As you may well know, SPG points are extremely flexible transferable a bunch of airline miles. I didn’t notice this until just a few minutes ago, and I saw this on twitter that SPG had changed it’s transfer ratio to LANPass. I went and checked the Starwood Airline Transfer Partner Page, and lo and behold:
Changed Transfer Ratio
Wow, that is a bit shocking. The previous transfer ratio was 1:2, which means that instead of receiving 50,000 points for every 20,000 SPG transferred, you are now going to receive only 37,500 which is 25% less. That is a real shame as the LAN chart both on partners as well as on their own flights were pretty good.
Since it requires 100,000 LANPass Kms to fly business class from North America to parts of South America, 40,000 SPG was a pretty good deal. Now it will require just under 60,000 miles for the same award. That is a pretty significant increase.
I am surprised and a bit disappointed for the lack of advance (public) notice.
F…
My LAN points factory lost efficiency enormously 🙁
It was a real good deal with 1:2 ratio as most other airlines (incl. Miles and More) get only 1:1.
So lets pray for HHonors where LAN has a 4:1 while Miles and More only 10:1.
However domestic flights in Argentina are still way cheaper by buying the LAN points and redeeming them rather than paying the ticket completely…
Really surprised with SPG because they are usually really good about giving members a heads up. Then again didn’t they recently change a cat. of a hotel without announcing it? Hope this is not the NEW SPG way of doing things.