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…

Lake Las Vegas, about 20 miles from the Las Vegas Strip outside the suburb of Henderson, Nevada has a new Starwood Resort today with The Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa.

The hotel has actually been around since 1999, first as the Hyatt Regency Lake Las Vegas Resort. Since 2006 the property has been the Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort.

The Westin Lake Las Vegas enters SPG as a category 3 hotel.

Rates tonight are $179. There is a grand opening special stating rates from $125, but I did not see any rates lower than $161 for dates I checked in April and May. I didn’t find any availability for $125 per night before June 1.

I expect some good deals that will be significantly lower than $179 after the initial rebranding launch. Cash & Points stays at $45 and 2,800 points are also a good option, but again no availability today until June.

Lake Las Vegas: a man-made resort folly.

The economic recession that has resulted in 1 out of every 9 homes in Las Vegas in foreclosure also impacted the region’s hotels. The Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas went bankrupt, closed down in May 2010 and reopened February 2011 as Ravella at Lake Las Vegas, a Dolce conference center resort.

Loews Lake Las Vegas defaulted on a $117 million mortgage in 2009 and was placed in receivership. Pyramid Hotel Group has been managing the hotel since it defaulted and also manages the Westin Las Vegas Hotel, Casino & Spa since the previous owners turned over the keys last year in bankruptcy.

Westin Las Vegas Hotel was seized by lenders after defaulting on a $160 million mortgage. I have to wonder if Starwood will drop Westin Las Vegas Hotel since it is generally not a highly rated hotel by SPG members. There are very few suites and I have never had anything more than a standard size room in several stays. The hotel is a couple blocks off the strip and kind of a letdown when there are so many great values in the major casino hotels for the same rate as the Westin.

I really enjoy the family environment around Lake Las Vegas and the Ravella property and now the Westin Lake Las Vegas. I think this is a great addition for Starwood Hotels.

Here is a Loyalty Traveler post from August 2009 on Loews Lake Las Vegas Resort. I also did a piece on Ravella Lake Las Vegas in June 2011 when there was a $59 rate. This piece has links to two other posts with photos of the former Ritz-Carlton property.

Las Vegas Sun (March 28) -

Loews hotel at Lake Las Vegas switching to Westin brand.

Starwood Hotels in Asia-Pacific have a special Upgrade Offer rate for $20 at more than 150 hotels for stays through December 31, 2012. These rates must be booked by March 31, 2012.

The $20 upgrade rate is based on upgrade to Club Room, but hotels I checked show a variety of upgraded rooms available for Upgrade Offer rate discount. The promotion terms state these rates are prepaid and nonrefundable, yet the terms for one hotel I checked, Westin Melbourne, show a cancel by date with no penalty. 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

• Four Points by Sheraton Kamloops

Ontario

• Four Points by Sheraton Toronto Mississauga
• Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
• Sheraton Gateway Hotel In Toronto International Airport

Quebec

• Le Centre Sheraton Montreal Hotel

UNITED STATES

Arizona

• The Phoenician, Scottsdale

California

• Sheraton Delfina Santa Monica Hotel
• The Westin Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego
• Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites, Los Angeles

Colorado

• The St. Regis Aspen Resort

Florida

• Four Points by Sheraton Orlando Studio City
• Sheraton Lake Buena Vista Resort

Hawaii

• Sheraton Kauai Resort

Illinois

• Sheraton Chicago O’Hare Airport Hotel

Indiana

• Sheraton Indianapolis Hotel at Keystone Crossing

Massachusetts

• Sheraton Needham Hotel

Michigan

• Sheraton Detroit Metro Airport

Missouri

• Sheraton Kansas City Hotel at Crown Center

Nebraska

• Sheraton Omaha Hotel

New Jersey

• Sheraton Parsippany Hotel
• The Westin Governor Morris, Morristown

New York

• Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers
• W New York – Union Square

Pennsylvania

• Sheraton Society Hill Hotel

Texas

• Sheraton Dallas North Hotel by the Galleria

Virginia

• Sheraton Premiere at Tysons Corner
• Sheraton Virginia Beach Oceanfront Hotel

Washington

• Four Points by Sheraton Downtown Seattle Center

Starwood’s Element extended stay hotel brand has a TravelZoo special offer rate of $89 per night for a studio suite for stays from April 1 through September 15, 2012. Reservations must be booked between March 21 and April 6.

All hotels showed $89 rates for most dates I checked, except for Element New York Times Square West where the lowest rate I found was $199. There might be lower rates for New York, but I didn’t see any rates lower than $199 after trying several dates.

Rate plan is TRVLZOO1.

This is a prepaid, nonrefundable rate that does not allow reservation changes. The terms of this sale state bookings can only be made online and I thought it needed to be through a specific website link, but the rate appeared automatically when I checked Element hotels on SPG.com.

Participating Element Hotels

Element Denver Park Meadows, Lone Tree, Colorado

Element Miami International Airport, Miami, Florida

Element Arundel Mills, Hanover, Maryland

Element Lexington, Lexington, Massachusetts

Element Omaha Midtown Crossing, Omaha, Nebraska

Element Las Vegas Summerlin, Las Vegas, Nevada

Element Ewing Princeton, Ewing, New Jersey

Element New York Times Square West, New York, New York

Element Houston Vintage Park, Houston, Texas

Element Dallas Fort Worth Airport North, Irving, Texas

Element Hotels Special Offer Rate terms & Conditions.

Bottom line is this rate is a great deal for many of these hotels. I stayed in Denver Park meadows last July for $71 so not all locations will be a significant bargain.

Element Hotels are a cookie-cutter design. The two rooms I had at two different hotels look exactly the same in my room photos. They are nice rooms with energy efficient design. The concept is green living in an extended stay hotel. Breakfast is complimentary.

Here is a Loyalty Traveler detailed review from 2009 of the Element Las Vegas Summerlin.

Shout out to LoyaltyLobby.com where I learned of this sale. I highly recommend this blog as one of my favorites.

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.

• Le Meridien Bora Bora remains category 7. This hotel was listed as dropping to Category 6.
• Westin Key West Resort went up from a category 5 to category 6. This hotel was not on Starwood’s original list.
• Le Meridien Istanbul Etiler went up from category 4 to category 5. This hotel was not on Starwood’s original list.
• Le Meridien Chiang Mai remains at category 2 and did not drop to category 1. This hotel is still listed on the current SPG list as dropping to category 1.
• Four Points Long Island – remains at category 3 and did not drop to category 2.
• Sheraton Bradley Airport Hartford, CT remains category 3 and did not drop to category 2.
• Sheraton Denver West – remains category 3 and did not drop to category 2.
• Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort – remains category 4 and did not drop to category 3.
• Westin St. Louis – remains category 4 and did not drop to category 3.
• Le Centre Sheraton Montreal listed as dropping from category 4 to 3 in the current SPG changes pdf online is actually now SPG category 5  according to its hotel website.
• Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers remains Category 5 and did not rise to Category 6. This is good news for New York guests and the one positive change from the original list.

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.

I feel compelled to issue a reality check based on the overwhelming pitch by bloggers for Starwood Preferred Guest being the primary program to consider when transferring hotel points for the US Airways points-to-miles 50% bonus from March 11-31, 2012.

Several travel blogs over the past 24 hours have discussed the US Airways hotel points transfer bonus promotion and most of the commentary suggests no other hotel program is worth considering besides SPG to get the best miles value from your hotel points. 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.

Read More…

Last week BoardingArea blogger VeryGoodPoints posted “Starwood’s Beat the Timer how did I not know about this!?!

I am asking myself the same question?

You definitely need to know about Starwood’s Beat the Timer site if you are a Starwood Hotels fan and want discount rate options for hotels in Europe.

This post shows a rate analysis for three hotels selected today from Starwood’s Beat the Timer site for discount rates in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Read More…