United Airlines 30% Transfer Bonus: Great Use Of Marriott Bonvoy Points
There is a United Airlines 30% transfer bonus going on right now. This isn’t an Ultimate Rewards transfer bonus, that would be too amazing, the offer deals exclusively with hotel points. Normally transferring hotel points to airline miles is a terrible deal, even with a 30% bonus, but the exception is the Marriott Bonvoy program.
Marriott Bonvoy Transfer Rates
The Marriott Bonvoy program gives a 5,000 mile bonus when transferring points to airline miles in 60,000 point chunks, for most programs at least. United Airlines earns at a slightly better rate compared to the rest, a 3 points to 1.1 miles rate. It also still earns the 5,000 mile bonus per 60,000 points. If you were to transfer 60,000 Bonvoy points to United you would get 27,500 United Airlines miles. With the current 30% bonus your earn rate would increase to 35,750 United Airlines miles from a 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy point transfer. That is 1.68 Marriott Bonvoy points per United Airlines mile.
Crunching The Numbers
Marriott Bonvoy points average around $0.007 per point in value. If you multiply that by 1.68 points that means you would need to get 1.18 cents per point, or more, in value from United miles to make this a good deal. I think most people would say that should be pretty easy to achieve. I value United miles at around 1.5 cents per point so this transfer is offering me a great value. Plug in your own valuations for yourself. And also weigh in how useful United MileagePlus miles are to you.
Offer Details & Terms
- For a limited time, convert hotel points into MileagePlus® miles and enjoy 30% bonus miles.
- Maximum bonus of 25,000 miles.
- Offer ends September 30, 2021.
Final Thoughts
If you are sitting on a stash of Marriott Bonvoy points, and have a use for United MileagePlus miles, then I think you should really look at this offer. You will likely come out ahead, from a value perspective at least, if you take advantage of the offer. It should be pretty easy to get above the 1.2 cents per point in value needed to make this a good deal, if your valuations are similar to mine.
Are you taking advantage of this offer? Let me know in the comments.
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We did this to top off my United miles, and then booked the entire family of 5 round-trip Polaris Saver Awards SAN-LHR, CDG-SAN for next August. The flights, had we booked with cash, would have been ~$25k.
Awesome Oliver – enjoy the trip!
I had the same issue a John above; I registered for the promo on United, but when I initiated the transfer on Bonvoy, I did not see the 5K or the 30% bonus. So to be sure before I hit ‘Convert’, both of these will be credited to United account later? Thanks!
Thanks for this. Just did it. A few less UR points I will need to transfer.
Well, I will still have to transfer my UR points because I just read the T&Cs:
“At the conclusion of the promotion, all miles earned by each member from Qualifying Activity will be multiplied by 30% to determine the eligible bonus up to a maximum of 25,000 bonus miles. Bonus miles will be credited into the member’s account on or before January 31, 2022.”
I have a couple of trips to book, so these miles might not be there by the time I need to book the 2nd one. But I always have use for UA miles.
Hi, Mark,
After I register for this offer and go to the Marriott page, log in to my Marriott Bonvoy account, go to the page to transfer points to miles and choose United, and type in 60,000 points to transfer to United Mileage Plus (merely as a test), the calculator shows that only converting to 22000 United MileagePlus miles! So, it is not adding either the normal 25% bonus nor the additional 30% bonus (which should get me to your 35,750 number. What gives? Do the bonuses happen elsewhere? Do I need to call Marriott Bonvoy?
I don’t dare hit the “continue” button with it showing an incorrect transfer value amount — do the bonuses get added after hitting that “Continue” button? [I don’t want to hit “Continue” in case doing so actually finalizes the transaction].
Thanks.
The 5K gets added separately and the 30% bonus should come from United.
You take thE cover photo while you were in Anchorage Mark?
Would this work with the miles portion of a Marriott air+Hotel package?
I am not sure on that. I would guess yes since I think those are usually essentially two separate transactions but I would double check with Marriott.