There are 17 New York area Starwood Hotels where you might be able to score a free night this summer with a successful Best Rate Guarantee claim from June 4 to September 3, 2012. This a promotional offer for select hotels in the New York area.
The normal Starwood Hotels Best Rate Guarantee policy provides a choice of 2,000 points and a lower rate price match or in lieu of points the guest can receive 10% off the lower rate for the entire stay. This New York promotion offers the first night free and 2,000 points and a price match to the lower rate for any other nights of the hotel stay.
The best feature of the Starwood Hotels Best Rate Guarantee is you can make a claim prior to booking your hotel stay. Marriott, Hilton and Priority Club all require the guest to book the hotel stay on their hotel brand websites prior to submitting a claim for a Best Rate Guarantee.
This is a low risk promotion where you can use meta-search engines daily to try and locate a lower rate on a third party site for a valid Best Rate Guarantee claim and get a free night.
The primary limitation is this free night Best Rate Guarantee successful claim can only be used once every 30 days for SPG members in the same household.
New York Participating Starwood Hotels
The stay that is the subject of the valid claim under the Best Rate Guarantee is at one of the following hotels (each, a “Participating NYC Hotel”):
- Aloft Harlem
- Four Points by Sheraton Long Island City/Queensboro Bridge
- Sheraton JFK Airport Hotel
- Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel
- Sheraton Lincoln Harbor Hotel
- Sheraton New York Hotel
- The Chatwal, a Luxury Collection Hotel, New York City
- The New York Helmsley Hotel
- The Manhattan at Times Square Hotel
- The St. Regis New York
- The Westin Jersey City Newport
- W Hoboken
- W New York
- W New York – Downtown
- W New York – Times Square
- W New York – Union Square
- The Westin New York at Times Square
- The first night of the stay that is the subject of the valid claim is between June 4, 2012 and September 4, 2012.
- The SPG Member submitting the valid claim must elect the 2000 Starpoints best rate guarantee reward and then request the free night credit in the comments section of the Starwood Best Rate Guarantee Claim Form. No requests for a free night reward made after the claim form is submitted will be granted.
- The SPG Member submitting the claim and others in his/her household have not submitted a valid claim during the previous 30 days for which they received a free night as their best rate guarantee reward. If it is determined by Starwood in its sole discretion that an SPG Member has submitted a valid claim but does not meet this requirement, the SPG Member will be provided with the opportunity to select a different Best Rate Guaranteereward.
- Starwood may deny claims where the difference between the rates is less than one percent.
- The free night must be used during the stay that is the subject of the valid claim, must be used by the SPG Member that submits the claim, and is nontransferable.
- The free night will not constitute an Eligible Charge for purposes of earning Starpoints, but will count towards the SPG Member reaching the Eligible Night and Eligible Stay milestones needed to earn elite membership status in accordance with the SPG Terms (www.spg.com).
- All other nights during the stay that is the subject of the valid claim will be at the Competing Rate.
- The SPG Member will be responsible for all taxes, gratuities, and any additional resort or guest charges or fees for the free night and the remainder of the stay that is the subject of the valid claim.
Finding Best Rate Guarantee Rate Differences
The search process is relatively simple for finding eligible Best Rate Guarantee rate differences with meta-search websites like Kayak.com and Trivago.com.
Pick a date and search for New York hotels on Kayak.com and filter the list to only show Starwood Hotels.
Kayak.com hotel rate search can be filtered to only include “All Starwood brands” using the “Hotel Name” filter on the left side of the page.
Search StarwoodHotels.com for New York on the same date. I randomly picked Sunday June 24, 2012.
Look for any rate discrepancies.
StarwoodHotels.com rate for June 24 = $695 for one night at St. Regis New York.
Kayak.com showed the website EasytoBook.com with rate $681.10. This looks like a potential Best Rate Guarantee claim. There is a $13.90 rate difference which is more than 1% lower than the Starwood rate.
But when I check the estimated total at the StarwoodHotels.com site, I see $801.01 is the same as the EasytoBook.com total rate. EasytoBook.com claims there is no booking fee, but obviously they have some kind of additional $14 fee added in to the rate to come up with the same total price as Starwood Hotels rate.
This will not be a successful Best Rate Guarantee claim for a free night.
While this one search appears to be a strikeout for June 24, there is an entire summer of dates and rates to check.
There just might be a free night waiting for you at a New York Starwood Hotel this summer.
Ric Garrido, writer and content owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.
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