Homewood Suites is offering 500 points for HHonors members using eCheck-in and Suite Selection by September 30. 

Loyalty Traveler is remiss in just now writing about this promotion as the offer has been available since August 1, so this is the last week for 500 points, but perhaps the offer will be extended.  Either way, the web feature is an innovative example of hotel technology for allowing the guest some choice in room selection.

The promotion link is here and the web page contains a link for a multimedia demonstration of “Choose Your Suite” that you can direct link to here.

Homewood Suites are an extended-stay brand with a kitchen and an apartment-style hotel with a central lobby for food and entertainment and a swiiming pool and activity areas. 

Extended-stay hotels are currently one of the high growth market segments in the hotel industry and Hilton has about 220 Homewood Suites properties around the USA.

I could have really benefitted from this FlyerTalk list by SanDiego1K of the Best Hilton Hotels in Europe back when I had one million HHonors points. In 2002 six-nights at any Hilton-family hotel up to Category 5 level was only 100,000 points and in 2008 these hotels are 150,000 points for six night stays using points.  There weren’t that many Category 6 HHonors hotels in 2002 when the cost was 150,000, and in 2008 there are many more Category 6 hotels at the rate of 175,000 points for six nights. For stays shorter than six nights the rate is 40,000 points per night.

Amsterdam Hilton is one of my favorites.

The Budapest Hilton stay is one I repeatedly rave about as one of the greatest views I ever had at a hotel.

While I have not stayed at the Hilton Dresden, I photographed the hotel last year.  The Hilton is located right in the center of the Altstadt, near the newly rebuilt Frauenkirche.  This Lutheran church is considered to be one of the most historically prominent cathedrals in Europe due to its association with Martin Luther.

The massive allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 created a firestorm which destroyed most of the city center and the Frauenkirche.  Kurt Vonnegut, the American novelist, was a POW in Dresden at the time of the bombing.  As a young teenager I became aware of Dresden through Vonnegut’s novels and the Dresden bombing is a central feature of Slaughterhouse Five.

I visited Dresden in 2000 and again in 2007.  The Hilton Dresden is a great resting point for a moving cultural experience in this historical city and surroundings.  There has been vast reconstruction in the vicinity of the Hilton this past decade and in many ways it seems like a Disneyland set with old-style new buildings and blackened older facades still tarnished from the 1945 firestorm.

If you make it to Dresden, be sure to allocate time to explore the countryside of Saxony along the Elbe River.  Once you leave the main cities of Leipzig and Dresden, the region really has limited international tourism.  I was amazed at how few people spoke English when I visited in 2000.  I loved it.

The region between Dresden and the Czech Republic border is known in English as Saxon-Switzerland.  This is one of my favorite regions of Europe for hiking and biking.  Bike paths along the Elbe River make for a great ride from Dresden all the way to the Czech border.

Dresden also has the Westin Bellevue and Four Points Konigshof hotels where I have stayed on my trips to the region.

A couple of weeks ago I came across a relatively new blog for Starwood Hotel lovers, titled *Wood.

Sharkieva has put together some nice posts that integrate significantly more technical components than what you will find here such as YouTube links, Snap photos, and maps.

I placed a link to the *Wood blog on the left side blogroll since I was having trouble re-finding the website through searches.

Check it out.  

*Wood is a pleasant Starwood multimedia experience from a Starwood Hotels fan.

GoldPoints Plus has a Quarter 4 promotion for members who complete 3 stays at any Carlson hotel property worldwide between October 1 and December 31, 2008 to be eligible for one hotel stay up to 4 nights in 2009 at 1/2 points of the standard redemption level for any Carlson hotel worldwide.

Carlson Hotel brands include Radisson Hotels, Country Inn and Suites, Park Inn, Park Plaza, and Regent Hotels.

The promotional stay is not transferable.

Four Nights at Half Points promotion offer link.

Promotion terms and conditions.

Read Loyalty Traveler’s June 2008 post “Carlson Hotels Worlwide GoldPoints Plus” for an overview of the hotel chain and loyalty program.

Our own BoardingArea.com blogger Joe Sharkey posted about the terrorist bombing attack that destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan on Saturday, September 20th. 

Adam Kirby of Hotels Magazine has compiled a list of news links regarding the Marriott Hotel bombing.

War is senseless acts of violence.

Best Western is in planning stages for hotel development in Laos. 

Generally I don’t discuss hotel development plans since I am more concerned with the present opportunities for hotel travel.  This headline caught my attention today due to seeing a TV travel show a couple of weeks back and its mention of the absence of western corporate development in Laos.  The country looked gorgeous, quite similar to the Pacific Northwest with mountains and forests. 

Intrigued I looked at the major hotel chains and was surprised not to see any hotel properties in Laos.  There may be some, but I didn’t find them in my inexhaustive search.

As a California teacher in Eureka back in 1997 I had the opportunity to work with an incredibly talented young 5th grade Hmong girl from Laos.  The small city of Eureka had a Hmong community located there and I enjoyed the cultural exposure to these southeast Asian mountain people and their traditions.   The colorful vibrant clothing was a delight to see.  The community was tightly linked and I think most of the Hmong left the area as a group the next year to relocate with another community in California.

In this era of corporate globalization I will reserve judgment as to whether corporate hotel development in the developing world is a good or bad thing. 

I think back to a trip I made to Bali in 2003, one year after the terrorist bombing in the Kuta District, when I stayed at the Luxury Collection Nusa Dua Laguna Resort and the hotel had fewer than 20% occupancy by my estimation.  I saw as many police and guards around the resort as I did tourists.  My poolside room looked out to a poolside bar and all day long a young Indonesian man wiped down the counters, swept the pool area, and diligently worked, despite not a single person coming by for a drink.  Eventually I felt compelled to go over and order a beer and engage him in conversation. 

He commuted 90 minutes each way every day from the other side of the island on a motorbike.  He told me about his family and how he was the money earner for the extended family.  He was deeply concerned about being laid-off.  Our hour of talking was the most memorable and touching part of my trip to Bali. 

I love to travel and Laos looks like a beautiful place to visit.  A traveler once asked me the most exotic place I have ever visited.  Safety is a big concern of mine and I really don’t venture frequently into exotic locales.  I have Laos on my “bucket list”.

And by the way I answered that Guayaquil, Ecuador was the most exotic place I have visited.  Unfortunately, exotic tends to also correlate with poverty and having homeless children follow me along the streets is a bit sobering.  I stayed at a Best Western in Guayaquil and the staff were armed and dangerous and watched over me.  I felt like I had my own Denzel Washington “Man on Fire” escort.

Link to Best Western Laos article from HotelsMag.com

TripAdvisor.com is growing at an incredible rate.  I primarily use the site for hotel reviews.  There are also travel forums for discussion, restaurant reviews and recommendations, and destination guides.

In July when I was “mile-high” in Denver I wrote a post, Online Hotel Reviews, comparing TripAdvisor.com to other hotel review sites and its dominance for online hotel reviews.  Looking at the post again today I noticed it was littered with inaccurate assumptions which led to incorrect mathematical analysis of the data.  I had made the assumption that the 1% of site visitors making consumer-generated comments were all hotel reviews when they actually include all types of comments from bulletin board forums to restaurant and sight-seeing recommendations.  I’ll blame my inaccurate analysis on oxygen-deprivation for this California coastal kid writing on the high plains of Colorado.    

The main point I made then and now is TripAdvisor.com is way ahead of the pack for sheer numbers of consumer-generated online hotel reviews. 

TripAdvisor’s media network includes www.Airfarewatchdog.com,  www.BookingBuddy.com,  www.CruiseCritic.com, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.theindependenttraveler.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com,  www.travel-library.com,  www.travelpod.com,  and www.tripadvisor.com.  Expedia.com is the parent corporate entity of this online travel site empire.

And with the financial backing of Expedia, TripAdvisor’s parent company, the social media website acquisitions of TripAdvisor makes this travel conglomerate the Bank of America of online travel research and search sites.  24 million unique monthly visitors and over 6 million registered members is an incredible database for the TripAdvisor-branded websites.

Tripadvisor fact sheet 

TripAdvisor does not actually sell hotel rooms.  Revenue is generated from pay-per-click sponsored ads on the webpage.  For example, looking at the Omni San Francisco Hotel webpage on TripAdvisor, there were 12 sponsored links for booking the Omni San Francisco Hotel through 8 different websites:  hotels.com (an Expedia family website), Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Omni Hotels, HotelClub.com (Orbitz owned), CheapTickets.com (Orbitz owned), Priceline.com, and Otel.com.

From the top of the page the first booking option for the Omni Hotel is a toll-free telephone ad for hotels.com (Expedia owned).  The box below that has four sponsored links: Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Omni Hotels, and Hotels.com.  Two of these links are Expedia booking sites.

Further down the page were four more sponsored links: HotelClub.com (Orbitz owned); CheapTickets.com (Orbitz owned); Priceline.com, and Otel.com.  The bottom of the webpage showed the same sponsored links as the top box.

While there were 12 sponsored links and one telephone toll-free number for actually booking the hotel from the main TripAdvisor webpage for the Omni San Francisco, the fact of the matter is five of these options are Expedia-owned websites and four are Orbitz-owned websites.  Omni Hotels has its own sponsored link appearing twice.  The other two sponsored link options were Priceline.com and Otel.com.

This analysis doesn’t help the consumer in determining which website link will have the lowest room price.  I am just looking at the webpage options provided to the consumer for this hotel property and the fact that most links from TripAdvisor go to Expedia or Orbitz companies.

Share of Online Travel Agency referrals from TripAdvisor for April 2008

Compete.com is a website analytics company that analyzes consumer behavior.  A Compete.com travel research report from July looked at the actual percentage of TripAdvisor referrals going to the different online travel agencies for the month of April 2008.

·         Expedia 48%

·         Travelocity 19%

·         Orbitz 16%

·         Hotels.com 11%  (Expedia)

·         Priceline 5%

·         Cheaptickets 1% (Orbitz)

·         Hotwire <1%  (Expedia)

Source: http://www.competeinc.com/research/newsletters/july-2008-travel-research/

The interesting aspect of this data is the large percentage of referrals going to Travelocity.com who had no sponsored links on the TripAdvisor webpage I studied for the Omni San Francisco hotel and few sponsored links on several other TripAdvisor hotel review pages I searched.  A few years ago (2005?) there was a Cornell Center for Hospitality Research report showing Travelocity.com most frequently had the lowest hotel rates of the Online Travel Agencies.  I have no idea if that would have any validity now in 2008.  I always book through the hotel owned websites for the best deal or seek the Best Rate Guarantee from the hotel company when I occasionally find a better rate with an online travel agency.

Compete.com had another interesting report posted September 11, 2008 analyzing the search traffic share for seven major online travel agencies.  The data reflects all travel search, not just hotels.  Expedia is the online search leader.

Online Travel Agency search share for July 07-July 08  (Expedia at 26% is referenced in the article and the other numbers are my estimates based on the Compete.com chart shown here)

·         Expedia 26%

·         Travelocity 17%

·         Orbitz 16%

·         Hotels.com 10%

·         Priceline 13%

·         Cheaptickets 10%

·         Hotwire 7%

Another chart in this report shows the percentage of paid search traffic to Online Travel Agencies (OTA).  36% of all search traffic comes through sponsored links.  The discussion at the beginning of this post regarding sponsored links on the hotel review webpages of TripAdvisor.com seems to correlate somewhat with this data.  Hotels.com has the highest percentage of visitors accessing the site through sponsored links (44%) and Hotels.com is also the most prominent OTA present on TripAdvisor webpages.

Travelocity is the second highest in percentage of paid search referrals (about 40%) and this may account for the high proportion of referrals from TripAdvisor although I did not see many Travelocity sponsored links on the TripAdvisor hotel review pages I checked.

Orbitz and its other company, CheapTickets.com, show about 35% of traffic is from paid search referrals. Their sponsored links are highly visible on TripAdvisor.  Expedia and Hotwire are around 34% paid search traffic.

Interestingly, Priceline.com has the lowest percentage of paid search traffic (about 27%), yet Priceline is showing strong growth in market share.  And I would expect them to gain even more market share in these tough economic times.

TripAdvisor.com “Take this job and shove it”

A former TripAdvisor web content editor, Diedre Kiely, filed a complaint in July claiming TripAdvisor violated Massachusetts law by classifying her and other content editors as independent contractors.  The suit is pending class-action certification in the U.S. District Court of Boston.  The independent contractors edit reviews of hotels and restaurants according to the complaint. 

The experience of unequal pay for the same work as a “permatemp” led me to say “screw corporate greed” and venture out on my own as Loyalty Traveler.  I still have no benefits and no paid vacation, but at least I have the opportunity to provide value-added content to other hard-working consumers and I can travel when I want.  

Posted from BlogWorld 2008, Las Vegas.  A big thank you to Randy Petersen and BoardingArea.com for sponsoring my trip here.

IHG 3 for 2 Breaks Around Britain

Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and Express by Holiday Inn have “autumn offers to fall for” with a 3rd night free for two paid nights on a 3-night stay.  

·         Most hotels require Friday-Sunday stays, however, some locations may have other days available for special offer rate. 

·         Special discount offer available for hotel stays from September 1 through December 26.

·         Reservations are pre-paid, nonchangeable, nonrefundable.

·         Paid nights earn Priority Club Rewards points.

·         Link to promotion offer terms and conditions.

Note: Express by Holiday Inn is the international brand name for the comparable Holiday Inn Express in the USA.

Loyalty Traveler Analysis:  I tried several hotel bookings online and did not see any mention to this 3^rd night free rate.  The terms state that some hotels may have blackout dates and some hotels may offer 3^rd night free for non-weekend stays.

Loyalty Traveler advice:  Book this offer through telephone reservations for better assurance that the promotional offer 3^rd night free rate is valid for your hotel stay.

IHG Priority Club 25,000 Points for 2 stays in UK or Germany

InterContinental Hotels Group has so many promotions going on right now that it is hard keeping up with the deals. 

This new promotion for 25,000 points after two hotel stays in the UK or Germany is actually a great deal for someone who had not planned to stay in Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, or Express by Holiday Inn hotels over the next few months.

Offer: Earn 25,000 points after two stays in Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, or Express by Holiday Inn in the UK or Germany.  (The fine print is discussed below and points earned are variable depending on your total earnings of points between Sep 15 and Dec 15.  It is possible to not earn any bonus points from this promotion if you earn 25,000 Priority Club points during the promotional period from other bonuses and stay activity.)

Promotion Dates: September 15, 2008 – December 15, 2008

Registration is required.  Offer is available to new and existing Priority Club members.  No retroactive credit for stays prior to registration.   Registration for this promotion automatically registers the Priority Club member for the global double points promotion during this same timeframe.  See my post on the double points promotion here.

Bonus Points Credited to account by January 15, 2009.

Link to 25,000 Points after Two Stays promotional offer terms and conditions.

Hotel loyalty programs are throwing free nights and bonus points offers at the consumer as economic conditions continue to slide around the globe.  The biggest advantage of the current Priority Club offer for stays in the UK and Germany is for the traveler who is focused on another loyalty program offer like the SPG “You Choose” offers discussed in yesterday’s post or Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights which I analyzed in this post. 

The Priority Club 25,000 points offer has an unusual and indefinite phrase regarding the points earned for this promotion:

“All members of Priority Club Rewards with two qualifying stays in a Crowne Plaza®, Holiday Inn®, or Express by Holiday Inn® hotel in the U.K. or Germany between 15/9/08 and 15/12/08 will receive whatever number of points are needed for the member to have accumulated a minimum of 25,000 Priority Club points earned from all IHG hotel stay-related points and bonus points-earning activities globally during the promotion period.”

Basically this clause in the offer terms makes this promotion much less valuable for Priority Club members participating in the current double Priority Club points promotion who may very well earn 25,000 points through other promotions and therefore would not receive any additional points from this promotion.

This 25,000 points offer has the highest value for a traveler who only has two stays during the promotional period.  25,000 points are sufficient for a free night at a Crowne Plaza hotel.  Assume you have two stays in the UK or Germany at a rate equivalent to $100USD per stay.  $200 in base spending will earn 2,000 Priority Club points.  Double points on the second stay will earn another 1,000 points for a total of 3,000 points on hotel stay spending.  The member will receive an additional 22,000 points from this promotion.

One of the most time-consuming aspects of real travel is getting from one place to another.  Hotel loyalty program promotions tend to have more lucrative special offers based on hotel stays rather than nights.  Accruing hotel stays means getting from one hotel to another and involves travel time.

My personal travel preference is to explore the immediate area I am located.  When I last stayed in Singapore I had four hotel stays in 5 nights.  I enjoyed each hotel and I enjoyed walking the neighborhoods around each location.  Hotel hopping suits me when I am traveling for leisure (well, okay, I also hotel hop for business).  My wife, on the other hand, wants to go someplace and stay as long as possible in the same hotel without moving around.  Her travel style favors promotions based on hotel nights.  We tend to redeem hotel points for multi-night stays.

One of the advantages I see with this promotion is the ability to stay in one city and bounce from a Starwood brand hotel to the IHG brand hotel or the Hyatt hotel to the IHG brand hotel and maximize two promotions while hotel hopping in one city location. 

This autumn has plenty of free night and bonus points earning opportunities for the frequent traveler who plans travel with two or three loyalty programs.  Of course this all assumes your fortunes haven’t tanked and you still have money to travel. 

Starwood Preferred Guest – “You Choose” Fall 2008 promotion

Starwood Preferred Guest yesterday unveiled their SPG 4^th quarter promotion, “You Choose”, with plenty of fan-fare and some complaints among the FlyerTalk crowd.   Bottom line:  The promotion has competitive value for the end-of-year offerings among the major hotel loyalty programs. 

SPG Promotional Offer:  There are 12 offer choices and the SPG member has until November 15, 2008 to register for a promotional offer.  Offer choices are outlined below in this post.

Note: All stays/nights within the promotion dates will apply retroactively towards the SPG offer choice selected, except for the “Double Stays” or “Double Nights” offer requires the SPG member to register and select Double Stays or Double Nights for this option to take effect.  No retroactive credit for Double Stays/Nights before registration. 

Promotion Dates:  Stays and nights from October 1 – December 31 are eligible for promotion.

Choose Your SPG Offer Carefully: Once you select your choice of the 12 offers, there is no changing your mind.  Unless you plan to choose Double Stays and Nights, there is no reason to make your decision right away, as all other options will apply retroactively to October 1 stays and nights as long as you register by November 15, 2008.   

SPG actually has recommendations for promotion choices based on your anticipated stay pattern for the final quarter of 2008.

SPG Promotion 12 Offer Choices:

1.      Elite Status – Double all eligible nights and stays.  SPG elite status normally requires 10 stays or 16 nights for Gold elite membership.  Platinum elite membership takes 25 stays or 50 nights. 

Loyalty Traveler analysis: Double stays and nights reduces the elite qualification for Gold membership to 5 stays or 8 nights.  Platinum elite will take 13 stays or 25 nights.  A member who can reach gold or platinum elite status will hold that membership level through February 2010. 

Platinum elite benefits include regular upgrades worth $50 to $100+ per night when staying at most hotels.  Platinum elite members can receive 500 points per stay as a platinum amenity gift with each hotel stay (250 points for Four Points stays).  Platinum elite members have no minimum transfer requirement for Starpoints to airline miles. (It is a nice feature to be able to transfer 10 Starpoints into an airline frequent flier account to extend the expiration date for miles in airline programs with no activity.  Gold members have 1,500 points transfer minimum and non-elites have a 2,500 points transfer minimum.) 

2.      Free Weekend Night – two choices for earning a free weekend night at any Category 1-5 hotel.  A category 5 hotel in peak season is a 16,000 point value.

a.      Four stays earns a free weekend night  (limit of two free weekend nights after 8 stays)

b.      Eight nights earns a free weekend night (limit of two free weekend nights after 16 nights)

Loyalty Traveler analysis:  These options potentially have the biggest return for the least investment.  Four stays can be earned for as little as $300 in some locations and there are some Category 5 hotels with $400/night minimum rates.  The drawback is the limit of two free nights for this promotion.  As an SPG platinum member I like this choice because I will probably receive a $200+/night complimentary upgrade on the free stay. Eight stays will provide an equivalent of 24,000 Starpoints for two free weekend nights at a Category 5 Starwood hotel.  Keep in mind though that Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights offers a free night with every two stays during this same promotional period.  Also, the offer of 25,000 points for 10 stays awards points which have much greater flexibility in use.  A Category 5 hotel on a Cash & Points award only costs 4,800 points and $90 per night. 

Free weekend nights choices are all about the redemption option you think you can use.  An advantage of the SPG free nights offer is the redemption period is through April 30, 2009 whereas Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights must be redeemed by February 28, 2009.

3.      Bonus Starpoint Offers (7 choices)

a.      Earn 2,000 bonus Starpoints with every two (2) stays. Maximum of 10,000 bonus Starpoints with 10 stays.

b.      Earn 2,000 bonus Starpoints with every four (4) nights. Maximum of 10,000 bonus Starpoints with 20 nights.

Loyalty Traveler analysis: These offers are geared for the person who does not want or need elite status and who has limited stays/nights planned for the rest of 2008.  Choose nights if you plan a multi-night trip.  If you are looking at maxing out this offer, then consider going for the higher threshold offers with 6 stays or 12 nights to earn more points.

c.       Earn 9,000 bonus Starpoints with every six (6) stays. Maximum of 36,000 bonus Starpoints with 24 stays.

d.      Earn 9,000 bonus Starpoints with every twelve (12) nights. Maximum of 36,000 bonus Starpoints with 48 nights.

Loyalty Traveler analysis: These two offers favor the frequent guest who can reach 6 stays or 12 nights, but is confident that travel will not allow 10 stays or 20 nights during the promotion.  A travel plan for 10 stays or 20 nights will earn substantially more points with the 25,000 bonus point offers below.  A mattress run to cover the difference between 6 stays and 10 stays will earn an additional 16,000 points for just four more stays.  That is a bonus worth earning if you can plan your travel for it.

e.      25,000 bonus Starpoints with every ten (10) stays. Maximum of 100,000 bonus Starpoints with 40 stays.

f.        Earn 25,000 bonus Starpoints with every twenty (20) nights. Maximum of 100,000 bonus Starpoints with 80 nights.

Loyalty Traveler analysis: These two offers favor the frequent guest who plans to be spending substantial time in Starwood hotels over the next three months.    Considering it would take 80 of 92 nights of the promotion in Starwood Hotels to max out at 100,000 points for the nights offer is quite a hurdle and takes a true SPG loyalty traveler.  2,500 bonus points per stay or 1,250 bonus points per night are good rebates in Starpoints on your paid stays.

Assume $150/night on one-night stays as a platinum elite.  The SPG member could earn 450 Starpoints + 500 platinum amenity + 2,500 points/stay = 3,450 Starpoints with a purchase value equivalent of $120.75.  Even more points with an SPG Amex card payment.  This is essentially a rebate of 70 to 80% of the room cost if averaging $150/night rooms.  Drop the average room rate to $100/night for your paid stays and the points earned are worth about the same amount as the room rate paid.

Maximizing promotional value: Assume no current status with SPG and a frequent guest completes 30 one-night stays at $90/night average room rate and 10% tax. 

10 stays = 1,800 base points (10 nights x $90/night) + 25,000 points = 26,800 Starpoints

Gold elite status earned after 10 stays and earn 50% elite bonus Starpoints.

20 stays = 1,800 base points + 900 elite bonus + 25,000 points = 27, 700 Starpoints

30 stays = 1,800 base points + 900 elite bonus + 2,500 platinum amenity (for stays 26-30) + 25,000 Q4 bonus points = 30,200 points.

Summary:  30 stays costing $3,000 earns platinum elite status through February 2010 and 84,700 Starpoints ($2,964.50 cash purchase value since SPG sells Starpoints for $35/1,000.)  84,700 Starpoints are sufficient for a 5^th night free hotel stay at a Category 6 hotel such as the Westin Paris, April 20-25, 2009 with the current minimum room rate at 410€/night.  The value of this 5-night stay would be $2,901USD and as a platinum member the likely room upgrade would increase the value of your free stay on points.

This example shows that the Q4 promotional offer provides a way for the frequent guest new to Starwood to earn loads of Starpoints while earning high elite status.

4.      Double Starpoints with no earning limits

Loyalty Traveler analysis:  This is the choice for the SPG high-spender member who already has or doesn’t need status.  Since only base points (2 points/$1) are doubled, this offer favors the SPG member spending loads of cash.  10 stays can earn 25,000 points and 2 stays can earn 2,000 points with other choices in this promotion, so this offer is good for the person who may be paying $500/night for a hotel stay.  Assume $6,000 spent for a 12-night stay would only earn 9,000 bonus Starpoints (12 nights offer) or 6,000 Starpoints (2,000 points per 4 nights offer) with other promotional choices.   Double points on $6,000 spending earns 12,000 bonus points and may be the best option for some. 

Imagine you are a real high-roller and plan to spend $50,000 at Starwood Hotels, then this option is your route to 100,000 bonus Starpoints with far fewer than 40 stays or 80 nights.  As I recall, Starwood had a couple of properties on the $3,000+/night suites in a hotel survey I saw last month.

5.      $25 Amazon Gift Cards

a.      $25 Amazon gift card for every two (2) stays up to ten (10) stays for five gift cards.

b.      $25 Amazon gift card for every four (4) nights up to twenty (20) nights for five gift cards ($125).

Loyalty Traveler analysis: Poor value in my opinion.  Take a 2,000 Starpoints offer instead.