Starwood Preferred Guest - New SPG Gold Card

I received my new SPG Gold Card today, expiring in February 2005.

It came in a wonderful little booklet, with beautiful pictures of places I won't be able to afford with money, or only maybe 2.5 nights with the Starpoints I've accumulated so far http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif.

The other thing I like is the card itself-- it lists four of the Gold Benefits on the back of the card: 3 Starpoints/US$, 4pm checkout (excluding some resorts), Preferred room upgrade, and the newspaper. Now I can argue with the front desk about my guaranteed 4pm checkout with some backup http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

My card also has a AAA logo on it. I linked my SPG account with AAA last year, so I guess that is why. Is that so, Lurker, or is there another reason?

The lettering (name, SPG number) is not raised as it was on my old card.

This may be old hat for some of you -- my Gold card that expires at the end of this month was issued in late 2002.

There is no other reason for the AAA logo other than the fact you identified yourself as a AAA member and a Starwood Preferred Guest.

Ostensibly, we went to non-raised letters because they were nearly unreadable after a year's worth of use.

I wish they had been a little more inclusive on the 4 PM check-out benefit, as that can also be denied at conference locations under high occupancy, but I suppose there was limited space to work with. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Sincerely,

William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

Got a card on Monday, it doesn't have an expiration date. Does that mean I have status for life? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Same here - got the new card despite not entirely making the 10 nights requal.. seems kinda cheap/flimsy compared to last year's.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by gleff:
Got a card on Monday, it doesn't have an expiration date. Does that mean I have status for life? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif</font>


Cool. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cool.gif I guess I'm a Gold lifer as well. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thumbsup.gif

And last years card was unreadable as the raised white letters of my name and account number had worn off somewhere over the Atlantic last July I think! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Starwood Lurker:
There is no other reason for the AAA logo other than the fact you identified yourself as a AAA member and a Starwood Preferred Guest. </font>

Hmmm. I guess having the Starwood AAA toll-free number on the back of the card would have been nice. Maybe the AAA-SPG connection will mean more to Golds and Plats in the future.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Ostensibly, we went to non-raised letters because they were nearly unreadable after a year's worth of use.
</font>
C'mon, we're SPG Gold! How much use could we have possibly put the cards to? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by DivMiler:
Hmmm. I guess having the Starwood AAA toll-free number on the back of the card would have been nice. Maybe the AAA-SPG connection will mean more to Golds and Plats in the future.

</font>

How I wish that SPG # & status to be included in the AMEX SPG card.. too much to carry ;-)

hear hear! but thats wishful thinking since those are printed by american express and we all know how that company is.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by meghadhoot:
How I wish that SPG # & status to be included in the AMEX SPG card.. too much to carry ;-)</font>

I think an issue with this as with other credit cards linked to an airline or other hotel is the issue date. Unless the cards were issued yearly and all in February there would be lots of discrepancies if ones status changed. Imagine if say January someone was just a general member and then qualifed for Gold in late February and for Platinum by April. That would mean they would have had 3 credit cards sent to them for a status change. A waste of time and money IMO.