Aeroplan shared that there is going to be a 35% bonus on transfers from the Marriott programs (Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, Ritz-Carlton Rewards) running September 13-17. The offer will not appear on the Aeroplan website until Thursday, September 13 but the information is solid and hopefully this extra day gives you more time to think through whether you want to take advantage of this.
It’s a flat 35% bonus no matter how many points you transfer into Aeroplan. And that’s on top of the 5000 miles bonus when you transfer 60,000 Marriott points to 20,000 miles.
As a result,
- Convert 9000 Marriott points, get 3000 Aeroplan miles + 1050 (35% bonus) = 4050 Aeroplan
- Convert 60,000 Marriott points get 20,000 Aeroplan + 5000 Aeroplan (from Marriott) + 8750 Aeroplan (35% bonus) = 33,750
- Convert 360,000 Marriott points get 120,000 Aeroplan + 30,000 Aeroplan (from Marriott, transfer bonus) + 52,500 Aeroplan (35% bonus) = 202,500
With this offer transferring Marriott points in 60,000 chunks means you’re getting .5625 Aeroplan miles per Marriott point. Put differently, it’s like getting 1.6875 Aeroplan miles per old Starwood point.
There are some nice values in the program, like US-Europe for 55,000 miles each way in business class and 75,000 miles each way in business class US-Asia 1. Of course at this moment not all Star Alliance partners are bookable due to IT issues.
In the past they’ve offered bonuses on transfers from all or most hotel programs, this one is Marriott-specific. Marriott transfers to airline miles aren’t necessarily as fast as Starwood’s were. And right now you cannot transfer more than 80,000 Marriott points per day (they intend the daily limit to be three times as high). So if you want to take advantage of this offer in a big way you’re going to need to spread out your transfers over the five days of the promotion.
With Air Canada buying back Aeroplan many of you will likely not be concerned about stranding points in the program.
Does this work when buying a Marriott travel package and Aeroplan points?
Isn’t the normal transfer bonus 15000 when you transfer 60000? It used to be 5000 on top of the 20000 and since Marriott is 3:1 Starwood, I thought the bonus was proportionately larger as well.
Ben, it is (as it was previously) a bonus of 5000 points in the currency you’re transferring to. So 60,000 Marriott points (formerly 20,000 Starwood points) becomes 25,000 airline points (20,000 plus a bonus of 5,000). But you could think of it as a “bonus” of 15,000 Marriott points to be transferred at 3:1 — i.e. 60,000 becomes 75,000 to be transferred at 3:1 to 25,000 airline points.
@Ben Senise — 20,000 points yielded 25,000 miles under the Starwood program. Triple the number of hotel points (to 60,000) and you have the new Marriott program’s price for 25,000 miles.
@Gary, thanks for the heads up. I have two 7-nights Marriott cert. cat.1-5 which was redeemed under the old rules (bought mainly for Aeroplan miles but also with hope I can upgrade these certs to higher cat.), but under new rules, I can’t upgrade these certs. one is expiring end of this year & the other in 5/2019. Since I won’t have any usage for cat.1-5 and I’m assuming it’s highly unlikely Marriott will change direction on the upgrade possibility, do you think it’s better I have these 2 refunded for a total of 90K Marriott pts and transfer it to Aeroplan for a total of 47,250 Aeroplan miles (which I need for an Asian trip in early 2020)?
@gary; of course, d’oh! I was mixing up the different points. I see what you’re saying now.
@Tim No. According to the fine print on the Aeroplan promotion page, it states:
Please note that the Marriott Rewards program has hotel and flight redemption packages where Aeroplan Miles are issued however these said packages are not eligible to receive conversion bonuses