Starwood Preferred Guest - Starwood AMEX for Small Business?

Is there such a thing? Otherwise, is there any way to earn Starpoints for purchases on a business account?

I've never seen such a thing. It carries a fee per card, but you could open a small business gold account, hook it to a membership rewards account and use your MR points to xfer to *wood. You would need to do an analysis to determine if your charges would be 'paid for' by the points you would earn...they are around 55.00 per year per card I think.

What's the MR to *W converstion rate? Is it 1 MR point per $? And then 1 *W point per MR point? If it is, then this could be the way to go, absent a business SPG Amex option.

The MR to SPG points conversion rate is abysmal. 3 MR points give you only one SPG point. There was recently a temporary promotion at a 2-to-1 rate, but it's gone.

Currently, there is no Starwood/SPG AmEx card for small business. However, it's pretty easy to allocate such an account to only business related expenses and you can obtain up to 99 additional cardholders without an annual fee. Whether the account is labeled as business or not, the primary card holder is personally guarenteed for all billings and both types of cards are subject to IRS audits.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by clanson:
Currently, there is no Starwood/SPG AmEx card for small business. However, it's pretty easy to allocate such an account to only business related expenses and you can obtain up to 99 additional cardholders without an annual fee. Whether the account is labeled as business or not, the primary card holder is personally guarenteed for all billings and both types of cards are subject to IRS audits.</font>

So you say I should just get an additional card (SPG Amex) and just use it for business? Wouldn't the additional card share the same account number and statement as my personal card, though?

I was always under the assumption (with the advice of my accountant) that I should keep all of my business and personal transactions seperated under different accounts to maintain the liability benefits of my business structure. Therefore, open personal accounts with your name and SSN, and business accounts with your business name and ID number. Or do I just not understand how this stuff works as much as I thought I did?

I'm just in the process of converting from a sole proprietorship to a more complicated entity, so I'm not as familiar with these things as perhaps I should be. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Also, am I correct in assuming that MR is 1 point per dollar? So, at 3 MR points to 1 Starpoint, essentially .3333333... Starpoints per dollar?? Ugh. Looks like I might have to look at airline-based cards instead. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

[This message has been edited by ThisFlightNoFuel (edited 10-30-2002).]

As was mentioned above, even if you get a business card, it's most likely a "small business" account, which means that you (as an officer) and the company are jointly liable.

Depending on the size of your business, you may be able to get a "middle market" corporate card or business travel account from Amex. This will remove your personal liability on the account in general. However, the standard way that Amex sets it up is that each corporate card holder is jointly liable (with the company) for their charges. If you want, you can have the company take full responsibility as well.

I've found that Amex is generally more cooperative in setting up a "real" corporate account. In order to get one from MC/Visa, they want you spending LOTS of money.