How To Transfer Starwood Preferred Guest Points To Others With No Fee

Starwood Preferred Guest points are among my favorite and I often find myself using Starwood points to stay at hotels. While many airlines charge fees to transfer points between accounts, Starwood allows members to transfer for free provided they have the same residential address listed in their accounts. This is a very useful option to be aware of since having more Starwood points in a single account opens up a wider array of options for their uses.

For an overview of Starwood Preferred Guest points and my favorite options for using them, check out my Full Review of the Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express.

Why would we want to transfer points to another account? 

A few reasons:

• You have multiple travelers and want to make a single booking to make things easier: While you can book separate nights from different accounts and combine them into a single stay, it may be worth it to just combine first and avoid the hassle.
• You may want to take advantage of fifth night free awards: For hotel Categories 3 and above, the Starwood Preferred Guest program offers a fifth night free option. That is, a Category 5 hotel will cost 12,000 points a night in low season. However, 5 nights will cost 48,000 points. Thus, it is beneficial to have all 48,000 points in one account.
• You may want to transfer Starwood Preferred Guest points to an airline partner: Starwood has 30 different airline partners you can transfer your points to. In addition, for every 20,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points you transfer, you receive a 5,000 point bonus added to your transfer.  So it’s best to have at least 20,000 Starwood points if you plan to transfer to airline partners. For a full guide on transferring your Starwood Preferred Guest points to airline partners, read:  How to Trans­fer Star­wood Pre­ferred Guest Points to Air­line Miles.
• You may want to take advantage of Starwood Nights & Flights redemption options: The Starwood Preferred Guest program has a unique option when redeeming 5 night stays at called Nights & Flights. This applies to Category 3 and 4 hotels. For 60,000 points, you receive 50,000 miles and 5 nights at a Category 3 hotel. For 70,000 points, you receive 50,000 miles and 5 nights at a Category 4 hotel. 

Examples Where More Points in One Account = Better Value

Let’s look at an examples where the power of Starwood Preferred Guest points becomes significantly higher once they are combined into a single account. Say you have a couple and each person signs up for the Star­wood Pre­ferred Guest® Credit Card from Amer­i­can Express. Each card comes with a 25,000 point bonus after spending $5,000 within 6 months. After meeting the minimum spending requirement, each person will have 30,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points for a total of 60,000 points between the couple.

If they combine their points, the couple can then spend 48,000 on five nights at Westin Grand Cay­man Seven Mile Beach Resort & Spa this fall, for example. Each night is 12,000 points, but their fifth night is free. They can then use their 12,000 remaining points on a sixth night. That’s a great use of their points! This gets them a 6 night vacation in the Cayman Islands on a very nice beach. That’s probably how I would redeem my points.

Alternately, they can spend another $10,000 on their cards to collect 70,000 points and go for a Category 4 Nights & Flights redemption. Then they receive 5 nights at a Category 4 hotel plus 50,000 miles. As an example, they can take a trip to Thailand and redeem for 5 nights at Le Meri­dien Beach Resort Phuket. In addition, they will receive 50,000 American Airlines or British Airways or US Airways miles to help them buy the ticket to Thailand as well. 

The Rules to Transfer Starwood Preferred Guest points between accounts

1. Make sure both accounts have been active for at least 30 days and have the same address for the past 30 days.
2. Once this is the case, visit the Points Transfer Form on the Starwood Website. 
3. There is no limit to the number of points that can be transferred. The transfer can take up to a week, though they often do get processed much quicker.
4. Starwood Vacation Owners can transfer points between each other regardless of address.

While Starwood does not generally verify your residence, they do reserve the right to require proof. They can also take away your points if they suspect fraud. I would not abuse this feature.

Other posts you may like:

• Full Review of the Starwood Preferred Guest Card
• How We booked Rio de Janeiro for Carnival 2014 for a Total Cost of $120

• How to Transfer Starwood Preferred Guest Points to Airline Miles