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May
The teasers are over and the Starwood Preferred Guest “Nice Choice” promotion for summer travel has been announced for three months of earning bonuses. SPG members need to choose their earning period from three choices and you have until June 30, 2012 to register. My suggestion is do not register yet if you are unsure of which offer best matches your travel plans. Read More…
Starwood Preferred Guest is promoting its SPG.com/moments experiences with a month of April Hear the Music, See the World Sweepstakes for 9 Grand Prize winners who will have a choice of a music experience at one of nine Starwood Hotels brands in various locations around the globe.
One entry is earned by registering for the sweepstakes. An additional entry is earned for every hotel night booked and stayed in a Starwood Hotel April 3-30. Drawing is around May 4, 2012. Read More…
Starwood Preferred Guest launched a new feature last week for member discounts of 10% to 20% at more than 500 participating Starwood Hotel restaurants and bars globally. Starwood Hotels has offered Starpoints for hotel dining spend the past several years, even when not a registered hotel guest.
Link: Starwood Restaurants and Bars Read More…
Starwood Hotels has a bonus offer of 1,000 points per stay at 28 renovated hotels in the USA and Canada from March 20 – June 30, 2012.
This bonus may be earned multiple times at the same property or different properties for each eligible stay. Promotion FAQ.
SPG Renovations Worth Celebrating Promotion registration link. Registration by June 15, 2012 is required for this offer.
CANADA
British Columbia
Ontario
Quebec
UNITED STATES
Arizona
California
Colorado
Florida
Hawaii
Illinois
Indiana
Massachusetts
Michigan
Missouri
Nebraska
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
Texas
Virginia
Washington
SPG posted a link to a pdf list of Starwood Hotels changing category for 2012 on February 16, 2012 on this FlyerTalk thread with changes taking effect on March 1. Turns out that several hotels listed on the originally published list from Starwood Hotels did not actually change category, mostly hotels that were listed as going down, and some hotels not listed went up in category. The pdf list that is currently accessed through this link is different from the initial Feb 16 file. There are still inaccurate hotel category changes on the list today.
Here are a few of the hotels originally listed that did not change category and some new hotels that did change category since the February 16 list was published.
The hotels listed here are the discrepancies between the February 16 list of SPG hotel category changes and the March 16, 2012 list of SPG hotel category changes. At least two hotels are still listed with the incorrect category level on the SPG March 16 list with Le Centre Sheraton Montreal and Le Meridien Chiang Mai. There may be more changes, but without an accurate list from SPG those changes will be hard to detect.
This really is a regular occurrence with SPG annual category reassignments. I have written articles over the past few years and been burned by reporting SPG category changes for Hotel Gritti Palace, The Pulitzer in Amsterdam and Prince de Galles, Paris that didn’t happen after the original SPG list was published.
I want Starwood to continue publishing the annual changes, but keep in mind next February 2013 that the initial published list of Starwood Hotel category changes is not set in stone.
Le Centre Sheraton Montreal Hotel shown as dropping from Category 4 to 3 in pdf list online March 16.
This hotel actually increased and is listed on the Sheraton Montreal website today as SPG category 5.
Sheraton Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal) is celebrating 40 years with a special 40EUR rate available for a maximum 2 nights per stay. Four Deluxe category rooms (the hotel’s basic category) are set aside for each day of 2012. This rate is prepaid and nonrefundable. Use it as booked or lose your payment. The rate includes tax so comes out to US$52.66 at today’s rate of exchange for this SPG Category 4 hotel.
Sheraton Lisboa hotel website link. Read More…
I sandwiched my stay at Atlantis three weeks ago with hotel stays at Sheraton Nassau Cable Beach Resort. I stayed on Cash & Points for $60 and 4,000 points per night. That worked out to US$110 per night after tax and after adding the $40 daily resort fee. Starwood charges resort fees on award stays. Hyatt does not.
Published rates for my stay dates were $239 per night prepaid, nonrefundable or $269 AAA. 15% tax and $40 resort fee on top of that. At 4,000 points per night I was getting redemption value over $60 per 1,000 points.
Sheraton has a special offer for 1,000 Starpoints when you book a Club Lounge room for stays from February 21 through May 31 and pay with any American Express card.
This deal is not geared for SPG Platinum members who will likely have access to the Club Lounge anyway without booking a higher rate room.
From Milepoint.com:
Bookings made online at Sheraton.com/club or through Starwood’s Customer Contact Centers are eligible. If booking online, look for rate plans DAILYFS or SICLUB to auto-populate. If booking through the Customer Contact Centers, please ask for Promotion Code CL1.
Deal Analysis
Starwood Preferred Guest announced hotel category changes for reward nights effective March 1, 2012. The net effect is something like 138 hotels will drop in category level while 183 hotels rise in category level.
Update March 15, 2012: The tables here were based on the initial February 16 release of SPG category changes in a pdf. I copied those changes into a spreadsheet. Several of the hotels showing category changes in these tables were removed from the final change list. Starwood Lurker on FlyerTalk stated March 2 that the initial pdf was outdated.
Here are a few of the hotels originally listed that did not change category and some new hotels that did change category since the February 16 list was published.
[original Feb 21 post content continues below]
The numbers shown in this post may be off by a couple of hotels compared to the Starwood pdf. There are some hotels listed on the Starwood pdf of category changes that are no longer in the system (Syria) or exiting the Starwood family soon (Le Meridien Cancun). Four Points Seattle is shown as a change rising from category 2 to category 3, yet that hotel already is listed as category 3 on the SPG site.
The bad news is the hotels going up are concentrated in the upper tiers while hotels going down are primarily in lower tiers. This means that many resorts and high priced urban hotels will cost more points while many Sheraton and Four Points hotels already in the lower tiers will cost even less as of March 1.
SPG Birth Year rates are probably one of the lesser known rate discounts with the potential to cut your Starwood Hotel stay rate in half. The basic deal is you pay a generally higher than Best Flexible rate for the first night, then pay your birth year for the second night, and third night at some hotels. I was born in 1960 so my rate is $60 per night for the second and third nights. Even better is the flexible cancellation policy for these rates. Many hotels allow day before arrival or day of arrival cancellation with no penalty.
I have been writing about the birth year rate offer since 2009 and SPG has extended this offer for stays through 2012 at participating hotels.
Some changes I noticed in my recent review of these rates:
Starwood Starpicks offer discount rates over the next six weeks at select properties. The discount is typically 20% to 33% off the Best Flexible Rate. AAA and senior discounts are generally 10% off Best Flexible Rate.
Some hotels only offer Starpicks rates for weekends and other hotels offer discount rates seven days a week. Main point to know is these hotel rates are prepaid and nonrefundable. You can’t change the reservation or cancel. You lose the entire stay deposit if you need to change or cancel the hotel reservation.
The Starpicks list looks unusually large this week. January is the slowest period of the year in many places. My search of hotels in California and British Columbia show some good deal low rates at several hotels.
The format has changed and I do not see a webpage with a full list of hotels like in past weeks.
Sample of Starwood Starpicks hotels:
Paris – Le Meridien Etoile 149 EUR
Paris – Westin Vendome 272 EUR
Vancouver – Westin Bayshore 129 CAD
