Even more bad news from SPG

[arlene22 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close arlene22]

Effective Jan. 1st, the SPG:mile ratio for Continental will be 2:1. Boy does that suck. I take back all the recommendations I have made for the SPG Amex...

[gores95 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close gores95]

Arlene...we have 181K SPG points (mostly after using Amex for two+ years). Are we better off just transferring all the points to Continental NOW so we get the 1/1 or just leaving them intact with SPG for the hotel points? Will the nights & flights program also be affected?

The way I look at it...for a $300-400 flight this costs 25K SPG points and for a Cat 5 hotel $300-400 a night this costs 10K points. Maybe transferring all points now to Continental is not that good an idea.

Where did you read about the SPG 2:1?

Thanks,

Marc

[arlene22 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close arlene22]

I first heard about it on Flyer Talk, but it is on the Continental website:
Starwood Hotels & Resorts - Program Changes

Valid Mon., Dec. 11, 2006 - Sat., Mar. 31, 2007 (Time Remaining: 110 days)
Posted Wed., Nov. 22, 2006Beginning Jan. 1, 2007, Starwood Hotels and Resorts will offer OnePass miles for hotel stays based on the amount spent during your stay as opposed to a set amount of miles per stay. You must be a member of Starwood Preferred Guest program to earn two miles per U.S. dollar spent (three miles per U.S. dollar for Gold and Platinum Preferred Guests) on all qualifying charges at Westin, Sheraton, Four Points® by Sheraton, Le Meridien, St. Regis, Luxury Collection and W Hotels & Resorts.
Also, OnePass members, who are earning Starpoints® in the Starwood Preferred Guest® program may transfer two Starpoints to one OnePass mile, with a minimum transfer of 2,500 Starpoints per transaction. Through Dec. 31, 2006, OnePass members can continue to transfer one Starpoint to one OnePass mile.
For additional information, go to www.spg.com.


According to Starwood Lurker on Flyer Talk, this means that you will no longer be able to choose Continental for Nights & Flights.

I am not doing a last minute SPG > CO transfer. We have a lot of CO miles, and I do have a CO mile earning cc that I can use if I need to beef it up. Also, I believe the SPG > AMTRAK > CO pathway will still work for 1:1, but not for the extra 25%.

I do think that the best potential usage of StarPoints is staying in an expensive hotel. A lot of timeshare people hardly ever stay in hotels, however, so we like to have the airline conversion available to us. Before I use Starpoints, I always do a cost/StarPoint analysis. I would never consider using them if I'm getting less than 2-2.5 cents per StarPoint. For airline purposes, I usually get 3-4 cents/StarPoint.

Because I am concerned about the general deflation in the hotel part of the program that is supposed to take place in February, I recently booked reservations for Easter of 2008 - 2 rooms in a cat 5 in Rome. (I'm concerned that this might become a cat 6 in February, which is why I booked now). At the current exchange rate, my analysis shows I am getting 5.7 cents per StarPoint out of that one. That is, by far, my best usage ever. Of course, my husband thinks I'm crazy for wanting to take the kids to Rome, but that's another story...

[vlariano Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close vlariano]

"I do think that the best potential usage of StarPoints is staying in an expensive hotel."

I, too like to use them for expensive hotels where I would never otherwise be able to stay. It's such fun to plan a trip using starpoints and know I'll be staying in a very nice hotel.

[btejada Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close btejada]

I am curious to find out more about the value of the StarPoints into hotels. We have looked at other timeshares that have a hotel stay component (Hilton, Marriott, Fairfield's Plus Partners) and in general the consensus is that using timeshare points for hotel usually don't make financial sense. But we would be interested in this if it makes sense for the higher end hotel properties.

I don't know much about the Starwood program in general, but what I have seen I like and we might be interested in buying into this program in the future. Any feedback?