Starwood Preferred Guest - Disney Dolphin - Spend $99/night or use 40K pts

I plan to stay at the Dolphin the first week of September for 5 nights. I made an award reservation using 40K points. Then I read at Mousesavers that there is a special rate of $99 per night which includes a free upgrade (I called and found out that it is to a lakeview room).

Can anybody offer comments about whether they would use 40K points for a standard room, or spend $99/night. Also, is there a further upgrade available at the Dolphin (besides suite upgrade)? If I get the lakeview room, then spend another 1,500 points per night for a specialty upgrade (perhaps to a resort view)?

Pay the rate and save your points ! No question about it.

pay

Definitely pay. You can use those points for much higher priced properties, in the range of $200 to $400 a night, so at this rate it would be a true waste of Starpoints.

Ditto!

no question,pay the rate.
I paid $180/night in May. And that was a "special" deal.

Agree, pay the rate.

For real value exchanging those 40K points check out the latest "Cash and Points" deals.

-- Dambus

I will be in Tampa the last two weeks of this month... I was considering staying over the weekend to allow my family a weekend at WDW. The Govt rate in Tampa is $93 which is all that I am allowed to spend on a weekend stay over, so your $99 was close enough for me to consider .....

I can try for the Labor day special, but something tells me they wont budge. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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AA member since 1981. Oracle Implementations .... Will Travel....

Give me the 40,000 points and I'll pay for the room. Kidding! Pay, no question about it.

$99 is a baragin; however, occupancy in general is down at all WDW properties so specials seem to be popping up as hotels get nervous to fill rooms in the fall. I would definitely pay versus using points; however, if you have considerable points, then by all means use them.

One thing about the Dolphin is that it is not exactly an intimate hotel. It is huge for convention business.

In Jan, 40,000 points buys 5 nights in the Danieli. Best room price is €320 a night.

Absolutely, positively pay the $99 rate.

First, it is a great rate for this property in this city.

Secondly, the 40K points can provide you with so much more value if used later, at a much more expensive property. Take Honolulu, just as an example. One of the nice Cat 4 properties would run you in the range of $250 per night, at least. The same 40K points could be used for 5 nights there, saving you a bundle compared to what you'll pay for the room at the Dolphin.

I can't help you with the point upgrade options there, but just call SPG. They'll have that info at their fingertips.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts. I will cancel my award reservation and make one for $99/night.

However, I do have a related question. I know this has been covered in other threads, but I don't think it's been covered quite from this perspective:

I will have somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 starpoints by the end of the year, and my wife will have about 30,000 points. I have two kids, 8 and 6 and I live in the NYC area. I don't have many Frequent Flyer miles (about 27K in Continental and 17K in United).

Although going to Venice (or some other far away exotic place) and using my starpoints there sounds appealing to me, I don't think it would keep my kids entertained for long. None of us ski so going to a ski resort during the winter does not appeal to me. I thought about transferring my points to Continental and seeing if I can get three or four tickets to Hawaii (at 35K miles each), but I've all but given up on that after I checked the available award tickets to Hawaii on the Continental website and couldn't find any at 35K miles.

Any suggestions as to the best value for my points while keeping the kids entertained at the same time? (My wife also keeps talking about going to the UK, any good Starwoods there?)

Try Delta. I got 5 award tickets last September using miles. Be aware that you have to book well in advance for these. They will also do a courtesy hold on the booking while you decide. By the way, there are excellent Starwood properties in Hawaii. Good luck.

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AA Platinum, Delta Gold, Starwood Platinum, Fairmont President's Club Gold, Hyatt Diamond, Marriott Gold

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by sunil:
Pay the rate and save your points ! No question about it.</font>

I agree 100%!!!
I would even pay $99/night instead of much lesser points.

Pay the rate. Starpoints take a long time to accumulate these days. As others have mentioned use the points where rates don't flucuate from $99-$300+. Use them at places that keep their rates up $300+.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by dw1234:


I thought about transferring my points to Continental and seeing if I can get three or four tickets to Hawaii (at 35K miles each), but I've all but given up on that after I checked the available award tickets to Hawaii on the Continental website and couldn't find any at 35K miles.
</font>

Hawaii air awards are tough to come by. I gave up on this quest last year and ultimately found a fare on CO to HNL for $525 out of Newark for travel a few weeks ago. Personally, I feel that a Starpoint is far too valuable to use on airfare unless the fare is significant. I would save your 80K+ points to use on lodging in Hawaii.

1. If you are considering using the points for FF miles for travel to HI then definitely look at Delta, to the best of my knowledge they are the ONLY major airline that offers a free coach R/T to HI for only 30K miles - everyone else charges at least 35K each.

2. Also keep in mind that for every 20K starpoints that you redeem for airline miles you will receive a 5K bonus (i.e. a total of 25K miles).

[This message has been edited by yanxfann (edited 08-04-2003).]

Gettting 3 cents US of room per *point = fair deal/ pretty good;
4 cents = very good;
5 cents = Awesome!
1.25 cents = Lousy. I add my vote for paying $99 money rate.

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Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

I booked a two night stay at WDW Dolphin usingthe SPG Cash & Points for $60 + 4000 points/nite. The best rate I could find elsewhere was $134/nite.

Should I stick with my existing reservation ?

skim, based on what everybody has said about the points vs. $99 rate, I think you should probably pay the $99/night and save the points.

Thanks again to everybody for their comments. However, after all this debate, I have decided to stay instead at a 2 bedroom Sunterra resort, through the Armed Forces Vacation Club, for $249 for the week. I really would have liked to stay onsite, but the Sunterra resort was just too tempting to pass up at that price.

Just a word of caution on the $99 rate. I saw this posted at the DisneyCentral forum and it said the rate was for WDW Annual Passholders. You may have to show a valid pass upon check-in.

gsthome, the $99 rate is good for everyone, using the code MSLABOR. Details are at mousesavers.com