it will cost even more points. Not to mention that you will be forced to stay at a Marriott, when there are many SPG properties that shine.

    The good deal is not always the best choice.

  8. I’m confused: I get the “transfer STARWOOD points to AMERICAN AADVANTAGE” bit….. but I’m lost how you get the 7 night hotel stay

  10. I don’t understand the comments. I’ve been having great luck with AA award availability, business class US to Europe. Better than any other carriers. It’s often on BA metal.

  11. @Cindi BA metal incurs large fees. Round-trip business award on BA metal will be over $1000 in addition to the miles. Many of us do not consider this “reasonable availability”.

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