hotel loyalty programs hotel reward category Starwood Hotels Starwood Preferred Guest

SPG award category reassignments March 5, 2013 (includes 266 hotels list)

Starwood Preferred Guest 2013 annual hotel award category reassignments are effective March 5, 2013. You can book hotels for 2013 dates using current rates through March 4, 2013.

218 hotels go up and 48 hotels go down. Starwood Hotels pdf link.

The end of this post contains Loyalty Traveler’s complete list of the Starwood Hotels changing award category ordered by hotel award number from category 1 to 7.

It is common for a few hotels to be added and some of the posted hotels to be removed from the changes list in the final changes.

The announcement and pdf link were posted by SPG representatives on FlyerTalk and MilePoint.

In a consumer-friendly pdf, SPG lists the hotels changing category with geographic descriptors so you can identify where the hotel changes are happening. Hilton and Marriott listed their hotel category changes by brand with no geographic information for country or city other than hotel name.

My contribution to the Starwood pdf is a list of the changes organized by category with State and Country list. I was too lazy to add the city. You can check the SPG pdf link for city names.

Starwood Hotels Going Down = 48 hotels.

image

Hotels Going Up = 218 Hotels.

image

 

Here are some Starwood Hotel reassignment facts and trends.

Several US states like California, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts have concentrated category reassignment to higher award cost.

2 hotels make a two category jump.

  • Aloft New York Brooklyn – Category 3 to 5
  • Fiji Sheraton Denarau Villas – Category 4 to 6

International

Hotel Danieli, Venice, Italy rises to category 7. Another property that oscillates in and out of top tier.

International hotels rising in category are dispersed with no particular locations outside of China and Taiwan hit hard.

China 34 hotels up. 7 down.

India 8 down. Obviously a different economic climate for Starwood Hotels in India compared to China.

Athens, Greece 2 down.

Hot Asia: Taiwan 4 up. Korea 3 up. Malaysia 3 up. Thailand 3 up.

Fiji Sheraton Denarau Villas jumps two category levels from 4 to 6. That is a jump from 40,000 point for 5 nights to 80,000 points for 5 nights. Peak season rates are a 150% jump at 100,000 points for 5 nights.

That looks drastic until checking rates shows $355 to $465 per night. When 80,000 points saves $2,500 it is hard to say the increase is not justified.

Greece has two category 6 island resorts increasing to category 7 properties with Santa Marina Resort & Villas, Mykonos and Vedema Resort, Santorini.

Starwood at the top is over the top expensive

For me, the jump from category 5 to 6 and category 7 is the difference between affordable hotels for award stays and mostly unaffordable hotel awards.

Spending 48,000 Starpoints for five nights is a goal I can typically hit every couple years. Raise that to 80,000 points and the hotel is just too much to expect to save points. By the time I get to 80,000 points, the hotel might be 120,000 points. Better just to burn points each year and try to cut the cost of hotel stays each year. 80,000 points can still buy 16 hotel nights at category 4 hotels saving $200 per night using Cash & Points awards.

As always, compare the cost of an award stay to the published rates. There are still plenty of Starwood Hotel deals to be found, perhaps though, not at the Starwood Hotel you really wanted to stay.

218 Starwood Hotels are posted Going Up in SPG Award Category March 5, 2013

2013-2-22-SPG-cat-reass-up-218

48 Starwood Hotels are posted Going Down in SPG Award Category March 5, 2013

2013-2-22-SPG-cat-reass-dn-218

 

Related posts on hotel award category reassignments for 2013

 

Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. Follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.

3 Comments

Comments are closed.

BoardingArea