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If you’ve ever wondered how to transfer SPG Starpoints to other people quickly and easily, wonder no longer!

You might already be familiar with SPG’s own transfer option, which allows you to transfer Starpoints online to people who have the same home address listed in their account as your own (addresses must match for at least 30 days before you can transfer). That can be useful, but there are two key limitations:

1. It seriously limits the number of people you can transfer to/from, unless you don’t mind changing the address on your account regularly, which could easily be seen as suspicious behaviour by SPG. Even then, you would have to wait 30 days between transferring to someone with a different address.
2.  Even if you already share addresses, it can take a while for the transfer to be processed – I’ve waited 2+ days previously. That might not sound like a lot of time, but when you spot rare award availability, you want to snap it up asap and any delay can be a killer.

Use Marriott Rewards to transfer SPG Starpoints

Marriott bought Starwood and these days you can transfer your SPG Starpoints to your Marriott Rewards account (and vice versa) instantly online for free.

I’ve done this many times (in both directions) and the process has always been completed instantly.

So, now you’ve moved your SPG Starpoints to your Marriott Rewards account – how does that help you transfer them to someone else?

Marriott Rewards has a very generous ‘Points Sharing’ feature which allows you to transfer up to 50,000 Marriott Reward Points each year to any other Marriott Rewards members, for any reason you like.

If you don’t have elite status you need to pay a nominal fee of $10 USD regardless of the size of the transfer, but for Gold and Platinum members it’s completely free.

To make a transfer, all you have to do is give Customer Support a ring and tell them the name of the person and the Marriott Rewards account number that you want to transfer to, along with how many Points you would like to transfer. I’ve tried it a couple of time recently and the phone calls were completed within about 90 seconds – and the transfer is instant.

The person you have transferred Marriott Points to can then transfer them over to their own SPG account online instantly.

In other words, you can send SPG Starpoints to anyone you want in about 3 minutes, with no restrictions apart from the amount.  There is a way around that too if you really need to send more, because “Members who are transferring points in order to satisfy a specific award may exceed the 50,000 limit up to the amount needed to satisfy the reservation”…

How to transfer SPG Starpoints bottom line

If you want to transfer Starpoints to someone who isn’t part of your household, or just want to do it quickly without waiting for SPG to process it, Marriott Rewards provides a fantastic solution. Even if you have to pay $10, it can certainly be worthwhile if you’re chasing scarce availability and time is of the essence.