American is at it again. Lately, they’ve been trying to get people to buy their worthless miles (SEE: 8 ways to use a MILLION “worthless” AA miles). This is almost a never a good deal. Given the lack of SAAver space, mixed with a poorer-than-ever award chart, I’ve about given up on their program.
But if you know how to make your AA miles work for you in terms of premium partner awards, this promotion may hold some value. For a limited time you can get a 20% bonus when converting Starpoints to AA miles. Given that Starwood already gives you a 25% bonus when converting in 20,000 point increments, this effectively yields 30,000 AA miles per 20,000 Starpoints!
You also get 10,000 bonus if you receive at least 100,000 miles from points conversions. This means that if you transfer 80,000 Starpoints, you’ll actually receive 130,000 AA miles. Pretty sweet. Or is it?
What about Marriott hotel and flight packages?
If you’re looking at converting only a few Starpoints to top off your account for an award, this is likely a good deal. However, if you’re looking at converting quite a few, I’d consider a Marriott travel package instead.
As mentioned before, you can transfer 80,000 Starpoints into 130,000 AA miles with this promotion, which is in no way a shabby deal. However, remember that with the 3:1 transfer ratio between Starpoints and Marriott Rewards, your 80,000 Starpoints are equivalent to 240,000 Marriott points. This is only 30,000 Marriott Rewards (or 10,000 Starpoints) short of 270,000 points, which is enough for a 7-night travel package that will give you 120,000 AA miles *and* a 7-night stay at a Category 1-5 Marriott. Now the deal doesn’t seem so sweet.
Personally, I’d rather spend 90,000 Starpoints for 120,000 airline miles and 7 nights of hotel versus 80,000 Starpoints for 130,000 miles. The choice is your if you’re sitting on a pile of Starpoints.
Do you think you’ll take AAdvantage of this promotion?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Transferring valuable spg points to virtually worthless AA miles, just not worth it.