Very much my second choice of hotels (third in truth), I do have active accounts with both Starwood and Marriott. I am lucky enough to have Gold in both programmes too – Starwood from my Platinum Amex and Marriott from my 1K United Airlines MileagePlus account.

Merging today gave me no increase in status as the Gold levels are matching across the schemes as are the Platinum levels, but holding Gold in both gets you no more than if were only Gold in one.

The process can start from either web site and briefly takes you to the other to log in there. The system picks up your account numbers automatically and matching them.

Once matched there is an on-screen confirmation:

You can then start to transfer points at the rate of 1 Starwood point = 3 Marriott points. This generally thought to be fair, but not generous.

What it does mean is that you need to watch where you have your points if you plan to exchange them for airlines miles. You may well find that they are more valuable for this purpose as Marriott Rewards points. Check before you do any exchanges! Check out the Marriott Flight and Hotel packages to see.

Transferring is easy – just put in how many points you want to exchange and click the circular arrow. The system calculates the number and off you go!

With my point levels (see above) I won’t be losing much sleep over this merger. My only interest is that I am not far from Starwood Lifetime Gold – not that it gets you much!