20% Bonus on Starpoints Transferred to AAdvantage

Back in April, One Mile at a Time and View from the Wing wrote why it was wise to buy Starpoints at a 25% discount.

American Airlines is now running a popular promotion that we see occasionally, which provides a great use for a surplus of Starpoints. From now through August 7, 2015 you can convert Starpoints into AAdvantage miles with a bonus. Typically you can transfer at a 1:1 ratio, but during this promotion when transferring 20,000 Starpoints to AAdvantage miles you’ll end up with 30,000 AAdvantage miles.

Here’s how –

SPG gives you an extra 5,000 Starpoints for every 20,000 Starpoints coverted over.
AAdvantage gives you 20% bonus when transferring in 20,000 Starpoints, which comes out to 5,000 AAdvantage miles.

Here’s the math from American’s website –

Click here to be taken to the promotion page, and click here once you’re ready to convert your Starpoints into American AAdvantage miles.

Note that you can only do one airline transfer transaction per 24 hour period, so if you are converting a bunch of Starpoints you’ll want to do them in batches rounding to 60,000 each so that you can take advantage of the 5,000 per 20,000 bonus.

This is actually a really good deal, and if you have a lot of Starpoints floating around that you don’t think you’ll use this is a great option. Also, once the points are converted into American AAdvantage miles you can redeem them on partner flights, say to Tokyo on Japan Airlines in First Class as an example.

Japan Airlines First Class

Will you transfer over some Starpoints?

Terms & Conditions:

AAdvantage® Bonus Mile Offer Terms and Conditions

To qualify for this AAdvantage® bonus mile offer, member must initiate the AAdvantage mileage conversions with the Starwood Preferred Guest® program between 12:00 am Central time July 1, 2015 and 11:59 pm Central time August 7, 2015 (the “Promotion Period”), and be in good standing in the AAdvantage program. Members can convert multiple times during the Promotion Period.

To earn the 20% conversion bonus, member must convert points from the Starwood Preferred Guest program. This offer is non-transferable and non-reversible.

Bonus miles will be posted by American Airlines to the qualifying AAdvantage member’s account within 7 business days after the initial conversion activity has been posted by Starwood Preferred Guest. Bonus miles earned in this promotion do not count toward elite status qualification.

American Airlines, AAdvantage, the Flight Symbol logo and MileSAAver are marks of American Airlines, Inc.

Starwood Guest Preferred Transfer to Miles Terms and Conditions

Starwood Preferred Guests can transfer up to 79,999 of their Starpoints® per transaction per program within a 24-hour period to the American Airlines AAdvantage® program. Plus, for every 20,000 Starpoints transferred within the same transaction, Starwood will automatically add another 5,000 Starpoints! This means that up to 94,999 Starpoints can be transferred into your AAdvantage account.

There is no minimum Starpoint transfer requirement for Platinum Preferred Guest members. Gold Preferred Guest members have a minimum transfer requirement of 1,500 Starpoints, and Preferred Guest members have a minimum transfer requirement of 2,500 Starpoints.

Transfer maximums are based on a combination of member Starpoints and the Starwood Preferred Guest airline transfer transaction bonus. Only one airline transfer transaction per member per 24 hour period is allowed; multiple transfer transactions within the same 24 hour period will reject. Both the Starwood Preferred Guest and AAdvantage account must have identical member names in order to complete this request; different names will cause the transfer to reject. Airline transfers are one-way, non-reversible, and non-refundable.

Starwood Preferred Guest and Starpoints are marks of Starwood Hotels & Resort Worldwide, Inc.