America West FlightFund (Discontinued Program) - SPG Gold Status Upgrade Link

I just got an email. If you aren't already Gold...

VALUABLE MILES AND EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGES AWAIT.

Enjoy more miles and benefits at more than 750 of the world's finest hotels — with elite Gold Preferred Guest® status. Miles will be automatically added to your America West Airlines® FlightFund® account after each stay.

TAKE OFF WITH 9,000 BONUS MILES.

Through July 15, 2005, earn 3,000 America West Airlines FlightFund bonus miles for every three nights you stay — for a total of up to 9,000 bonus miles!

https://www.lg0.net/starwood/tripleplay05/americawest.cfm?EM=VTY_SPG_awgold&mc=VTY

I got a similar one for United. Please note that as we've discovered over at the UA board this will convert your account to miles earning only. In other words, you'll get your bonus miles and (in this case) 1 HP mile for every dollar spent. You won't have the option of earning SPG points.



I just got an email. If you aren't already Gold...

VALUABLE MILES AND EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGES AWAIT.

Enjoy more miles and benefits at more than 750 of the world's finest hotels — with elite Gold Preferred Guest® status. Miles will be automatically added to your America West Airlines® FlightFund® account after each stay.

TAKE OFF WITH 9,000 BONUS MILES.

Through July 15, 2005, earn 3,000 America West Airlines FlightFund bonus miles for every three nights you stay — for a total of up to 9,000 bonus miles!

https://www.lg0.net/starwood/tripleplay05/americawest.cfm?EM=VTY_SPG_awgold&mc=VTY

In other words, you'll get your bonus miles and (in this case) 1 HP mile for every dollar spent. You won't have the option of earning SPG points.

I don't know about the United offer but according to the HP e-mail you'll earn 3 FlightFund miles per $ spent plus the bonus miles. You're right on not earning SPG points though.

I got the email as well.

Question: I don't use SPG enough to re-qualify for status the next year. Will accepting this offer cause me to have problems in the future should I ever start heavily using Starwood properties?

Question: I don't use SPG enough to re-qualify for status the next year. Will accepting this offer cause me to have problems in the future should I ever start heavily using Starwood properties?

I'm not sure exactly what type of problems you might be thinking about, but I'll address a couple of issues: You still earn the night and stay credits in SPG, even though you receive no SPG points for the stay, as those are credited to America West (in this case). So from an SPG elite qualification perspective, this doesn't impact anything. In order to retain the SPG Gold status for the 2006 program year, you will have to re-qualify this year, by staying 10 times or 25 nights.

I spend a fair amount of time over at the SPG board, so I want to emphasize a point that comes up over there on a regular basis: If you sign up for this promotion you will receive SPG Gold status and will be making the decision to have all of your points deposited into your America West Flight Fund account. If you change your mind at some later date (such as after receiving all of the bonus points ;) ) and change your SPG account to earn Starpoints instead, you will most likely lose your SPG Gold status, as the status requires that you participate in this airline direct deposit program. Many members have reported losing their promotional status when they changed their SPG account to receive Starpoints. It's just something to think about.