One of the best parts about the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program is that although they are a hotel chain, there are a wide variety of SPG airline partners, where you can do an SPG transfer between Starwood or SPG points to a variety of airlines. Whereas most points transfers between different frequent flyer programs are at a fairly un-advantageous rate, you can transfer Starpoints 1:1 to 30 different airlines.
SPG transfer partners chart
There are actually 34 different SPG airline partners, and the majority of them transfer 1:1. That is to say that 1 Starwood point equals 1 airline mile. You do have to do the SPG transfer in 1,000 point increments and it is also subject to the SPG transfer bonus (see below).
Here is the complete SPG transfer partners chart
You can see that just about every airline out there are SPG airline transfer partners. In case the image is having trouble loading, here is the full list of Starwood airline transfer partners, in alphabetical order
Aegean Airlines, Aeromexico, Aeroplan / Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand Air Points, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Alitalia MileMiglia, All Nippon Airways (ANA), American Airlines AAdvantage, Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific), Asiana Airlines, British Airways Executive Club, China Eastern, China Southern, Delta Airlines Skymiles, Emirates, Eithad, Flying Blue (Air France / KLM), Gol Smiles, Hainan Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Japan Airlines (JAL), Jet Airways, Korean Air, Lan Airlines, Miles and More (Lufthansa), Qatar Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Thai Airways, United Airlines Mileage Plus, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia
Remember too that you can transfer 3 Marriott points to 1 Starwood point (and vice versa)
(SEE ALSO: 4 reasons to transfer Marriott points to Starwood – instead of the other way around)
(SEE ALSO: 4 reasons to transfer SPG points to Marriott – instead of the other way around)
Which SPG airline partners do you NOT want to use?
You will notice that you can transfer Starpoints to the majority of the SPG transfer partners in 1:1 increments, with 4 exceptions
- LAN Airlines LANPass program, 1:1.5 LAN calls their frequent flier program “kilometers” which makes sense I suppose since they’re on the metric system, so if you transfer Starpoints to LAN, you’ll actually end up with 1.5 times MORE points (miles? kilometers?)
- Air New Zealand Air Points, 65:1. Air New Zealand has an odd award chart, where a flight from the US to Europe costs 565 points. With the 65:1 transfer from Starwood it doesn’t make it a horrible redemption, but it isn’t one I would typically recommend
- United Airlines and GOL Smiles, 2:1. If you transfer Starpoints to one of these Starwood airline partners, you are essentially halving your miles. I would not recommend this at all
It’s easy to fall under the misconception that because nearly every airline are Starwood transfer partners that you can also use your SPG points to transfer to United Airlines (which is one of the most common frequent flier programs of interest for most US-based travelers), but this is a mistake – you do NOT want to transfer SPG points to United.
Getting the SPG transfer bonus
The one nice thing about taking advantage of the SPG airline partners is the SPG transfer bonus. If you transfer your Starpoints in 20,000 point increments, you receive a 5,000 point bonus. So 20,000 points to American miles yields 25,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. 20,000 SPG points to United only earns 15,000 United miles though (which is why you shouldn’t do it!)
Note that the SPG transfer bonus is limited to 79,999 points per day, so in practice, you really only want to transfer 60,000 points per day to make sure you don’t lose any of the SPG transfer bonus.
(SEE ALSO: Would you rather transfer 60K SPG points, or 75K American Express points?)
Hope that helps and happy transferring out there!
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Never understood transferring to an airline. You can buy flights on the SPG site using points that count towards (on United) EQMs.
You can get at least twice the value by using points transferred from SPG to book an award flight. More if you use it for premium cabin.
Even after the major devaluation of the AAdvantage program you can fly from anywhere in Asia to anywhere in Europe for 75k AAdvantage miles ( which you get by transferring 3 x 20k Starpoints). Business class.
The same 60k Starpoints used on SPG Flights buys you an airfare of up to U$800.
I guess it depends on who you want to fly. I got HUGE value transferring SPG to Alaska air and flying Emirates 1st class LAX to Maldives. This includes a stay over in Dubai. I needed 105000 miles and it only cost me 85000 SPG points.
90000 points and like $25 per person.
Same trip would have cost 335000 Amex rewards points and about $1500.
Yes, Alaska transfers are outstanding. If the Marriott deal goes though, I will be dumping quite a few SPG points into airline transfers as a last hurrah to one of the best perks in the best program formerly known as Starwood.
LAN availability for ‘Saver’ or their lowest-level (and available to partners) space has declined quite a bit, but you still may be able to (depending on cash prices) get decent value out of LANPass KMs. 20K SPG points transfers to 37,500 LANPass KMs. While it’s currently almost impossible to get SCL-IPC tickets with partner miles, seats are often available for 42K KMs roundtrip, or 23K SPG points.
Gol is a Delta partner so, I’d recommend going that route to book flights on Gol.
I think transferring to Air Berlin is the best option.
Yes I approve!!! 🙂 Obviously an old chart from SPG but I couldn’t find an applicable chart on their website now and I like the way it lays them out
Why AirBerlin? The airline no longer exists, award bookings were transferred to Niki (which is also no longer operating), and the possibility of booking Etihad flights with AB miles was also only allowed until November ’17 (allowing travel until March, ’18).
I once transferred 68 SPG points to United because I was 34 short of an award and as a platinum there’s no minimum to transfer. It still hurt lol
LOL at least that makes some sense!
I can’t same to figure out how to use Miles and More points with Amex points. I have 77,000 points on Lufthansa and many more on Amex. If I could combine them I would have a great first class seat to India. Amex accepts Miles and More points from just about all Star Alliance points from all airlines) but NOT Lufthansa How do I combine points to purchase tixs on Lufthansa from Miami to New Delhi?
My dream is to go to Africa but spg doesn’t book flights from the US to Africa. How come???
Well SPG is a hotel company and doesn’t really book flights 🙂 There are plenty of SPG transfer partners that do fly to Africa though