British Airways Executive Club has returned with another “hotel point conversion bonus”. Between now and April 25th, 2022, British Airways Executive Club is offering a 25% bonus when converting hotel points to Avios.
These are the hotel programs that qualify for the bonus and the minimum conversions required:
- Radisson Rewards (MIN 2,000)
- Radisson Rewards Americas (MIN 2,000)
- World of Hyatt (MIN 5,000)
- IHG Rewards Club (MIN 10,000)
- Marriott Bonvoy (MIN 9,000)
You can find details of this promotion on the BA website by clicking here.
It is important to remember that, most of the time, it doesn’t make sense to convert hotel points into Avios. The major hotel chains prefer you to spend those points on a hotel room night that almost certainly would be empty – rather than generate a cost to them from buying miles from an airline.
Of course, if you have a handful of hotel points that are close to expiring and don’t think you will ever earn more… then by all means take this opportunity to convert them to Avios.
It’s also worth pointing out that the bonus only applies to conversions of existing points. If you change your earning preference from “points” to “miles” for any upcoming hotel stays, you won’t actually earn a bonus on the stay-based miles you’d earn.
Is Converting Marriott Points Worth It?
There is only one hotel chain where the conversion rate of points –> miles is decent… Marriott Bonvoy. You always receive the best deal when converting exactly 60,000 Marriott points. These become 25,000 miles / Avios.
With the 25% bonus, you would actually receive 31,250 Avios.
However, you should still be wary… I reckon that 60,000 Marriott points is worth approximately $450-500 when used on hotel stays. (or even more if you save up for a fifth night free award) 31,250 Avios aren’t really worth much more than $400 on average…
But if you are thinking that you might need to buy some Avios this year (for a Companion Reward for example), it might make sense to convert some Marriott points instead…
Bottom Line
You have a few days to decide whether to convert some orphaned hotel points to Avios and/or to move 60,000 chunks of Marriott points…
