Starwood Preferred Guest - Unexpected surprise -- credit card billed for "free" Saturday stay

I stayed the 10 days at Sheratons this summer and earned the 2 Free Fridays and 2 Free Saturdays bonus. On 31 July I went to http://www.preferredguest.com and logged in to my SPG Gold account, it told me I had earned the bonus and said I could redeem online. I booked a room immediately for Sat 5 Aug at the Sheraton Greensboro at Four Seasons (not to be confused with Four Seasons Hotel chain). When I checked in, they asked for my credit card in case I had any incidentals, which seemed fine. On checking out Sunday morning, I noticed the way they handled the free stay was a Direct Bill to Sheraton for $69 at some corporate address. I told them I had no incidentals (true), and asked about the CC I had given at check-in. I was told that nothing would be charged on it. I got my USAir NationsBank Platinum Visa bill yesterday, and saw a charge for $55 for "Holiday Inn Four Seasons Greensboro", which is what the Sheraton used to be called there many moons ago. I called Visa to get a copy of the charge and start the process for disputing it. I called SPG customer service, and was told that the Sheraton had billed me $55 for the stay, though the charge was dated two days later, August 7th. I kvetched for a while and got bumped up to sojme corporate person who dais they would call the manager at the property in Greensboro and find out WHAT happened. I asked for a credit for the $55, and for them to extend the deadline on my using the other 3 free days past the September 16 deadline, as I do NOT want to get charged for any more "free" stays. Anyone else have a similar experience with this "promotion"

This has happened before to many FT'ers including me, and I'm betting (NOT much of a real bet though! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif) that it will be straightened out promptly! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I agree with Doc, I think it is easily fixed. I used my Free Friday at Saratoga Springs in late July. Upon check out I noticed a $99 charge for room & tax. I reminded them of my free stay and they were able to adjust it there and then. But just to make sure, about a week later I did call my credit card company to double check and all was OK. Starwood is very good about cancelling out wrong charges. The other thing you may want to check is if they credited you with a 'stay' for that free night! Lately those free weekends have been showing up as 'stays' http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

If you do a search of "free fridays" in the Starwood Forum, you'll see that is has happened many times. Each time, a call to SPG took care of it.

Got a call from the Sheraton Greensboro within a day of my phone call to SPG. They're crediting my VISA account the $55. The excuse was that instead of forwarding the bill to Sheraton corporate, they debited my account. Fishy, since the amounts were different.

I got the following e-mail today which completely satisfies me:
Mr. Cohen
I have read your posting on FlyerTalk regarding the Sheraton Greensboro. Let me begin by apologizing,
on behalf of Starwood Preferred Guest, for the erroneous charge on your credit card. After consulting
with our Corporate Services Group I learned that the hotel was processing a refund in the amount of
$55.00. The hotel has posted the night of August 5 as a stay on your account, resulting in a 98 point credit
($49 in room revenue) and a 49 point bonus. I will ensure that this posting remains on your account. I
have also taken the liberty of crediting your account with an additional 500 Starpoints in recognition of
your frustration at having to spend time correcting this billing error.

I believe I can explain why your credit card was charged. While the Free Friday award is indeed free
for the member, the hotel is reimbursed by Starwood Preferred Guest for accepting the award. What we
have found is that, on occasion, someone at the front desk will confuse the reimbursement amount of
the award for a nightly room rate. It is inexcusable but, fortunately, easily identified and corrected. I
cannot say with certainty this is what happened but the amount of the charge is consistent with a
couple of other similar instances.
I hope this resolves the matter to your satisfaction. If you have any questions or comments please do not
hesitate to contact me.
Best regards
Jae ***
Operations Supervisor, Starwood Preferred Guest

This offer has a lot of fine prints. For example, the redemption only applies to US properties although you could earn the free nights by staying at any hotel. Be careful! I have called them on this and the rep. couldn only apologize.

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I redeemed a Free weekend in Mexico without a problem, so it's not just US.

I'm also redeeming a Free Friday and Free Saturday in Tronna Canader, eh.

andrew

another twist on this that you might watch out for - instead of charging you $$ they take your starwood points instead - this happened to me at the w in nyc

again, easily remedied thanks to the good works of good men like jae, but i would have hoped they would have straightened this out by now

I just used free weekend 1 of 2 at the W. New York The Court. I booked the free weekend over the phone. At check-in, I asked, this is an SPG award right? Yes, was the answer. When I checked out, on Sunday, the front desk told me they had no record of a free stay being associated with my reservation. They said they did not have a fax either (which perhaps is customary). They then asked me if I had a cert for the free weekend, and I told them the awards were paperless. They then asked me if I remembered the name of the person I booked the free weekend stay with. I wanted to ask the guy if he remembered who he checked out three weeks ago, at some specific time. I was kept waiting, with all luggage, for thirty minutes or so while the front desk made some phone calls. Once the desk reached SPG, they seemed to just say it was a free weekend, and the desk rep told me he would take the room charge off the bill. He charged me about $45 for incidentals, which I thought they would maybe waive since I had to stand for 30 minutes and wait for them to sort this out. Then I got home, and noticed $1300 or so was missing from my available credit on the credit card used. I called the accounting dept of the hotel, and they said that I had been charged the $1,300 in error, and they would credit it back to me. I told them that the front desk agent told me I would not be charged, but accounting said I was somehow still charged and that they would credit it. I have sent SPG an email via the web site, and we'll see what they say. A few other small problems too like no coffee maker, (got one eventually), broken remote control, and internet access only with web tv (no ethernet port for laptop). Oh yes, and had to get the key reset for some reason. Otherwise a nice hotel. Asked front desk if they have had problems with free weekend stays (per what I read on FT), and they said no, my stay was the first one they saw a problem l.... this with.

Found that the points for the stay were in my SpG account this morning. In other words, the stay creditted as a revenue paid stay in my account. Also got an email from SPG saying they would provide 1,000 points due to the difficulty experienced with the award process at the hotel, and the other hotel related problems. They would forward my letter to Corporate Services as well.