Starwood Preferred Guest - Good/Happy/Nice SPG Stories

It seems like the various Starwood program changes and related missteps have generated quite a few threads in this forum.

While I am not going say that those threads should not continue, quite frankly I'm bored reading about them - and until we hear more from Starwood there just isn't that much more to say. (Don't let me stop you diehards though http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif ).

On the other hand, when I look back at old threads I find lots of anecdotes about Starwood or its employees really going out of their way to make things right when there was a problem or even making things even better when there wasn't.

Interestingly enough, I don't seem to see quite as many of these stories in the forums for other hotel chains (on the other hand I didn't do a scientific study).

At risk of sounding like a cheerleader, I would like to suggest that we have a thread devoted to the good stuff about Starwood. I think it might be a good reminder of why we were (or maybe still are) excited by the spg program.

Well, my most recent Starwood stay at the Sheraton Santiago was great, as usual. I don't know if the platinum concierge contacted the hotel in advance, but I received a nice small suite. I think the "amenity" in the room was for a honeymoon/romance package that never showed up - I even told the bellman that I don't think all this is for me, and gave him the opportunity to remove it. Lets see, a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice (melted)- that was partially consumed after getting more ice http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif, another bottle of champagne in a box with champagne flutes (I left it intact), a plate of chocolates, and a couple of roses. Later that day, a plate of fruit came to the room (yes, that was probably for me).

I also had a series of email correspondence with the hotel's concierge to get me some concert tickets, and all went well with that, and I left him a nice envelope.

That is my most recent SPG happy story.

I suppose the more recent happy SPG story (which isn't SPG at all) is that this evening, I went to redeem some HHonors points. (1) I couldn't even try online to both redeem AND reserve at the same time, (2) I was on hold for quite some time (so much so that I almost gave up and thought I'd redeem SPG points, which I didn't want to do for this trip), (3) My first hotel choice had, of course, no award availability for one of the nights (but plenty for revenue sale) and the second choice had none, either. I'm staying where I don't particularly want to, but the price is right. None of this would have happened with SPG.