Amex Membership Rewards are one of the more flexible currency in the points and miles game with an extensive network of transfer partners. One of them is Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), which will cease to exist after its merger with Marriot Rewards from August 18, 2018.
If you wanted to convert your Membership Rewards points to Starpoints, you would get one Starpoint for every three Membership Rewards points in India. However, with the transition coming, American Express has temporarily suspended points transfer to SPG through August 21, 2018, which means a couple of days after the new program goes into effect.
We do know that from August 18, 2018, Starpoints get converted into the currency of the new combined program in a ratio of 1 Starpoint = 3 of the new currency. So if nothing changes, you end up with a conversion rate of 1:1 between Membership Rewards and the new combined program.
This affects those who were planning to transfer their Membership Rewards points out to get a travel package before the new program cutover or were short a few points to make a redemption before the August 18, 2018 start of the new program.
Bottomline
Amex suspending points transfer to SPG is a logical step considering the changes in the IT infrastructure that come into effect when the new Marriott loyalty program goes live.
Have you been able to put together a redemption strategy for your stash of Marriott Rewards/Starwood Preferred Guest points?
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