REMINDER: Buy Starpoints From 2.28 Cents (Great For Airline Transfers)

a pool with umbrellas and chairs

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Starwood is running a promotion through 30 June 14 July (offer has been extended) which allows SPG members to buy Starpoints with a 35% discount on the regular price. While travelers can buy Starpoints to use to book award nights at upscale hotels a better use may be to convert them to airline miles at a good rate.

The Offer Rules

  • Buy 5,000 or more Starpoints to get a 35% discount
  • Transactions must be completed by 11:59 PM ET July 14, 2017 to be eligible for the discount.
  • Purchased points do not count towards Preferred Guest, Gold Preferred Guest, or Platinum Preferred Guest Status.
  • Transactions are final and nonrefundable. All other terms and conditions of the Starwood Preferred Guest Program apply.
  • Purchase up to 30,000 per account per calendar year

The Math

The good news is that if you’re just looking to top up a SPG account and don’t want to buy the full 30,000 Starpoint allowance, you’re not penalised for buying small amounts.

If you purchase 5,000 Starpoints (the minimum needed to trigger the 35% discount)……

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…or the full 30,000 allowance….

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…you will still be buying Starpoints for 2.275 cents each.

Should You Buy Starpoints In This Promotion?

The answer to that question is that it depends on what you plan on using them for.

Buying For Starwood Redemptions

This is what the Starwood award chart looks like (click to enlarge):

a table with numbers and a number of points

At a cost of approximately 2.8 cents a point I don’t see too much value here at the middle or high value properties.

A category 4 property charges 10,000 points for an award night so if you were to buy points in this promotion, that award would essentially cost  around $228 – I don’t see that as being great value…and it doesn’t get much better the higher you go up the chart.

If you can snag category 1 or 2 property for 2,000 – 3,000 points a night the effective cost would be around $46 – $70 per night….and that can be a great deal.

Buying For Marriott Redemptions

Since the merger with Marriott Starpoints transfer over to Marriott Rewards at a rate of 1:3 so, a purchase of 15,000 Starpoints would net 45,000 Marriott Rewards points…..which is enough for a top-level redemption:

a screenshot of a hotel reward

15,000 Starpoints would cost $341.25 in this promotion….

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…and when top-tier Marriott properties can go for considerably more than $500/night……

a screenshot of a hotel

a screenshot of a hotel

……this can be a great use of Starpoints.

Buying For Airline Transfers

This is probably my favorite use of Starpoints because you can get some pretty good value out of them this way.

On of the reasons why Starpoints are so popular is because they can be transferred into to a large number of major airline loyalty programs (35 in total) and, in most cases, Starpoints transfer over at a ratio of 1 Starpoint to 1 Airline mile.

That makes Starpoints a very versatile currency to hold.

On top of that, if you remember to transfer Starpoints in multiples of 20,000, Starwood adds on a 5,000 bonus:

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With this in mind, the ideal number of Starpoints to transfer over to an airline’s loyalty program is 20,000, 40,000 or 60,000 (maximum allowed in one transfer is 79,999) as those transfers will earn you 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 bonus points/miles respectively.

How much are you getting the airline miles for?

If you were to purchase 20,000 Starpoints in the current promotion it would cost $455….

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…and those Starpoints could then be converted to 25,000 airline miles (for most airlines).

Those airline miles have now essentially cost $455 which, for 25,000 airline miles, comes to 1.82 cents/mile.

That’s a very good deal.

There is one specific instance where I would not purchase Starpoints with a view to converting them to an airline loyalty currency and that’s if I was looking to boost my Avios balance – I’ll explain my reasoning in a post coming out later today (post now live).

How To Buy Starpoints

a hotel with a large building

Here’s a link to the promotion page.

Starwood sells Starpoints through Points.com so you will not get a “travel” category bonus when using a credit card like one of the Chase Sapphire cards. As such you should use whatever credit card earns you the points you value most or the card on which you need to hit a minimum spend.

Bottom Line

A 35% discount is the best offer we’ve seen on Starpoints but that alone isn’t a reason to buy them.

  1. If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to use for Starwood redemptions you’ll probably be better off using them for lower category properties.
  2. If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints to use for Marriott redemptions you may be able to get some great deals during peak times.
  3. If you’re thinking of buying Starpoints in oder to convert them to airline miles then make sure you do the math and make sure the airline you’re transferring them to actually releases the awards you’re looking to book.

Most importantly make sure you don’t buy Starpoints to stockpile – no one knows when they’ll be devalued – have a plan and do the math, that way you should be just fine.

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