Starwood Preferred Guest Cash & Points awards are the best way to get excellent value out of your SPG points. Cash & Points Award Nights, when offered, provide a 60% discount in the points required for a free room night in exchange for a specific cash co-pay that is set according to the SPG hotel redemption category.
Free nights using points-only is covered by the SPG “No Blackouts” policy, but the Cash & Points option is not. Cash & Points may have blackout dates, and in fact, are frequently not offered on the SPG website when points-only rooms are available. [Tip from Gary Leff is to call the hotel anyway and check for Cash & Points even when they are not appearing on the website. He reports this frequently works for Cash & Points awards.] When you have the Cash & Points award option it is a great way to conserve points on a hotel stay.
Here are some important points regarding Cash & Points award stays:
-
Cash & Points Awards are not applicable to the 5th Night Free Awards. A 5-night stay requires 5 nights of Cash & Points payment. A “Points-Only” 5th night free award requires only 4 nights of points-only payment.
-
Cash & Points award stays do not earn Starpoints on the paid cash portion. You are eligible for Starpoints on other eligible hotel charges like dining. A Cash & Points stay may not even show up on your account. Check with the hotel or SPG if no points post on additional charges from your Cash & Points hotel stay.
-
Cash & Points award stays are not eligible for elite qualifying credit. This also applies to points-only award stays.
-
Cash & Points award stays may not be upgraded in advance with supplemental points. Points-only award stays may be upgraded in advance based on availability using additional points. As an SPG Platinum member I have frequently received very nice upgrades on Cash & Points awards.
-
International hotels priced in non-US Dollars will be converted to local currency for payment. (Loyalty Traveler note – some exchange rates are wacky. I have ended up paying 20% less than the US dollar amount and I have paid 20% more than the US dollar amount for Cash & Points stays outside the US.)
SPG Cash & Points Award Table with Loyalty Traveler Excellent Quality Scale
Yesterday’s Loyalty Traveler post displayed a qualitative table based on a scale where an excellent redemption value for your points results in a cash savings greater than $35 per 1,000 points spent. The table points out the difficulty in getting a high redemption value in the range of $35 per 1,000 Starpoints when redeeming points for SPG high category hotels.
An SPG Category 6 hotel needs to be over $700 per night when spending 20,000 points for a free night in order to realize a cash savings of $35 per 1,000 points redeemed. Most Category 6 hotels are not priced that high in the present hotel travel economic environment.
The value of Cash & Points becomes apparent when running the numbers for these awards at a Category 6 hotel.
For example, St. Regis Monarch Beach at Dana Point, California is a SPG Category 6 property. A check of rates for next week shows Cash & Points availability for the dates Tuesday, November 3 to Friday, November 6 for a 3-night stay.
Here are the options: (I am ignoring the $25 per day resort fee in these calculations. The resort fee is additional to numbers shown for the three options. Tax is a confusing issue. Sometimes I have been charged hotel tax on the Cash portion of the Cash & Points award and other times I have not paid the tax. In the past two years the hotel tax has usually been applied to the cash portion for my US hotel Cash & Points award stays.)
St. Regis Monarch Beach Payment Options
Cash & Points: $150 + 8,000 points per night = $450 + 24,000 points
Points-Only: 20,000 points per night = 60,000 points
Cash-Only: $470 per night (includes 10% tax) = $1,410
The SPG redemption options are either spend 60,000 points to save $1,410 or spend 24,000 points to save $915.
$1,410 cash-only rate – $495 cash portion of Cash & Points rate = $915 equivalent value of points.
(I added 10% hotel tax to the cash portion of $450 for 3 nights = $45 tax for the award stay).
Spending 60,000 points for 3 hotel award nights gives a redemption value of $1,410 ÷ 60,000 = $23.50 per 1,000 Starpoints.
I rate this as a “Fair” redemption value in my Redemption Quality table shown above for SPG Category 6 hotels.
Spending 24,000 points to save $915 gives a redemption value of $915 ÷ 24,000 = $38.12 per 1,000 Starpoints and now the redemption value rates as “Excellent” in the Loyalty Traveler Category 6 redemption quality scale.
At this rate of redemption value the remaining 36,000 points saved by using Cash & Points rather than 60,000 points for Points-only free nights at the St. Regis Monarch Beach next week has a value of $1,372 for future cash savings on hotel stays. (36,000 points x $38.12/1,000 points = $1,372)
The economics of Cash & Points provides high value opportunity for Starwood Preferred Guests.
Here are SPG Cash & Points Redemption Quality tables to correspond with the Points-Only tables from yesterday’s Loyalty Traveler post.
SPG Cash & Points Redemption Quality Guide
Loyalty Traveler's SPG Cash & Points Redemption Quality Guide
[...] hotel award value. The tables were based on the purchase price of $35 per 1,000 points needed for Cash & Points awards, free night awards, and 5th night free awards. These awards are even a better bargain at lower room [...]
Sound great.
I am planning on taking a trip this december, but im not sure where yet.
Anny suggestions?
Vacation All Inclusive Resorts
,..] boardingarea.com is one useful source on this subject,..]
Hey very nice blog!!….I’m an instant fan, I have bookmarked you and I’ll be checking back on a regular….See ya
I’m Out!
[...] Excellent value with SPG Cash & Points awards [...]
Ric,
in calculating original room rate after tax, you must mean after tax + not counting the co-pay for Cash & Points. I.e you have category 6, $35 per 1000 = room rate of $430, which saves 12,000 points ($150 + 8,000 vs. 20,000).
However, the original room rate would have to be $580 after tax for the redemption to be $35/1000.
$580 = 20,000 = ($150 + 8,000). 12,000 pts = $430, = $35.8 per 1000 pts. At an after tax room rate of $430 originally, the calculation is as such:
$430 = 20,000 = ($150 + 8,000), or $280 = 12,000 pts. Redemption of $23.3 per 1,000 pts. Am I looking at this wrong?
Ken – I had to think about this for a couple of minutes. Mathematically I think you are looking at this wrong.
You have three payment choices for a SPG category 6 hotel night:
1)$430 after tax
2)20,000 points
3)$150 + 8,000 points if Cash & Points is available
12,000 points does not come into the equation.
I compared a Cash & Points award to a paid stay. The points-only award is not a factor in this. In general the points-only award will almost always have a lower cash equivalent points value than a Cash & Points award.
I compared a Cash & Points award to a paid hotel night after including tax. In my experience there is generally no hotel tax paid on the cash portion of a Cash & Points award stay although some hotels will charge hotel tax on the cash portion.
Paid night: Assume a SPG category 6 hotel with $385 nightly rate + 12% hotel tax = $431.20 for one night.
A 20,000 points award night would have a value of $431.20/20,000 points = $21.56 per 1,000 Starpoints.
Rather than paying $431.20 or using all points for a free night the better value might be the option of a Cash & Points category 6 award for $150 + 8,000 points.
In this example you are still paying $150 of the $431.20 nightly rate. You are essentially exchanging 8,000 points for $281.20 in cash saved.
$281.20/8,000 points = $35.15 value per 1,000 points.
The simplicity of this points valuation ignores the fact that a paid stay would earn points, elite credit, and likely some kind of SPG promotion credit.
$385 per night would earn 770 points for a base member or 1,155 points per night for elites. Incidental spend and Platinum amenity will be same for Cash & Points award stay as a paid stay.
The points are redeemed for higher value using Cash & Points ($35.15 per 1,000 points) than using 20,000 points for the free night ($21.56 per 1,000 points).
Ric, you’re right. I did it as this equation:
20k = $430 = 8k + $150
and subtracted $150 from $430 = $280, and the 8k from the 20k = 12k. Somehow it made sense at the time to simplify the equation to:
12k = $280, when technically it should have been:
12k – $150 = $280, or 12k = $430 = 3.5 cents.
And you’re right, the 20k should have even come into the equation in the first place. the easy way to do it is the way you did:
$430 = $150 + 8k
$280 = 8k. $280 / 8k = 3.5 cents.
Sorry, it’s been awhile since I’ve taken Algebra. Keep up the good work!
[...] I'd use the SPG Amex and use it for hotel stays. Check out Ric Garrido's post from awhile back: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyalt…points-awards/ [...]