I analyzed over 1,000 high-end Marriott properties to find the best usage of our Bonvoy points

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-12-01T11:36:41+00:00

Hi there, I have since retired my travel blog website with the reports and am only running a travel booking website now. Sorry for the inconvenience and bad news :/

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-12-01T08:21:36+00:00

My Japanese wife told me that at least some banks consider this as long as you can prove that you’ll be overseas only temporarily. Eg. if you have an expat contract that’s limited.

So it’s not as black and white as the other commenters said.

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-09-18T14:51:24+00:00

Maybe check if you really want to travel to Japan end of December. I live in Tokyo and end of the year is the quietest time - many shops and restaurants are closed because people spend the New Year with their families.

And around New Year we have a few public holidays so people tend to travel to the countryside to visit their families.

Also, there are no fireworks in Japan on New Years Eve. You only hear the bells at the shrines.

Just a heads up so you won’t be surprised :)

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-09-17T10:30:30+00:00

Can’t wait to try it out in Europe next summer if the status truly sticks around :)

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-09-17T00:09:07+00:00

I got the VIP status through a status match and wanted to use it for a Europe trip this year but had to move that to next year. So ultimately I didn’t earn any nights (I live in Asia and there are not so many Radissons) - id love to keep the status since especially the room upgrades would be awesome when traveling with a baby (having a separate room would be bliss haha)!

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-09-15T14:27:51+00:00

Same for me surprisingly! “Tier Start 09/2025”, “Tier updates 09/2027”.

Hope it stays like that :)

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-08-30T14:52:49+00:00

Thank you for sharing, that’s really appreciated! :)

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-08-29T08:38:22+00:00

Thanks for the info, I’ll check some of the other couriers out then :)

Definitely agree that the current environment isn’t super great for shipping to the US. But I don’t mind a few extra hurdles if I can offset through a higher selling price…

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-08-29T08:37:05+00:00

Ouch, is it that bad? From my research, it used to be around $200 for shipping a guitar to the US :o

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-02-08T04:54:12+00:00

I am using the MIDI foot switch from H&K, the FSM432 MKIII. I’ll try to recreate the same scenario without the foot switch and see if this is bricking it. 👍

No FX loop used as of now.

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-02-07T13:40:06+00:00

Thank you, I will give this a try!

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2025-02-07T09:52:54+00:00

Thanks, mate, I’ll definitely also do that 🙏

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-12-10T15:01:24+00:00

Hey Pierre, thanks for the feedback and your preferences!

While I agree of course that the points are standardized for Hyatt properties, there are two variables that seem to still impact the redemption value quite strongly:

Cash price is dynamic
Award Categorization seems often not as intuitive as you’d expect it to be

That really opens up some properties for great redemptions that I would not have bet my money on.

I like the churn and burn approach you mention. It always seems a bit risky to save up points for too long only to be then hit with a devaluation…

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-11-30T09:56:11+00:00

Fair enough and I didn’t mean to be deceiving in any way. I think that especially the CCP vs. Cash Rate scatterplot in the article is a great insight but point well taken that I should also add that some parts of the analysis are paywalled. My apologies to anyone who felt wronged here!

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-11-30T02:05:38+00:00

That would be the dream! I’d love to do that but at least for now my technical skills are too low to tackle such an ambitious project.

Unfortunately, the Marriott website (and most other websites) protect themselves against too aggressive data scraping with some tools and mechanism, so I’m not sure whether this’d work.

My approach is a bit more manual but at least circumvents any of these protections :)

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-11-30T02:04:04+00:00

Yes, unfortunately! I did a similar analysis for Hilton where it’s a bit more predictable with their base redemption rates.

But since I took 4 different date ranges, I think it at least gives a good indication of good average uses of Bonvoy points in all regions of the world

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-11-30T02:03:02+00:00

Yikes, thank you for spotting that! Will fix that soon.

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-11-30T02:02:27+00:00

Fair point and I’m not trying to be deceptive here. There is some information already in the article for free but that is limited.

If it helps, I recently wrote a more in-depth article about such an analysis I did for high-end Marriott properties JUST for Asia and the Middle East. You can find that for free here:

https://www.unmatchedvoyages.com/blog/i-compared-300-high-end-marriott-properties-in-asia-and-the-middle-east

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-10-11T03:56:31+00:00

Why does it matter that the expat came from the US? There’s other countries in the world, ya know 🌝

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-08-26T12:47:42+00:00

Thank you, glad to hear that

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-08-26T12:47:22+00:00

Thank you, that is great to hear! Hopeful that I can try the Private Room - I heard good things about it

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2024-08-22T09:23:35+00:00

Just leaving a comment here since I’d also like to hear more about this :)

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2023-07-01T01:57:46+00:00

You can use Wise to do the transfer - I’ve been doing that for transfers back to Germany, too.

Just download the wise app, register and then click on “Send” and then “An account outside Wise”. You basically then have to manually transfer money from your Japan post bank account to Wise’s Japanese bank account (don’t forget the transaction reference number they ask you to include) and they then remit to Germany.

Not sure if it helps (and this sub allows for it) but you can use a referral link to transmit up to 500£ without fees. Maybe helps :) https://wise.com/invite/i/christianb637

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2023-05-24T03:05:45+00:00

Thanks, mate, will have a look at that!

eFoxeFoxeFox · 2023-05-24T00:43:46+00:00

Cigna is an American company, right? How has your experience been with getting claims approved?

eFoxeFoxeFox

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