1
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
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 Starwood Lurker on FlyerTalk stated March 2 that the initial pdf was outdated.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
Starwood Preferred Guest launches its “Better by the Night” 2012-Q1 promotion on January 9 with double points for two night stays and triple points for longer stays through April 8, 2012. There are no bonus points for one night stays. There is no limit to bonus points members may earn with this offer.
Registration is required by March 15, 2012.
This promotion is valid for about 70% of Starwood Hotels worldwide with all Asia-Pacific hotels opting out of this offer. About 50 hotels in the USA are not participating, so check the hotel exclusion list carefully when planning your stays so you are not surprised when your $1,000 3-night stay does not earn an anticipated 4,000 extra bonus points with the triple points offer. Germany, Italy and Greece have many nonparticipating Starwood Hotels. Link to hotels excluded from this offer.
Loyalty Traveler Analysis
As a rule of thumb I estimate I will earn 1,000 bonus points from SPG promotions per stay. I am not that impressed by this offer. One night stays earn no promotional bonus points with this offer.
Stay two nights and spend $300 and you earn an extra 600 bonus points with double points.
Spending $1,000 on an extended stay will earn 4,000 bonus points (3x points bonus) with this promotion. That is a decent bonus on a high-priced extended stay, but is not appealing to me as a promotional incentive when I can get two free nights with Marriott Rewards after four stays (under $500) or 10,000+ points on a cheap $180 two-night weekend stay with Hilton HHonors.
Spend-based bonuses like this SPG offer leave minimal opportunity to leverage cheap stays into free nights like the Hilton and Marriott offers for Q1-2012.
SPG has a good offer for free weekend nights at Asia Pacific resorts with Two Days of Happy running through March 15, 2012. This SPG promotion earns one free night after five nights and two free nights after 9 nights when paying with MasterCard. There are over 200 hotels for earning free nights and nearly 90 resorts for redeeming free weekend nights by April 10, 2012. Nights do not need to be consecutive nights at the hotels. Five one-night stays at participating Starwood hotels will earn one free weekend night.
Fine Print Nuances for this Offer
Starwood’s FAQ for this promotion has an interesting term regarding a stay that includes a reward night on points or Cash & Points night combined with paid nights.
If part of my stay has an Award Night or a night using Cash & Points, will my stay qualify?
No.
Free Night Awards and Cash & Points are not Starpoints-eligible rates. Even if part of the stay is Award and part is paid, the member will not receive bonus credits for any part of the stay.
You do not want to include a reward night within a paid consecutive nights stay at a Starwood Hotel during this promotion. For example, if you booka 5th night free reward from Sunday-Thursday followed by two paid nights on Friday and Saturday, then you will not receive double points for the Friday and Saturday night portion of the stay stay since these paid nights are part of the same 7-night stay as the 5th night free reward.
Other fine print:
Calculating Double and Triple Starpoints
Excluded Hotels for SPG Better by the Night promotion
(Once again there are no city/state identifiers for hotels. As if it isn’t bad enough to have a large list of excluded hotels for a hotel loyalty promotion, the hotel loyalty programs expect SPG members to know the hotels by name and deduce the geographic location on your own!)
UNITED STATES
ALGERIA
ARGENTINA
AUSTRALIA
AUSTRIA
BANGLADESH
BRAZIL
CAMBODIA
CANADA
CHAD
CHILE
CHINA
COLOMBIA
EGYPT
EL SALVADOR
FIJI
FRANCE
GERMANY
GREECE
HUNGARY
INDIA
INDONESIA
IRELAND
ITALY
JAPAN
JORDAN
LEBANON
LITHUANIA
MALAYSIA
MALDIVES, REPUBLIC OF
MAURITIUS
MEXICO
NEW CALDONIA
NIGERIA
OMAN
PAKISTAN
RUSSIA
SAUDI ARABIA
SINGAPORE
SOUTH KOREA
SPAIN
SWITZERLAND
SYRIA
TAIWAN
THAILAND
TURKEY
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
UNITED KINGDOM
URUGUAY
VIETNAM
YEMEN
Conde Nast Traveler has released its Gold List 2012 for the World’s Best Places to Stay. There are 511 hotels on the list and 214 of these make the Platinum Circle for five years as Gold List picks.
I just wish they included the hotel loyalty program for these hotels. In the past I have actually created a loyalty program list from the CN Gold List. Many of these hotels have sky high rates that are irrelevant if you are redeeming your points from Choice Privileges or Red Lion R&R Club points for a Preferred Hotel Group reward stay. Some hotels are Kimpton properties where Kimpton InTouch members earn a free night after every seven stays. There are Ritz-Carlton hotels you can redeem Marriott Rewards points for free nights and Waldorf-Astoria Hotels for using HHonors points.
St. Regis Monarch Beach courtyard and pools.
St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point, California is a Starwood Resort where I have redeemed several free nights over the years from various SPG free night promotions. This hotel is a SPG category 6 award night at 20,000 or 25,000 points per night.
Starwood Preferred Guest has a promotion specific to Asia Pacific hotels for one free weekend night after staying 5 nights and a second free night after 9 nights from November 29, 2011 through March 15, 2012 when stay is paid with a MasterCard. The nights are cumulative during the promotion period so can be done in one hotel stay or nine hotel stays. Maximum two free nights may be earned per member.
The nice thing about a steady travel partner is doubling up on these bonuses. I can earn two free nights and my wife can earn two free nights and then redeem all free nights on a single hotel stay of four nights.
This offer is available to all SPG members globally and requires promotion registration.
SPG Members must register for this promotion at http://www.spg.com/mastercard2days or by calling the nearest Customer Contact Center and saying “I want to register for 2 days of Happy!” requesting Registration Code “4MC” no later than March 15, 2012.
Twice as many hotels to earn free nights than burn free nights.
The particpating properties is an interesting aspect of the offer. There are about 220 Starwood Hotels in Asia Pacific for earning the free nights, but fewer than 90 hotels for redeeming the free nights. Granted that Four Points and Aloft may not be where you want to spend free nights when you can stay at the Westin Tokyo or Le Meriden Koh Samui Resort & Spa, but if you find yourself with a free night credit about to expire and the Four Points is the only thing around…
Redeeming Free Nights
Contact SPG customer service and mention Award ID 4MCFN.
Participating Starwood Hotels for Redeeming Free Nights
Participating Starwood Hotels for earning free nights
Loyalty Traveler analysis:
This is a good value promotion offer if you have a MasterCard and find yourself in Asia Pacific. Many of these hotels for earning free nights have daily rates under $75 per night meaning the cost of earning two free nights could be under US$700. And if you are ultimately being reimbursed and not paying the hotel bill then price is not so important. Nine nights over the course of 14 weeks should be an easy bonus to earn.
Redemption properties include only two category 6 hotels with the W Retreat & Spa Bali, Seminyak and Westin Tokyo.
Assorted Category 5 hotels like Westin Sydney and Westin Melbourne in Australia and St. Regis Lhasa, Nepal or St. Regis Sanya Yalong Bay Resort are redemption options. Thailand has seven Le Meridien hotels and resorts. Most of the hotel redemption choices for free nights are SPG category-4 properties. You can value these free nights at 10,000 points per night and “good for you” if you redeem for a higher hotel. This offer looks to be the equivalent of earning 2,000 bonus SPG points for every eligible night. Keep that in mind when you are comparing rates and other promotion offers.
Of course we can all try and redeem at the W Retreat Bali.
SPG-MasterCard Two Days of Happy Earn Nov 29-March 15 / Burn Jan 1-April 10, 2012
RewardsCanada.ca has a 10th anniversary contest offering prizes of 125,000 Aeroplan miles, 100,000 Starpoints, Sheraton Robes and Etihad Airways miles. You must be a Canadian resident to win a prize. Entry deadline is 11:59pm November 30, 2011.
Patrick Sojka also runs FrequentFlyerBonuses.com which is a great resource for airline, hotel and car rental loyalty promotions. FFB has been on my go to list for finding deals many years now and a site you should bookmark too.
frequentflyerbonuses.com
Happy (U.S.) Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers.
Hey all you Americans, go back to eating, drinking, talking to friends & family, watching football and planning your points and miles earning for the next month of shopping.
I am heading to Spa Gaucin for coffee and a paper. We are resorting for Thanksgiving thanks to the May-July 2011 free resort night after three Starwood stays. Yesterday was 73 degrees here in southern California.
Thanks for being a Loyalty Traveler reader.
And closing my laptop…now.
St. Regis Monarch Beach, Dana Point, California
