From now through June 15, 2017, you can convert hotel points into American Airlines AAdvantage miles and receive a 25% bonus miles. Details and terms of the promotion can be found here.
Participating hotels
All major hotel programs are included in this promotion.
Best Western Rewards — 5,000 points = 1,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus
Choice Privileges — 5,000 points = 1,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
Hilton — 10,000 points = 1,500 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
IHG — 10,000 points = 2,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
World of Hyatt — 5,000 points = 2,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
Club Carlson Gold points
- 2,000 Gold Points = 200 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- 10,000 Gold Points = 1,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- 50,000 Gold Points = 5,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- 100,000 Gold Points = 10,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
Marriott Rewards
- 10,000 points = 2,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- 20,000 points = 5,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- 30,000 points = 10,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- 70,000 points = 25,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- 140,000 points = 50,000 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
Starwood
- 2,500 Starpoints® = 2,500 AAdvantage miles + 25% bonus miles
- For every 20,000 Starpoints transferred within the same transaction you’ll earn 5,000 bonus Starpoints.
- With the bonus, every 20,000 Starpoints = 31,250 AAdvantage miles
Wyndham Rewards (not eligible for 25% bonus)
- 6,000 points = 1,200 AAdvantage miles
- 16,000 points = 3,200 AAdvantage miles
- 30,000 points = 6,000 AAdvantage miles
Should you convert hotel points?
In general, I wouldn’t recommend converting hotel points to airline miles speculatively. Most of the conversion rate mentioned above are pretty bad, with the exception of Starwood points, and perhaps Marriott points. I have a large balance of AAdvantage miles so I definitely won’t be participating in this promotion.
Keep in mind that award seats on American Airlines own flights are nearly nonexistent. So unless you intend to use the AAdvantage miles for partner flights, you may want to hold off transferring hotel points. My AA miles were mostly used for trips to Asia in Cathay Pacific first class in the past few years, and recently to Kyoto in business class and first class with Japan Airline.
Converting Starwood or Marriott points
If you decide to convert either Starwood or Marriott points to AAdvantage miles, you might want to crunch numbers to see which route you should go, as each Starwood point equals three Marriott points.
For example, you can convert 60,000 Marriott points to 20,000 SPG points, which will get you 25,000 AA miles before the bonus. Compare to converting 70,000 Marriott points for 25,000 AA miles under this promotion, you will save 10,000 Marriott points but still get the same amount of AA miles. On the other hand, if you want to take advantage of the Marriott Travel Package, you will need to convert SPG points to Marriott points.
If you need more SPG points, today is the last day to purchase SPG points with up to 30% discount. If you purchase the maximum 30,000 points, the total cost is $735. After the SPG and AA bonuses, you will get 43,750 miles. That is essentially buying AA miles at 1.68 cents each, much cheaper than buying them directly from AA.
Will you be taking advantage of this promotion?
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Hi, do you know how often does AA run this promotion?
I don’t remember seeing it before, but I wasn’t paying attention.
Thanks!
Not sure if they have done this before. If they did, definitely no more than once a year.
as the article points out, using AA miles is harder than ever. Don’t do this unless you’re seriously short in AA miles and have a plan and a backup plan and a plan C for how to use them.
Or if you plan to use AA miles on flights with JAL or Cathay Pacific, where the availability is general good if you plan ahead.