TAP Sale: Fly Biz to Europe From 120,000 Marriott Points (40k SPG)
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
Compared to any of the other transferrable points programs, Marriott Rewards partners with many more airline loyalty schemes, even more than American Express and Chase combined.
One of its 45 transfer partners is TAP Air Portugal, a Star Alliance carrier that's been quickly expanding in the last few months.
TAP's Miles and Go program is currently running a sale on all award flights, it's offering 50% off flights to any destination in both business and economy. That means you can fly from the US to Europe in lie-flat business for as little as 50,000 miles one-way or 100,000 miles round-trip — or 120,000/240,000 Marriott points. For reference, at legacy SPG rates that's only 40,000/60,000 points you would have needed to transfer. Note that the discount only works on flights operated by TAP and not on Star Alliance partners like United or Lufthansa.
TAP's business class has gotten great reviews on both configurations of its Airbus A330s, and it will soon roll out the new A330neo on routes to the US.
Let's take a look at TAP's award chart for the sale (all prices are one-way), you can fly from North America to Portugal in economy for 50,000 miles or to the rest of Europe and North Africa for 52,500 miles. Economy flights go for 26,000 miles/28,500 miles.
Since Marriott points convert to TAP miles at a 3:1 ratio you would need to transfer the following amount to TAP's program. Remember that for every 60,000 points you transfer to an airline program, you get a 5,000 mile bonus.
- US --> Portugal in business = 120,000 Marriott points = 50,000 TAP miles
- US --> Europe or North Africa in business = 128,000 Marriott points = 52,666 TAP miles
- US --> Portugal in economy = 63,000 Marriott = 26,000 TAP miles
- US --> Europe or North Africa in economy = 71,000 Marriott = 28,666 TAP miles
The deal is only valid for trips taken in February and March, except for the blackout days of Feb. 22 through March 11. You'll need to book by Jan. 31 to take advantage of the discounted rates.
It's worth looking at award availability before you transfer points since you can't transfer them back to Marriott, or else you may be stuck with a load TAP miles. Also note that it can take quite some time for a points transfer to complete with TAP. Marriott has plenty of other great airline transfer partners, including Alaska and JAL, where you can get outsized value from its points.
The airline is also offering 50% discount on miles and cash bookings — head to TAP's website to get the full details of the promotion.
If you're interested in earning Marriott points the Starwood Preferred Guest® American Express Luxury Card and the Marriott Rewards Premier Plus Credit Card are offering 75,000 point welcome bonuses after spending 3,000 in the first three months of card membership.
H/T: Frequent Miler
*This post has been updated to correct a mistake in interpreting TAP's award chart. A previous version of this story said the deal was for 60,000 Marriott points, but that calculation was made applying the half off deal to TAP's already discounted chart.
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