Starwood Preferred Guest - new starwood promos to drum up business?

Wanted to find out if anybody has heard of any new Starwood promos out there, specifically offering bonus SPG points. I have seen a lot from the airlines since the economic slowdown, but haven't heard of any great bonus SPG point promotions recently.

In the recent Mileslink email, I did see this:

"Through Jan. 31, 2002, earn 1,000 bonus points per night for Sunday to Thursday night stays at 400 participating hotels in the United States. The offer will begin in late October."

Is it just me or does 1K bonus points PER NIGHT seem too good to be true?


[This message has been edited by rgoel (edited 10-12-2001).]

If you book online you get 500 pts...

I dont think 1k is alot considering they had a 5k per stay promotion

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www.MyPriceLine.com (http://www.MyPriceLine.com)-a message board where others share winning airfare, hotel, or car rental bids from priceline.com.

When did they have a 5k per stay promo?

It was a targeted promotion. Search for it as it was talked about in a previous thread

I have seen this promos (S8B and S78) but I am wondering if there are any new ones since the Sep 11 attack and the general economic slowdown. Always looking for a good deal...

rgoel, perhaps he was refering to the 500 points for on line booking and the 500 points that we can elect to receive as an amentiy?

How about better rates? If the hotel industry is getting hit by lower bookings for business travel one would think that rates would be coming down. At least not at the Westin, Long Beach. Must be a convention that actually didn't get canceled.

Consolidators are showing rates about $30 cheaper than the Starwood website. Hate to give up the 500 on-line points but I can't in good conscience go with a higher rate just for the points.

mttachi -
those 500 points + 500 points would then apply only to the stay, not for each night, correct?

correct. My stays are just 1 night at the most two. Sorry if there was some confusion.

"rgoel, perhaps he was refering to the 500 points for on line booking and the 500 points that we can elect to receive as an amentiy?"

What do we have to do to get the extra 500 points as an amenity?

William has indicated that we will be provided a choice in amenity when we check in. I have yet to see for my self, but I am checking into the Sheraton in PHX tommorow. I will report my findings.

toadman, a possible answer to your rhetorical question - I posted this in one or more other threads tonight -

Just got my 10/29 Forbes in the mail today (SAT, 10/13)...was flipping through it, and on page 52, article entitled "Unaccomodating Accomodations", subtitle "Why aren't luxury hotels bending over backwards to attract lots more business" says it all - at least according to this Forbes article, here is the entire article since it is so short -

"With demand collapsing, you'ld expect the hospitality industry to be a bit more hospitable about pricing. Nope. Many luxury hotel chains, such as Hilton and Starwood, would rather lose some business than cheapen their image with discounts."

"Once you cut prices, it's hard to get them back up", says Jeffrey Dallas, a hotel industry consultant with Ernst and Young.

Article goes further to say:
"The decline in traffic hurts, but it doesn't all come out of the bottom line: Fewer guests mean less spent on utilities and bellhops".

Article concludes with this:
Contradicting the general pattern, a few high-endhotels are offering attractive deals....and the list includes Waldorf-Astoria (NYC), Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental (SF, CA), Willard Inter-Continental (WA, DC), and a few others.

So - we have it in writing from a reputable business magazine - appears Starwood and Hilton are playing this disaster according to a certain strategy. I don't disagree - the few quotes I've researched confirm prices are absolutely higher than some summer promotions I took advantage of...either rates are actually RAISED, or promotions are not out there, or poorly marketed and advertised at best.

After seeing the auto industry turn their deals upside down to stimulate sales, this is an intriguing development in the hotel business IMHO.

FWIW

I guess that's where priceline comes in now... the recent successful bids were significantly lower than before the September 11 incidents.
So it's lowering the price through the back door.

I'm sure this has been addressed before, but are Priceline stays eligible for Starwood points?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ILUVCITIBANK:
"Once you cut prices, it's hard to get them back up", says Jeffrey Dallas, a hotel industry consultant with Ernst and Young.
</font>

Kinda off topic to Starwood, but this is kinda true. Travel to New York during the summer, get rock bottom prices, and expect to pay the same during the first two weeks of december?

Especially with the Luxury properties, they dont want to attract the "bottom feeders," those only looking for low rates. They want those that know the luxury service, and know that you have to pay to get that.

An interesting paradox. At some hotels that Ive worked at in the past, those that pay the regular rates have no problem with the service, and those that try to finagle and get discounts were always the ones that needed several other ammenities (i.e., asking for breakfast, several housekeeping ammenities, just general annoyances) Most hotels know this, and certainly keep that in mind when booking the lower rates.

Actually the strategy does make sense. Now that summer's over, the next major leisure travel period will not occur until the Thansgiving/Christmas holidays. The majority of people who are traveling this time of year during the week are business and convention travelers who have to. Dropping price for them isn't going to make any company sit up and decide to send more people out on the road. All it will do is capture the same travelers but at a lower price. Most of these folks will continue to stay at the same hotels as they always have based on frequent travel programs, location, company directive etc. And more often than not the corporate traveler is not paying their own bills, making price less a concern for them.

Where you will see your deals is either at resort properties who don't have a business base to fall back on, and on weekends at corporate hotels. The leisure traveler paying out of their own pocket is much more price sensitive than the price insensitive corporate traveler.

Dropping price can be a suckers game. You drop your prices, hoping to capture addtional share. Within a few days your competition has dropped their prices, and everyone ends up with the same share again, but at a lower price.

I've seen it before in all types of industries time and time again that dropping price does not necessarily increase demand, but only allows for short term stealing of share from someone else.

rgoel, no stays booked through Priceline.com will earn Starpoints in the room revenue portion of your hotel bill, which is where it has to be credited to count for status re-qualification or for promotion eligibility. You can earn Starpoints for any eligible incidental charges incurred during your stay and you can still receive all the benefits regularly accorded to elite members of Starwood Preferred Guest.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Specialist, E-Communications Department
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

[This message has been edited by Starwood Lurker (edited 10-15-2001).]