As I was booking a hotel using points in my Marriott account, I wondered if I was making the best use of the points. We are not big travelers; a domestic vacation here and there, and not trips to visit the grandkids.
All my reward points are in the credit card, airlines or hotel where booked. I never know if I should earn airline point with my car rental, or leave them with the car rental or the other way around. We typically fly Southwest or Delta, rent from Hertz and stay at Marriott properties. When we fly Delta, we use our Amex Delta Sky Miles credit card as it gives us free checked bags. As we have lived in a Delta Hub our entire life, it paid to have the card; now, Delta flights can be double in price as SWA, so we have flow SWA almost every flight in the last several years. My primary credit card is my Costco Visa with cash back; we also have a personal Gold Amex that we use for work related purchases. I save those points for when they offer 40% off gift cards and we buy those for ourselves to use for purchases, or give as gifts to the adult kids, and now grandkids.
How do you make the best use of your points? Looking for tips and advice on how to earn the most. I have always assumed it would be better to earn points with the company they were intended, but not sure that is correct. That said, my Marriott points have allowed me a great hotel stay with an extra night free and possible upgrade to a suite. Since we don’t hotel stay often, and the rewards all came from my husband’s work travel and stays at budget hotels, Marriott has been a nice perk.
The best use of your points has always been in premium cabins on long-distance flights (on a saver award). Marriott points are among the best for this purpose because they can be transferred to almost any airlines in the world.
The best credit card(s) to have is the one(s) that are best for YOU. Everyone has different priorities. Some love cash back. Others like using their points for an aspirational trip. There is no one right or best answer.
I have been a points and miles enthusiast since 2013. I have redeemed over 4.5 million miles/points and have close to 2 million on hand, just to show that I know a bit about what I am talking about. I started out by following a couple of blogs for a few months and developing a strategy based on my goals.
While I have points with airline and hotel programs, I am more focused on transferable points. You do not earn interest on points, so earn them and use them! (Says the person with 2M points! Like so many, the pandemic put a big crimp in my travel plans.)
Hertz commonly charges you a small $ for applying the points to your airline instead of their points program. As mentioned above, the points guy recommends using the points to buy or upgrade airline seats. We use the delta AmExplatinum card b/c of the delta benefits (free checked bags if we check them, delta priority line at some airports , though we may soon pay for TSA per heck— looking for thoughts on that, and the many many FF miles that you get using the Delta Amex card at restaurants, supermarkets, etc.
I agree 100% re transferable points like Amex membership rewards and Chase ultimate rewards. I’ve been doing this since the 90s. Currently have 6M points sitting there.
OP, try to get at least 1.5 cents per point for minimum value. Best value is on premium cabin international flights. I had to cancel biz class US to Tokyo last summer but got $5000 tickets for 90k points each. That’s over 5 cents per point value.
Last week I booked paid rooms at a Hyatt rather than use points bc price was a better value.
For DL flights, you don’t actually have to use the DL Amex to get the free bag. It’s connected to your account so as long as you’re a cardholder, the bag is free.
Unless Delta has changed the free checked bags, the primary card holder had to be traveling on the ticket, otherwise, there were no free bags. That said, my kids, while in college, were able to talk them into it at baggage check in, as the flight was booked on the Amex. Both kids were on the account, so had an Amex card. I haven’t flow Delta without my husband (the primary card holder) in a long time, so maybe things have changed.
Yes, according to the terms, primary cardholder has to be traveling. Anyone on the same ticket also gets free checked bag. I’ve had the card since 1991, and spouse has a secondary card but has never tried using it for free bag when traveling alone.
Since you fly SW a lot, do you have the companion pass? I think that plus points on SW is great value!
You can get Marriott points by booking directly with Marriott and get additional flexible points if you pay with a credit card where travel is a bonus category (for example the Chase Sapphire Preferred). You will get more Marriott points if you get a Marriott credit card (both Chase and AmEx have Marriott affiliated cards), but you need to remember that not all points have the same value and that affiliated cards generally have poor returns on non-Marriott spend.
For example, Chase’s Ultimate Rewards (what you get from Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve cards) are generally valued around 1.7-2 cents/pt where Marriot points are generally valued at 0.7-0.8 cents/pt. UR points have higher value because you can transfer the to many partners.
In general, transferring Marriott points to airlines is a poor value because they’re usually at a 3:1 ratio. I don’t fly Delta, so I don’t know Delta point values, but a good example would be American Airlines points are usually around 1.3 cents/pt, so it’s a poor ROI to transfer 3x Marriott points (0.7-0.8 cents/pt) for 1 AA point. If you stay at Marriott a lot, your best value is probably just using the points on free nights. Remember you get the 5th night free if you pay for the first 4 nights with points.
Southwest is a little different because their points are fixed to monetary value vs. an awards chart. They also recently devalued them. I’d get a SW card if the added benefits are valuable but before doing that, look at whether it’s feasible to earn your way to a Southwest Companion Pass. If you would qualify for a business card, that might be a good strategy for you to get free companion fares for up to 2 years.
Unfortunately, we don’t fly enough to earn a SWA companion pass. We do get one each year with our Delta Amex; there are actually two sitting in my husband’s account now! We are a driving family when able, so only fly to visit our daughter or events too far to drive to.
No need to add more credit cards to the pile, so will make the best use out of what we have. We stopped years ago using our Delta Amex as the primary card when we started using SWA more often. Both kids live in cities where SWA flies, and the price difference between SWA and Delta on any given flight could be over $200 per ticket! While I prefer to fly Delta, I like that $400 in my pocket better!
Our Hertz points have been sitting in the account for a long time. We have a great code we have been using, so for the small amount for the rental, it hasn’t paid to use the points. I will wait for a big trip to use those; like a trip with the grandkids when a big SUV is needed.
Conversion to airline miles is a feature that came from the SPG program before Marriott’s merger with Starwood. A single SPG point was converted to 3 Marriott points (a Marriott point was worth significantly less than a Starwood point). The value of each airline mile (or a hotel point) worth different amount depending on the airline (or the hotel) and how you’d redeem these miles/points. The best use of these points/miles are almost always for redemptions in premium cabins on transpacific or transatlantic flights, when saver-level awards are available. The second best use of points/miles tend to be for stays at hotels in either the low end or the very high end. Redemptions for mid-tier hotel stays and coach fares tend to be poor use of miles/points (but that’s what majority of people do with these miles/points and how airlines/hotels make lots of money on these programs). As mentioned above, some airlines (and now hotels) price their awards based on retail prices dynamically, in which case their values are relatively constant.
Compare the number of points versus the number of dollars you would need to and be willing to spend for a given travel service (flight, hotel, rental car). That may tell you which service from a given vendor is best worth using points for.
Of course, the points may not end up being worth much to you if you use the given vendor only for services where the points give low value, or where using the points for high value services is very limited (e.g. high value point purchases not allowed for many popular dates).
I’ve assigned cent per point (cpp) values to various point programs, based on my own real life redemptions and Frequent Miler’s calculations.
1 Marriott point = $.007
1 Hilton point = $.004
1 Hyatt point = $.02
1 Membership Reward point = $.0125
1 Ultimate Rewards point = $.02
1 United mile = $.014
1 American mile = $.014
1 Delta mile = $.01
1 SW mile = $.012
These are just guidelines, but the bare minimum redemption I would consider. With the SW companion pass, I automatically get 2.4 cpp as a redemption so that’s the best in my situation. I would love to do a first class international flight as a redemption, but with having been stuck following a school schedule for the past 11 years, the best I’ve managed is two European trips in business class for 3pax over the past few years. Perhaps once my child is off in college and my calendar is more open, H and I can take more trips and use all these points I’ve been accumulating.