Win 25,000 SPG points from the Starwood American Express!
Review: Sheraton Tribeca New York
Attending the SPG AmEx Screening of “Mansome” at the Tribeca Film Festival

As I wrote about in April, I was thrilled to be approached by the Starwood American Express to join their SPG Amex Stars program, whereby I’ll get to experience a lot of the great benefits of the Starwood American Express credit card throughout the year. Best of all, for each experience I have you guys will get to have an equally awesome experience as well. Over this year I’ll be giving away 210,000 SPG points plus a $250 gift card courtesy of the Starwood American Express.

This partnership has already taken me to the Tribeca Film Festival, and will also take me to New York Fashion Week, the US Open, the new St. Regis Bal Habour, and more!

In this series of posts I’ll be sharing with you the amazing experience I had in New York at both the Sheraton Tribeca as well as American Express’ Starwood card member screening of “Mansome,” which was hilarious. Best of all, there were plenty of people from both Starwood and American Express, so it was great to be able to provide them feedback and also hear their thoughts during the cocktail reception. It’s clear they’re looking at maintaining the card’s industry-leading position.

Cocktail reception before screening

But before I get too deep into the trip report, it’s time to give away some points. Like I said, with each of my experiences there will be a corresponding giveaway, and for the Tribeca Film Festival the giveaway is 25,000 SPG points, enough for two nights at the Sheraton Tribeca. Of course you’re more than welcome to use the points in New York, though the beauty of SPG points is how much flexibility they have.

Here are just a few examples of what you could do with 25,000 SPG points:

• Spend two nights at the Sheraton Tribeca.
• Spend eight nights at Le Meridien Bangkok using Starwood’s awesome Cash & Points option. Instead of redeeming 7,000 SPG points per night you can redeem 2,800 points plus $45 per night, which is a spectacular value.
• Convert them to 30,000 airline miles with American, Delta, US Airways, or any of a number of other airlines. For every 20,000 points you transfer to an airline program, you get a 5,000 point bonus, which for me is one of the key selling points of the card.
• Spend ten nights at Le Meridien Chiang Rai. The hotel can be as cheap as 3,000 SPG points per night, and when redeeming SPG points for free nights the fifth night is free. So at 3,000 points per night with the fifth night free, 10 nights at Le Meridien Chiang Rai takes only 24,000 SPG points.

Sheraton Tribeca lobby

While I’ll be running the giveaways through a variety of methods, the first giveaway will be through Twitter.

How to enter:

1. Follow @OneMileataTime on Twitter.

2. Tweet which Starwood hotel you’d like to stay at in New York (here’s a list), and be sure you include both @OneMileataTime and the hashtag #SPGAMEX in the Tweet

3. You can Tweet me once per calendar day (let’s define that as 12:00AM ET till 11:59PM ET), and the contest will run through 11:59PM ET on Sunday, May 27.

For example, an eligible Tweet would be:

@OneMileataTime I’d stay at the Sheraton Tribeca #SPGAMEX

Basic terms:

While I won’t post the full four pages of terms and conditions, the basics are that you have to be at least 18 years old and have an SPG account to be eligible to win. If anyone needs any clarification, feel free to ask below in the comments section or email me.

Picking a winner:

A winner will be picked at random within a week of the end of the giveaway. Each eligible Tweet counts as one entry, so the more days you enter, the better your chance of winning. If my math is right you can enter up to 14 times.

Good luck, happy Tweeting, and let me know if you have any questions! Tomorrow we’ll pick up at the Sheraton Tribeca.

Frequent Miler, the king of earning miles for free through the Chase Ultimate Rewards mall, outlines a pretty lucrative offer whereby you can earn 2,450 Ultimate Rewards points for free using the Ultimate Rewards mall.

I won’t give step-by-step instructions here since he does such a fantastic job of breaking down the process, but I’ll just share the idea behind it.

Basically, Staples offers some antivirus software for free after a rebate (which can be applied for online using their “Easy Rebate” system). You have to pay $35 upfront for the software, and then they’ll mail you a check for $35. You can buy up to ten of these and get reimbursed for each.

By going to staples.com through the Ultimate Rewards shopping mall you’ll earn two bonus points per dollar.

Then if you use the new Chase Ink Bold card you’ll earn another five points per dollar. That’s seven points per dollar on $350, or 2,450 Ultimate Rewards points.

There’s no doubt it takes a bit of effort, though I value Ultimate Rewards points at two cents each, so that’s basically a $49 “reward.” Is it worth the time? Probably for most of us.

The only reason I’m not taking advantage of it is that I still have the old version of the Chase Ink Bold card, before they rebranded a few months ago and started offering 5x points on office supply stores. So instead I’d just be earning three points per dollar total, or 1,050 Ultimate Rewards points. For that it’s a bit too much effort, in my opinion.

Either way, this can be a great way to reach the minimum spend requirement on a card, while picking up quite a few extra bonus points along the way.

Anyway, check out Frequent Miler’s post for step-by-step instructions.

Through March 31, Priority Club is offering 250 points for completing a survey. The survey is loading really slowly, so it might take a bit of time for all the pages to load. When I took it this morning it only took a few minutes, so maybe it makes sense to wait a couple of hours before attempting to complete it.

Either way, it’s an easy 250 points!

When you complete the survey you receive an email confirming that the points will post within 4-6 weeks.

Via Deals We Like:

Yup, another Facebook promotion! The Westin Charlotte is giving away 250 starpoints for signing up for the “Charlotte Insider eClub” via their Facebook page.

You must sign up by February 1, 2012, but as we’ve seen before, Facebook promos can sometimes get pulled fast – DO NOT DELAY. These points won’t get you a free night, but every little bit counts.

The terms state that the bonus points will be awarded to your account by March 1, 2012.

Let’s hope they do a better job managing this promotion than they did last time. Based on the comments section of the post, it seems like they don’t ask for your SPG number, though I suspect they’ll email you at some point to request it (or make you email them).

Now I would’ve written this post on my own, but unfortunately I’m in the great People’s Republic of China, which means I can’t use Facebook, Twitter, etc. I was going to go on Twitter to bitch about not being able to use Facebook, but then I realized they blocked that too.

Here’s a great idea for a reality TV show. Instead of locking 12 strangers in a house for months, how about sending a dozen Generation Y’ers to China and seeing how long they last without being able to update their Twitter or Facebook? I’m not even that addicted to Facebook or Twitter, though I’m already experiencing withdrawal symptoms after just 12 hours. So if you try to talk to me on Facebook or Twitter, my apologies for not responding over the next few days.

Continental OnePass and United Mileage Plus are both offering 50 miles per Top Guest check-in at participating airports. You simply have to register your “smart” phone with Top Guest and then use either Facebook or Four Square to make those check-ins.

The page says you need to be “at or near” select United/Continental airports, so as long as it’s within range and you’re checking in, you should be fine (no need to actually be flying that day). You should be able to check-in once per 24 hours.

Priority Club has a similar program whereby you can earn 50 points per “check-in,” so that’s an easy way to rack up 18,000+ Priority Club points per year, and the same seems to also be the case with United now. Now, Top Guest has been known to close the accounts of those that check-in every day at multiple reward-earning businesses (Hilton, Priority Club, Virgin America, etc.), so proceed with caution.

(Tip of the hat to Gary)