Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) has launched a new Mystery Bonus campaign for buying Starpoints at up to 50% off between November 1 – December 31, 2016.
You can purchase for your account or receive as a gift A maximum of 30,000 Starpoints in a calendar year (this used to be 20,000). The account that receives Starpoints must have been open for a minimum of 14 days.
You can access the Starwood SPG Website for this offer here.
READ MORE: SPG Rate & Bonus Points And Miles Promotions
And the price at the 30% discount:
The price of a Starpoint is 2.45 cents when 30,000 is purchased at the 30% off.
Doe it make sense to purchase Starpoints at this price?
Starwood has greatly devalued the Starpoints by the yearly category creep. There can be some values left during special events and high season.
This is, however, a good way to purchase partner airline miles at reasonable price. You can convert 20,000 Starpoints to 25,000 airline miles in most partner programs (not on United and some others – see the table below – you can convert to United now at beneficial rate by first moving the points to Marriott).
You can do even better if you wait for a conversion bonus offer that airline programs often have.
I would consider to transfer points into accounts where purchasing miles is either not possible or quite expensive such as Singapore Airlines or Lufthansa Miles & More (Lufthansa only worth it because of the enhanced availability).
Purchased points post instantaneously:
When I purchased 30,000 points earlier this year during the 35% off sale the Starpoints posted to my SPG account immediately.
SPG Starpoints to Marriott Rewards
You can link your SPG and Marriott Rewards accounts and move points freely between them. 1 Starpoints = 3 Marriott Rewards point. Even if you don’t care about Starpoints, this is an opportunity to purchase Marriott Rewards points cheaply and later use them towards Travel Packages.
Conclusion
This is the first time Starwood is selling its Starpoints under this “Mystery Bonus” campaign. I would assume that the discount for most members is 30% off as this has tend to be the highest discount offered, although Starpoints were briefly on sale at 35% off earlier this year.
I maxed my Starpoints purchase for the calendar year during the 35% off sale. This is a great way to buy some Marriott Rewards points cheaply and later use them towards Travel Packages (read more here).
Just checked. My offer is 50% off.
That is a good one!
congratulations! But in my eyes this is a very bad marketing campaign. Announcing 50% and offering 30% to ” valued” members.
I maxed out on the earlier sale. Can my wife buy her maximum now and
then transfer her new Starpoints to me? I thought I read somewhere
during the previous sale that this may not be allowed. Thanks.
Marriott allows points transfers between accounts for awards purposes. One option to consider due to SPG and Marriott points transfers between linked accounts.
Is it down or account not eligible?
It says “Sorry, purchasing Starpoints is not available at this time”
Mibe said the same thing. I realized I bought my 30k during the summer -35promo so I cant buy more… did you buy some this year allready?
Yeah. If you bought the max earlier this year, you cannot purchase more until January 1, 2017.
This seems very suspicious to me. Why would the points purchase go through “Points.com”, and why is the link “www.kqzyfj.com”? Why wouldn’t this be through an SPG site?
Is there any mention of this promo on SPG’s own site? Until I see that, I’m not handing over any login details…
You don’t have to hand over any log in details. For the Points.com it only takes First & Last name and SPG number. Your password isn’t used at all.
It is indeed mentioned on the SPG site, but not a big banner. If you go to the regular site and click through to Buy Points, you’ll see the offer right there in bright red print.
Thanks mate, much appreciated. They could have done more to make this seem a bit more legitimate, but it’s good to know it’s not a scam.
With the complexity and advanced nature of some of the online scams out there these days, you can’t be too careful!
Points.com handles points/miles sales for most hotel and airline loyalty programs including Hilton, IHG, Hyatt, Starwood, United etc.
Thanks. The other domain looked incredibly dodgy / phishing-like too, but I guess it’s part of a referral? Anyway, thanks.
30% here. By the way, loving your daily digests John. Just signed up – very useful, cheers!
I was offered 35%, will be buying 16k to top up my Marriott account for a stay during New Year’s week, will save me about half of the cash rate for the same nights.
My offer is also 50% but hesitating as no immediate need for their use.
Not sure if others have experienced this but I logged in soon after getting the email days ago and was offered 50% discount; now a few days later it is 25%. I even have a notepad on my desk doing the maths based on 50% written from the screen so I obviously did not confuse the screen at the time.
Do transferred points from SPG count against lifetime status at Marriott?
My offer is now only 30% but it was 50% yesterday. Don’t know why but some of my friend experienced changes too.