Ends Monday: Starpoints Transfer to 50% More American Airlines Miles

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Update 8/30/15: This offer ends Monday August 31, 2015.

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Until August 31, 2015, you can transfer 20,000 SPG Starpoints to 30,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. This is a repeat of an awesome promo we saw July 2014.

This is not the only SPG transfer bonus at the moment, with Aeroplan offering something similar.

• How many Starpoints can you transfer?
• Do Starpoints transfer instantly to American Airlines miles?
• In what increment must you transfer Starpoints to maximize this deal?
• How many Starpoints should you transfer speculatively?

Here’s what American Airlines says:

From July 1 through August 31, 2015, convert your Starpoints^® to AAdvantage miles and earn a 20% bonus on the amount of AAdvantage miles you receive from the conversion.

As always, for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred within the same transaction, SPG^® will automatically add another 5,000 Starpoints.

With the additional 20% mileage bonus offered by the AAdvantage program, you’ll receive 30,000 miles from the transaction.

The bottom line is 20,000 SPG Starpoints = 30,000 American Airlines miles until August 31.

• 20,000 Starpoints = 20,000 AAdvantage miles (1:1 transfer partner)
•  Standard SPG bonus = 5,000 AAdvantage miles per 20,000 Starpoints transferred
• AAdvantage 20% mileage bonus = 5,000 AAdvantage miles
• Total: 20,000 Starpoints = 30,000 AAdvantage miles

How Many Starpoints Can You Transfer?

You can transfer up to 79,999 Starpoints per 24 hours to an airline. Since you need to send Starpoints in exact 20k point increments to maximize transfer bonuses, the effective limit is 60,000 Starpoints per day to 90,000 American Airlines miles.

Starpoints do not transfer instantly to American Airlines miles. The transfer usually take 2-4 days in my experience.

Other than the daily limit, there is no limit to the number of Starpoints you can transfer to American Airlines miles during this promotion.

Speculative Transfers

I value Starpoints at 2.5 cents each and AAdvantage miles at 1.8 cents each, so I’d rather have 30,000 American Airlines miles than 20,000 Starpoints. However, I am not going to rush off and convert all my Starpoints to American Airlines miles for two reasons:

1. Transferring kills the option value of holding transferable points. What if for my next award Asiana or Singapore or British Airways or Delta miles are better than American Airlines miles? I’d rue my transfer.
2. I expect an American Airlines award chart devaluation announcement in the next few months that kicks in around the beginning of 2016. Here’s a post where I asked several miles experts to predict the next American Airlines devlauation’s size and timing.

For that reason, I’ll only transfer Starpoints to American Airlines miles that I reasonably expect to burn by the end of 2015 for travel through late 2016.

Getting Starpoints

You can’t get Starpoints by August 31 by opening a new credit card, but this promotion highlights one of the many reasons you’d want to get a new Starwood Preferred Guest personal or business card.

Both cards offer 25,000 bonus Starpoints after spending $3,000 in the first three months.

Get More American Airlines Miles

For a limited time, the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® offers 75,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $7,500 in the first three months. That means you’ll have 82,500 American Airlines miles after meeting the spending requirement.

Included in the $450 annual fee, the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® offers Admirals Club lounge membership, meaning you can access over 90 American Airlines Clubs in airports around the world whenever you’re flying–even if you’re not flying on American. Plus you can bring in any two guests for free OR your spouse and all children under 18 for free on each visit.