Marriott Flight and Hotel Package options

arctan on 10/08/2017 - 21:56

Anyone know which airline miles/points provide the best value for booking flights from AU to Asia?
http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi

I have 90k SPG points and want to transfer to Marriott reward so I can get 270k points. Then i will use 270 points to redeem the package on the link above. I understand the United Mile is going to be devalued in Nov17. My question is on the rest of 4 packages below. Package 1 and 2 seem to be most useful to us Aussies. The Avios points can be used with BA to book domestic flight with great values. The package seems to be applying to a lot more airlines including Qantas and Singapore airline but it only gets 85k points which is significantly less than package of 120k Avios points.
Can someone please tell me which one I should choose between P1 and P2? What is the reason to pick it? Cheers.

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Comments

  • donbot on 10/08/2017 - 22:06

    Where in Asia? South East Asia, China, Japan, Korea?

    I found AA to be a great transfer partner to book direct flights to/from Japan with JAL. 120,000 AA miles = 3 business class tickets to Japan + minimal taxes. Got this in a 25% bonus they ran - so 150,000 AA miles.

    United is still cheap to SE Asia provided you book before devaluation. Thai airlines provides plenty of destinations with good availability.

    • arctan on 10/08/2017 - 22:06

      Japan to be more specific.

      • donbot on 10/08/2017 - 22:10

        Both United and AA provide good value I believe. 40k one way in business.

        AA = Oneworld alliance (Qantas, JAL, Cathay, etc)
        United = Star alliance (Thai, limited SQ, Air China, etc)

        Have you got travel plans to book? If not, hold off til you are ready to book them search availability.

        • arctan on 11/08/2017 - 15:05

          Thanks mate I guess I'll go with AA as United is devalued soon and I wont be able to book before Nov.

          Cheers

        • arctan on 11/08/2017 - 20:05

          Another quick question. Is AA = American airline or Alaskan airline?

        • donbot on 12/08/2017 - 08:24

          @arctan:

          American. Before you convert, what's the rush? You can reserve the Marriott stay without the package being issued, and be sure of availability with the airline?

        • redwood on 13/08/2017 - 17:23

          @tizey: You can put awards on AA on hold for 5 days IIRC. The 7 night cert can be used as long as there are points availability. There are unpublished 5 nights package too at a lower rate, but YMMV.

  • The Champagne Mile on 13/08/2017 - 17:10
    +1

    As has already been mentioned, both BA and AA offer good value (BA, if only for Qantas domestic and other shorthaul sweetspots).

    With MEL - NRT flights starting soon with JAL, and Qantas also putting on seasonal flights from SYD to KIX, there is, and should continue to be, very decent options to redeem AA for Japan. If you're not in any rush, strongly suggest waiting for a hotel transfer bonus offer to maximise value even further. I picked up Avios at a 35% bonus earlier this year (120k Avios became 162,000), and AA is also known to run them at least once per year (as Tizey has mentioned, they have run a recent 25% transfer bonuses).

    • arctan on 13/08/2017 - 18:03

      Thanks for the details. I will certainly wait for the transfer bonus. But where do I get the notification when there is a bonus promotion going on?

      • The Champagne Mile on 14/08/2017 - 07:28

        Keep your ear to the ground :) Sometimes, hotel chains will send out emails to members, and many blogs and travel websites will publish details once they become known. Loyalty Lobby www.loyaltylobby.com is probably the best 'go to' site for hotel promo details.

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