On August 18th Marriott will take the next step in their Starwood acquisition by tripling everyone’s Starpoint balance and creating new unified award charts for Marriott and SPG hotels.
Currently SPG allows everyone at the same address to transfer unlimited points between each other. Marriott is more generous in that they don’t require members transferring points to be from the same address, but they only allow point transfers in excess of 50K if they are being done to complete an award redemption and transfers must be done over the phone.
In general, Marriott’s policies and account numbers will survive the merger, so if you want to easily combine the points of members with the same address online without the need to book an award, you should do that now.
It’s advantageous to have points in the same account as that allows you to redeem for higher priced awards, like 5th night free awards or the 25% bonus for airline mileage transfers in increments of 20K Starpoints or 60K Marriott points in the new program.
You can transfer Marriott points to Starwood points here.
You can transfer Starwood points to Marriott points here under “Access more possibilities worldwide.”
It can take 5 business days for Starpoints to be combined between household members, so you should start that process ASAP. If you already waited 5 days you can call SPG to process the transfer instantly.
If you want to combine points to redeem a Marriott award like the lucrative miles+nights travel packages you can do that over the phone with Marriott while redeeming for that award.
Short on points?
- You can still buy Starpoints here.
- Earn points on the new Chase Marriott Rewards® Premier Plus Credit Card. Click Here to get more details on this card and compare to other hotel cards!
Read more about the merger in these posts:
Related Marriott-SPG merger posts:
- Reader Questions: What Makes The Marriott Travel Packages So Lucrative And Which Category Should I Buy? A Comprehensive Guide.
- A Timeline Of Upcoming Critical Dates For The Starwood AMEX Bloodbath And The Starwood-Marriott Merger!
- AMAZING! Marriott’s New Award Chart Is A Dream Come True For Aspirational Hotels; Roundup Of The Hotel Category ChangesÂ
- Don’t Wait: Book Hotel Awards Now Before The Starwood-Marriott Merger!
- Hunting Down The Marriott Hotels Getting More Expensive To Potentially Maximize Travel Certificates
- Exploring The Options For A Partial Points Refund Of The Marriott Travel Packages, Which Package Should You Buy Now?
- Marriott Has No Plans On Letting Us Know What They Plan On Doing With Current Travel Packages, But Don’t Let That Stop You From Taking Advantage Of Them!
- Where Will You Be Able To Use Chase Marriott And Starwood Anniversary Nights?
- Another Guess At What Will Happen With Marriott’s Miles+Nights Travel PackagesAnd Which You Should Buy Now Before It’s Too Late!
- Breaking Down The New Marriott/Starwood Combined Cash+Points And PointSavers Award Charts
- Marriott Will Massively Devalue New Miles+Nights Travel Packages In August;Comparing The Value Of The Current Packages To The New Packages
- Final Opportunity: Get 35% Off The Purchase Of Starwood Starpoints; Buy The Points You Need To Take Advantage Of These 7 Awesome Redemptions!
- Get A 75,000 Point Signup Bonus On The Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Plus Credit Card!
- Live Blog:Â Follow The Marriott-Starwood Program Merger Announcement!
- 3 Starwood AMEX Cards In The New Marriott Program: AÂ Comparison Chart Of The Good, The Bad, And The Horrific
- Comparison Chart: How Marriott’s August 2018 And February 2019 Award Chart Compares With The Current SPG And Marriott Award Charts
- Marriott Got Almost Everything Perfect, But The Starwood AMEX Cuts Are Just Too Painful
- Rack Up The Starpoints While You Still Can: There Will Be 6 Months Of Amazing Starwood Hotel Bargains!
- No Marriott, The Starwood AMEX Card Will Not Be Richer Than Ever. You Are Just Changing What I’ll Use It For
- Starwood-Marriott Merger FAQs: Answers To Your Questions About Anniversary Nights, Status From Existing Cards, And More
- The Starwood Consumer AMEX And Multiple Chase Marriott Cards Are Being Discontinued! Here’s What You Need To Know About 9 Starwood And Marriott Cards
- Will The Starwood Cards Disappear Or Lose Their Starpoints Signup Bonuses Today? Now Is The Time To Signup If You Don’t Have These Cards Yet!
- AMEX: 3 Starwood Cards Will Be Available For New Applications After The SPG-Marriott Program Merger In August
- Guesstimating Where Marriott Travel Packages Will Work In August; Take Advantage Of Marriott’s Lucrative Miles+Nights Packages Now!
- A Week Later, But No Solid Answers To 3 Contradictory Marriott-Starwood Merger Details That Everyone Wants To Know
- Marriott Clarifies Contradictory SPG Gold Information
- Roundup Of The SPG/Marriott Lifetime Status Rules;Â Will You Be Able To Hit Lifetime Status This Year Before The Lifetime Program Is Devalued?
Heads up. Must be home address. Won’t work with shared business address.
So basically no point in trying to combine 2 business card points?
I requested to combine 2 business accounts and it went to pending…
I thought Marriott allowed 50k unless for an award and then you could do however many needed for that award?
Nvm – the article already says that – totally missed it 🙂
FYI: I did a lateral transfer on 7/28 and still nothing, I put it in again on 8/6… Standby…
I did one on 7/23.
Posted 8/1.
7/31 to 8/7 here
Is there any way to transfer all the points (since you can only transfer in 1,000 point increments)?
Transfer the balance to Marriott and combine them in Marriott.
spg to marriott still requires only increments of 1000. how do i get past that?
It will transfer automatically on 8/18.
Not clear what you mean, if I want to transfer over points to my husband but would leave me with 500 leftover points as not rounded, so am I transferring the bulk of my miles to my husband in SPG or am I transferring them all to Marriott and transferring there? But I thought the whole problem with transferring in Marriott is that needs to be over 50k and only for a reward? Maybe it is the late hour but I did not understand how I am supposed to do this. Thanks.
No, you can transfer under 50K Marriott without a redemption.
Over 50K for a redemption.
Thanks for responding. Maybe it is the hour but just to clarify, am I transferring all my points to my husband’s in spg now except for whatever is under 1000 points and the rest I am transferring to my marriott account and then transferring from there to my husband’s account? Usually I get things the first time but I am a little confused with how to do this and not lost those extra points.
That’ll work.
With the 1000 point increment you won’t be able to transfer the rest from SPG to Marriott either. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
So I should transfer everything besides the overage over, then wait for the remaining few hundred points to transfer on its own when Marriott does it. Then call in and combine the 2 Marriott accounts?
I don’t understand. Transfer the points to Marriott and not to other SPG account?
Dan, thanks as always!
same here
How do u transfer spg between accounts at the same address? It shows me u can only do 1,000 .
All it says are 1,000 point increments.
Has anyone had luck transferring tonight? I keep getting an error message.
would love to be Able to receive more then 50k as I wanted to upgrade the categories on the 7 night cert all the way to tier 1-3 is that possible ? without having to make the reservation on the spot as I want to wait for the Maldives st regis to become bookable under the new chart? and is there also a way to undo a 7 night cert down to a 5 night cert and get refunded 35k points thank you
You can do more than 50K for a redemption.
What about the pending points from purchases made over the last month that havent been applied yet?
What about them?
Say for example that I have 50k in points from two accounts and I combine them to 100k in one account. However, one of the accounts let’s say has 10k pending in points. This pending points being that they are under 50k will now be unable to be transferred. If instead we wait to transfer them everything will be transferable albeit with award redemptions.
You’ve been mentioned in earlier posts that the point merging will survive. Guess tht changed
It will survive, but as Marriott’s version.
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/starwood/starwood-marriott-merger-faqs-answers-questions-anniversary-nights-status-existing-cards/
Will I be able to transfer points to relatives for free with the new program?
Yes.
I’m referring to this. According to Marriott it makes no difference if it’s “relative” or not. So what you wrote in that article is a bit misleading.
If 5 full business days pass and the points have still not transferred over, you can call SPG and the can internally transfer them instantly. That’s what they did for me.
Will you be able to transfer 45k points and then wait a week and transfer another 44k? Is the 50k limit just per day?
Any issue with transferring starpoints INTO a newly created account? Provided that both accounts have same home address?
My question is: is there any waiting period required?
thanks for the post.
will transferring to another SPG account, extend the expiration ?
if i only have around 20k, is it worth it to just transfer to Marriott?
thank you
How often can I call in and transfer between Marriott accounts (under 50k…)?
Tried transferring 150 points into marriot but needed 1000 to do it. How can I transfer it?
Wait for the merger.
Ok, I combined my account with my wife’s acct purchased some extra Starpoints, transferred them all over to Marriott and we’re in for a Category 8 along with United miles! Attached it to a hotel in Kauai for May and we’ll hopefully be able to extend it out to the same hotel (or another at that level).
Thanks Dan! You ROCK!
🙂
Re: the SPG points is it more worth in redemption now before the merge or rather after it’s tripled in Marriott. Asking if I want to use/sell should rather do asap or rather wait?
No difference.
Just called Marriott and was told my account is locked and under review – all i did was transfer point from SPG – has anyone had this issue before?
SPG not allowing member to member transfers. Didn’t work online, called up and agent told me that everything was put on hold on their end because of the new program. She said it was hard wired and the system would not let her do the transfer.
Just called spg and was told transferring is now offline.