How to convert Westin player points to Starwood points (and then to airline miles)

The Westin Casuarina is the only Starwood property in Las Vegas, and you earn Starpoints whenever you spend money there.

But did you know that if you gamble in the casino, you’ll earn Casuarina player points that you can then convert to Starpoints?

And then, through Starwood, you can convert Starpoints to miles at many airlines on a 1:1 basis.

Last year after a few days of degenerate gambling at Westin, I built up $100 worth of points, but there isn’t much to purchase with those points – just an overpriced steakhouse, an overpriced Starbucks, and a gift shop.  It used to be better when Planet Hollywood was a Starwood property, but they converted to Caesars last year.

So I took Westin up on a little-advertised offer, and went to the front desk to convert all of my player points to Starwood points ($10 in points = 1,000 Starwood points).  Make sure they give you a receipt, because it still wasn’t credited to my account two months later, and I had to make a few “this is unacceptable” calls.

Then I went to the Starwood website, where they’re running an ongoing promotion that for every 20,000 points exchanged for American Airlines AAdvantage miles, you’ll get an extra 5,000 miles.

A good deal all around, particularly considering Starpoints expire after a year (or 18 months, depending who you talk to) of inactivity.

Now I can use the miles to return to Vegas, where I can lose more money for more points for more miles.

Ah, the cycle of a gambler’s life.