Transferring to AAdvantage - miles, cc's & general questions

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Ekka

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Re: Congrats on FINALLY seeing the LIGHT

Dave Noble said:
AMEX CC is ok

Dave
Good news, but is it necessary to transfer AmEx (any particular type?) points to some hotel scheme (which ones?), and then to AAdvantage miles?

I've read all the posts I could find, and a Platinum challenge seems an excellent idea in order to achieve elite status quickly, but unless it is possible to convert CC points to miles easily, continuing to accrue miles in the scheme via credit card use in order to take advantage of the better burn rate seems rather difficult.
 
Re: Congrats on FINALLY seeing the LIGHT

Ekka said:
Good news, but is it necessary to transfer AmEx (any particular type?) points to some hotel scheme (which ones?), and then to AAdvantage miles?

I've read all the posts I could find, and a Platinum challenge seems an excellent idea in order to achieve elite status quickly, but unless it is possible to convert CC points to miles easily, continuing to accrue miles in the scheme via credit card use in order to take advantage of the better burn rate seems rather difficult.

You can get then transferred via Stawood Preferred Guest (SPG) to AA. All quite easy.

Dave
 
Re: The great points transfer to AAdvantage

So, AmEx CC spend results in 1.5 Ascent points per dollar; Ascent points convert to Starpoints at 1000 Ascent to 330 Starwood; Starwood convert at 1:1 to AA miles (1.25:1 if 20,000 converted)?

This seems to result in each A$1000 spent resulting in either 1,500 QFF points or 495 AA miles (618.75 miles if 20,000 at a time).
 
Re: The great points transfer to AAdvantage

Ekka said:
So, AmEx CC spend results in 1.5 Ascent points per dollar; Ascent points convert to Starpoints at 1000 Ascent to 330 Starwood; Starwood convert at 1:1 to AA miles (1.25:1 if 20,000 converted)?

This seems to result in each A$1000 spent resulting in either 1,500 QFF points or 495 AA miles (618.75 miles if 20,000 at a time).
indeed that is correct. There is not much point in transferring less than 20,000 Starwood points at a time, so I based my comparison on 618.75 AA miles per A$1000 spent, or 41.25% of the QF FF points earned.

Now compare what those AA miles can get you compared to QF points. Lets use the very real example of my last redemption, being for 3 business class return flights BNE-AKL (via MEL as that was the only availability). QF would have cost me 300,000 FF points, while AA cost me 105,000 AAdvantage Miles. So those QF FF points would have required $200,000 spend on Amex, while the AA miles would have required $169,697 spend.

And QF would have charged me $710 in taxes and fuel fines, while AA charged me $148.42.

So the transfer from Amex to AA via Starwood can still be a better use of Amex points than sending them to QF.

But if you want to use them to upgrade a QF flight, then no choice but to send them to QF.

Personally I am retaining my Amex points (almost 200K now) until I need them somewhere, and would not be surprised if I end up sending them to Hilton Honors and use them for hotel nights. Or I can convert them to 82,500 AA miles if I need them later. Or use them for seveal QF upgrades. One thing is for certain - I won't be using them for QF flight rewards.
 
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Sorry for bumping an old threa - I am just looking at my transfer to AA options. Just so I have the maths correct Amex->SPG = 1000->330 and to get most benefit you need to have 20,000+ SPG points to get the 1:1.25 bonus?

So that means to me you need to transfer 60,067 Amex points to SPG (subject to not having any SPG points there in the first place). Just wondering i have a corporate amex and a personal amex with 30K and 28K points in each separate ascent account - so I can just dump points separately into SPG but then move a single lump to AA if necessary...

Annoyingly I am just going to be on the cusp of having enough points to have an extended RTW rather than just syd-lax-jfk-lhr-syd. A few extra points might just tip me over the edge...
 
simongr said:
Sorry for bumping an old threa - I am just looking at my transfer to AA options. Just so I have the maths correct Amex->SPG = 1000->330 and to get most benefit you need to have 20,000+ SPG points to get the 1:1.25 bonus?

Yup, that's the idea

simongr said:
So that means to me you need to transfer 60,067 Amex points to SPG (subject to not having any SPG points there in the first place). Just wondering i have a corporate amex and a personal amex with 30K and 28K points in each separate ascent account - so I can just dump points separately into SPG but then move a single lump to AA if necessary...

I cannot see any reason why you could not have your corporate and personal accounts crediting to the same SPG account

Dave
 
They would credit to the same SPG account. I was slightly confused when I started the post thinking that I had to get the points into SPG in one lump when in fact it doesnt matter how I transfer to SPG - just a single transfer from SPG needs to be teh go.

Not sure yet if I will use Amex points like this - I might go HHonors with points to top up hotel free nights when travelling with mrssimongr. It doesnt seem an efficient use of points unless I desperately need them for the RTW.

Given I will get another 200K of AA points (unless I go for QF WP to better access QF upgrades and F lounge access on US itins) this year alone - not sure blowing 60K of Amex points for a relatively small number of AA points is that sensible for me.
 
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