Starwood Preferred Guest - Which Starwood credit card to apply for?

I was thinking of applying for a Starwood credit card for the sole purpose of accumulating Starwood points. I've read past reports of people getting a credit limit of only $2000. What's up with that? What's the difference between applying for Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card versus the Optima card. Do both cards have annual fees? Which card would you prefer?

There's only one card. The Starwood Amex is actually considered an Optima card by Amex.

-David

According to Amex's site http://home3.americanexpress.com/cards/benefits/default.asp

both cards are listed under seperate columns. One as HOTEL REWARDS CARDS
and the other as OPTIMA® CARDS. Is this a recent change?

Let me rephrase: there is only one Starwood card from American Express. It used to be a member of the Optima family of AmEx cards (along with Hilton and Delta cards), but for the marketing reasons it does no longer bear an Optima name.

AmEx Optima cards do exist, of course, but they don't earn Starwood points.

ok .. I looked at that page. There is only one Starwood Amex card on that page, under hotel cards. There is also a set of three Optima Cards listed, but those are not Starwood-affiliated cards. They are Amex's version of a credit card. Some people tend to use the term Optima when talking about Amex's credit cards (versus Amex's charge cards, like the original blue amex card.) To add to the confusion, Amex and Starwood reintroduced the card about a year or two ago, and the old one may have actually been an Optima card.

My advice: Just ignore all that.

There is only one Starwood-affiliated Amex credit card. It has a fairly low annual fee, a fairly short grace period (time between getting the bill and payment due date) and ofter there are lucrative sign-up bonuses available for it, though I personally don't know about any current sign-up bonuses.

There was a very good thread over in the Amex forum about how Amex allocates credit to new and current card holders. You might want to find that thread and review it to answer your question about the credit line.

-David


[This message has been edited by LIH Prem (edited 12-09-2002).]

http://www66.americanexpress.com/cards/Fmacfservlet?csi=6/11247/b/52/0/195032226926/0/n

10K Offer:

Approved Cardmembership includes:
• 4,000 bonus Starpoints with your first purchase1
• 1,000 bonus Starpoints for your first stay at a Starwood property2
• 500 bonus Starpoints for each of up to 10 more stays3
• 1 Starpoint for every eligible $1 you charge on the Card
• First year fee-free—a savings of $30
• A 50% off leisure certificate
• Complimentary membership in Preferred Plus
• No blackout dates

Does anyone know if you can have more than one SPG Amex account? Not more than one card...but seperate accounts with seperate account numbers??

Does anyone know if you can have more than one SPG Amex account? Not more than one card...but seperate accounts with seperate account numbers??

I think so. All of the card management pages on the AMEX website seem to have the option of switching to another account. I think, however, that your total credit limit with AMEX will be shared among the accounts.

Mike

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TravelScholar:
Does anyone know if you can have more than one SPG Amex account? Not more than one card...but seperate accounts with seperate account numbers??</font>

Absolutely, you can add on once you have a card by calling Amex. You could probably add names on the application as well. The credit limit is fixed and will not change.

I have three Starwood AmEx cards in my pocket. On one account I'm the primary, the second one my wife is the primary and I'm an additional card holder and the third one, my daughter is the primary and both my wife and I are secondary card holders. AmEx allows up to 99 additional card holders on each account without an additional fee. The added advantage of course is a dramatically increased effective credit limit per month.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Jailer:
Absolutely, you can add on once you have a card by calling Amex. You could probably add names on the application as well. The credit limit is fixed and will not change.</font>

Okay. That would work great. I need to have completely seperate accounts for my personal charges and business charges, and I'd love to be able to earn Starpoints for both! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Yes, my credit limit was fixed at $2,000 the first 6 months. Starwood refused to budge and raised it to $4,000 on the 6 month anniversary.

Johnny, that sounds like a really low credit limit for an AmEx!

My wife and I are considering getting one of these in 2003 to help earn points. I won't be traveling as much in my next job, so I'll need to find some other source for this.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JohnnyP:
Yes, my credit limit was fixed at $2,000 the first 6 months. Starwood refused to budge and raised it to $4,000 on the 6 month anniversary.</font>


My limit was also $2000 initially. It seems as though a lot of people get a $2000 limit initially.

My credit limit was initially 2k because I already had a Delta Skymiles free Amex that gives only 1/$2 with a $9600 limit. They said my low limit was only because I had another Amex from the same company (Centurion Bank) or it would have been more reasonable.

I got a letter that said that I could re-allocate the credit lines as I wished. So I asked to move $7600 to the SPG card to result in $9600 on the SPG card and $2000 on the Delta card which I only will use for cash advances anyway if necessary in an emergency.

I actually did hit the 2k limit because they failed to re-allocate the limits the first time I asked (after like 6+ weeks). I called and complained about it and they put in a second order to do it and it was done within a couple days (though they said it could have taken weeks - I don't know why - I have had Visa up my limits instantly, this was only a re-allocation). Maybe it was because I told them that they were losing business as long as they are slow in making this change that should have been done weeks ago. They did not charge me any fee for hitting the limit though I told them that it WILL be reversed if they do.

Right now, all is good on the SPG Amex front and my credit limit is more reasonable.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JohnnyP:
Yes, my credit limit was fixed at $2,000 the first 6 months. Starwood refused to budge and raised it to $4,000 on the 6 month anniversary.</font>

Actually, American Express sets the limits - not Starwood. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Best regards,

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

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by quinella66:
My credit limit was initially 2k because I already had a Delta Skymiles free Amex that gives only 1/$2 with a $9600 limit. They said my low limit was only because I had another Amex from the same company (Centurion Bank) or it would have been more reasonable.</font>

I don't have any other Amex cards and I still got a $2000 initial credit limit. ANd I have much higher limits on Visa and MC.

I just applied and got the card acceptance..

$2000 limit lol.

Hope they raise it on a regular interval.

Is it possible to take out multple Starwood Amex Cards - get 4,000 mi. (first use) bonus (for each card) to EACH (new) Starwood account then COMBINE the pts. in all of the accounts (same address) towards an award?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ReneeMoss:
Is it possible to take out multple Starwood Amex Cards - get 4,000 mi. (first use) bonus (for each card) to EACH (new) Starwood account then COMBINE the pts. in all of the accounts (same address) towards an award? </font>


I cannot answer for sure, but considering that they considered my other card from the same company when giving me a credit line, I would not doubt that they would see that you already have a card before giving you a duplicate of the same one. Considering it is free for a year, they probably would be careful in giving out 4k for each one when most people would not pay a fee to keep each of them after the first year. I would not recommend, however, opening a large number of cards just for the bonuses and then closing them quickly as this can have a negative impact on your credit rating.

It is a great card anyway, probably the best one out there. I used to have Diners Club, and aside from the BA double points transfers that happen from time to time (I never had a BA account so I never used it) essentially you get the same net result as Diners except that you pay $30 (or is it $35 with a fee free first year) per year instead of $95, have no fees for converting to miles, greater overall card acceptance, and even get the 5k bonus for transferring 20k at a time.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by cali99boy:


Hope they raise it on a regular interval.</font>

I've had the card since January and haven't gotten a credit limit increase yet. I pay the card off every month so maybe I'm not the best customer. There is a place on their website where you can ask for an increase, but I just haven't bothered to do so yet.



[This message has been edited by Alysia (edited 12-12-2002).]

I don't know, when I applied for the SPG AMEX about two years ago I got a $8k credit limit right off the bat.. which is more than enough for me http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Of course these days credit cards are throwing around limits that would make buying a nice-size house on credit very doable so AMEX $2k policy seems pretty out of tune with the rest of the industry...

yea.. if its only $2k then...

Say you maxxed out your credit card every month, then you would only be able to redeem the 20k miles every 10 month or so.

The problem is, if you max out your credit card, then that would look bad on your credit rating because you are using ALL of your available limit. If I wanted to spend $2k every month, I would like my limit to be ~$4K because then I would only use 50% of my available credit limit.

If most of us have $2k limit on our Starwood Amex, how often are you guys redeeming the points. I'm basically using it for Airline Miles, and just wondering how often you guys are able to redeem free tickets.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by cali99boy:

If most of us have $2k limit on our Starwood Amex, how often are you guys redeeming the points. I'm basically using it for Airline Miles, and just wondering how often you guys are able to redeem free tickets.</font>

I'm using my starpoints from amex for
free weekend hotel stays at the lower end hotels.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Alysia:
I've had the card since January and haven't gotten a credit limit increase yet. I pay the card off every month so maybe I'm not the best customer. There is a place on their website where you can ask for an increase, but I just haven't bothered to do so yet. [This message has been edited by Alysia (edited 12-12-2002).]</font>

I used the link provided while logged into my account, but it wouldn't take it until after the 6th month had passed. Once it did, I had immediate approval for what I had requested. My guess is that you can probably request an increase every 6 months until your income to debt ratio catches up with you. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Best regards,

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

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

Just got my Starwood Amex approved with a credit limit of $8200 http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Alysia:
I'm using my starpoints from amex for
free weekend hotel stays at the lower end hotels.</font>

How often is that? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Spencerism:
Just got my Starwood Amex approved with a credit limit of $8200 http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif</font>

holy heck.. it must be some sort of lottery then http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

You guys need to spend more time on the Amex board. Here's an explanation of the Amex credit limits - one of the most informative posts I've seen on FT:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum69/HTML/001045.html

Thank you singlemalt. That's the post I was referring to in my answer to the original post in this thread.

-David

Wow and I thought I had it bad. I just received my new Starwood Amex card today with a 25K credit line and was thinking that it was a bit low. Of course I do have very active excellent credit.

One question off topic. With this card are amex membership rewards moot? I suppose the points accumulate in my starwood account and not my membership rewards account...right?

[This message has been edited by luv2buynfly (edited 12-14-2002).]

I've had a Starwood AMEX (was Optima at one time), and it has worked out well. If you use the card and build up a good payment history record, they are more than happy to increase $$ limit. All you have to do is ask. It takes a couple of weeks.
Also, Starwood points are transferable to most major airlines on a one-for-one basis with a BONUS. For every 20,000 you transfer out, you get a 5,000 mile bonus. In other words, transfer 20,000 points to, say, UAL, and you actually get 25,000. It works! All this, plus hotel stays, etc. for a relatively small $$ fee.
Such a deal! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by luv2buynfly:
Wow and I thought I had it bad. I just received my new Starwood Amex card today with a 25K credit line and was thinking that it was a bit low. Of course I do have very active excellent credit.

One question off topic. With this card are amex membership rewards moot? I suppose the points accumulate in my starwood account and not my membership rewards account...right?

[This message has been edited by luv2buynfly (edited 12-14-2002).]</font>


They make mistakes. A year or so of points can pile up in your MR acct. Monitor, and get them out as soon as the transfer stops, as they will take them out shortly after they find the mistake.