Questions and Answers

need help deciding whether to get the mariott rewards premier cc?? having my daughter’s wedding at a marriott so will accumulate many miles, but also have the chase sapphire preferred card. Trying to save for trip to Africa. Will probably use United/partners to get there from East coast. the 5x per dollar spend is very interesting but wonder if worth it to then transfer points from marriott to United mileage plus miles or into Star alliance?? any suggestions?? hate to waste a ton of miles or to find out can’t use them for trip.

The offer on the Marriott card is a really good one.
Lucky’s recent post:
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/02/23/marriott-credit-card-best-offer/?_ga=1.170961440.102191377.1436211850[/URL]

Converting Marriott to United is a good idea if you are using their Hotel + Air packages. Actually I think it is the best value from Marriott points.
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/02/28/marriott-united-promotion/[/URL]

If not the hotel+air packages, converting Marriott – United (or any other airline) will be a bad conversion. Regarding the 5X earn at Marriott – when you convert to airline, you lose a bit.
Conversions: [URL]http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morerew.mi[/URL]

You are better off getting 2X points on Chase Sapphire since they can be transferred directly to UA.

With your daughter’s wedding on the block, you should consider ‘acting’ as the meeting planner. If you are paying for all the rooms on a single check, you get to keep all the points as well. Also if you talk to the sales team at the hotel you can negotiate a better rate and I have heard that the hotel offers a nice lump of points (like 50K, 100K) to the couple.

Another 2 step idea I want to say is:
Apply for an Ink Card from Chase
Buy Marriott GCs at Staples using Ink.

[B][COLOR=#ff0000]This way you get 5X UR Points[/COLOR][/B]. In my book that is phenomenal.If you have the Ink Visa you get a 1% cash back in the form of statement credit for purchases at Staples (there is a limit but not sure).

I would say go a bit adventurous and do the Ink + GC way.