Starwood Preferred Guest - Frustration with SPG Elite Member award program

Hi all (and William, maybe you can provide some guidance, assistance):

I just called and tried to book the SPG Elite Member special "European Holiday" award - 7 nights at that can be split between upto 3 hotels in Europe, for a discounted amount of points.

I wanted to split my time between London and Paris - I asked the agent if there were participating hotels in both cities, she said yes, naming one of the Sheratons and the Hotel Prince de Galles. Great, I had her check on some of the usage policies related to the points (e.g. do they have to be consecutive nights when splitting between hotels) and other amenties at the hotel. I then asked her to go ahead and make a booking. As we proceed through the booking process, she told me that she could no longer offer me the Prince de Galles as it was just recently changed to a higher point category hotel. I asked her that as a gesture of goodwill, would she still honour it as she told me the hotel was included, and I proceeded to make plans on staying there. Also, I could have recently made my booking before the category change. To top it off, there are are no alternate SPG hotels SPG hotels in central Paris at all, let alone one participating or available for booking. She said no, they could not honour that.

That response is frustrating to a multi-year SPG platinum member who was acting on advertised information that was also communicated by the platinum concierge who said I could book at that hotel, and then said I could not when I proceeded to the booking.

Anyone else have a similar experience? William, any guidance on this?

Also, has anyone stayed at Hotel Prince de Galles? Is it really worth all those points?

Thanks guys.

Is that particular award described somewhere on the website? Also, is the PdG worth the points? Yes and no. It is a perfectly good hotel. I received a very decent upgrade there. I don't know where you are located, but if you are a US$ or other weak-currency payor, right now it very well may be worth the points (in the sense of "how much am I saving", not "is this a great hotel")

Hi all (and William, maybe you can provide some guidance, assistance):

I just called and tried to book the SPG Elite Member special "European Holiday" award - 7 nights at that can be split between upto 3 hotels in Europe, for a discounted amount of points.

I wanted to split my time between London and Paris - I asked the agent if there were participating hotels in both cities, she said yes, naming one of the Sheratons and the Hotel Prince de Galles. Great, I had her check on some of the usage policies related to the points (e.g. do they have to be consecutive nights when splitting between hotels) and other amenties at the hotel. I then asked her to go ahead and make a booking. As we proceed through the booking process, she told me that she could no longer offer me the Prince de Galles as it was just recently changed to a higher point category hotel. I asked her that as a gesture of goodwill, would she still honour it as she told me the hotel was included, and I proceeded to make plans on staying there. Also, I could have recently made my booking before the category change. To top it off, there are are no alternate SPG hotels SPG hotels in central Paris at all, let alone one participating or available for booking. She said no, they could not honour that.

That response is frustrating to a multi-year SPG platinum member who was acting on advertised information that was also communicated by the platinum concierge who said I could book at that hotel, and then said I could not when I proceeded to the booking.

Anyone else have a similar experience? William, any guidance on this?

Also, has anyone stayed at Hotel Prince de Galles? Is it really worth all those points?

Thanks guys.

Hi all (and William, maybe you can provide some guidance, assistance):

I just called and tried to book the SPG Elite Member special "European Holiday" award - 7 nights at that can be split between upto 3 hotels in Europe, for a discounted amount of points.



Yeah, a link would be great but details of this promotion are of interest to a few of us....

Is that particular award described somewhere on the website? Also, is the PdG worth the points? Yes and no. It is a perfectly good hotel. I received a very decent upgrade there. I don't know where you are located, but if you are a US$ or other weak-currency payor, right now it very well may be worth the points (in the sense of "how much am I saving", not "is this a great hotel")

Yes, that award is described on the SPG site - its been there for about a year.
Its listed at the below address

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/starpoints/redeem_landing.html

but the details of the Elite awards are launched on this new site
http://www.lg0.net/starwood/aspirationalawards/

As for the PdG hotel....I've stayed in Paris in the past for about $100 US via priceline at a ok/ "decent" hotel - but not up to the standard I would expect from Sheraton/ Westin/ W, etc. I realize that PdG must be a very impressive property based on the cash rates they quote. However, I'm not sure if this is really a great value. Any thoughts? Also, I think its terrible that Starwood does not have another more "moderately priced" hotel location in Central Paris - no Sheratons, Westins or Ws.

Anyway, again - any thoughts on my award dilemma - the platinum conceirge offered me PdG, and then later revoked it. It appears to be no longer on the list of hotels on the award site - but again, I emphasize that it was previously, and the agent when I called in to book thought it was too, offered it to me, check out other details, and at the end of the booking said "oops, sorry can't proceed - they just changed the point levels". The exception I am asking for is a goodwill follow through to make good on what was advertised and offered to me live on the phone.

No thoughts here? William?

No thoughts here? William?

Just a little more patience, please. I haven't been in the office for about a week now and there is a bit to catch up on. ;)

If you need faster service than I can provide, then you might want to call the Customer Contact Center and ask to speak to a supervisor. If you want to wait for my assistance, then I will need your Starwood Preferred Guest account number, so you could get ahead of the game by sending it to me via email.

Cheers.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

Welcome to FT DisAdam! A few pieces of information:

1. Lurker is a guest and this is not his only job; please be considerate of his time and realize that if you require instantaneous information, this probably isn't the best forum for that (telephone to *wood?) ;)

2. I've stayed at the PDG - it's a good location (one block from the Champs d'Elysses), nice room, but nothing SPECTACULAR like the Excelsior in Rome. I personally stay at very small and locally owned hotels in Paris that run for about $80 per night. After all, how much are you really in your room when you're in Paris? :)

3. As far as your comments that you "could have booked. . ." well honestly, you didn't and if the rules changed then unfortunately, you have to live with those rules. I know that's very frustrating but if you're that unhappy then I would strongly suggest using your points for a different vacation spot and either book through parishotels.com for a room or pay the actual points.

4. You may want to use the Search function to read what other FTers think about the PDG. Select Search-->This Forum-->Prince deGalles and you'll see the threads related to that hotel.

Again, welcome to FT. I hope that your future posts reflect good experiences with *wood!

First of all...this is a great award...although it is disappointing to see properties dropping out. The award allows you to:

1. Combine 3 participating Luxury Collection Cat 5 hotels into one award;

2. Get one 1 night free (like the buy 4, get the 5th night free) award; and

3. Get a 5,000 redemption discount, which essentially works out to a 6-8% net discount.

I booked this for 2 rooms for our pending summer trip to Europe, using 3 peak season nights at the Park Tower in London, 2 low season nights at the E&R in Venice and 2 low season nights at the Excelsior in Rome for 77,280 SPGs per room, where the straight redemption cost would have been 96,000, so the award saved me 18,720 per room, or 37,440 -- which was nice.

I found that the people at SPG reservations were not up to speed on this award, and were unable to tell me much about it, until I just started booking it, and then it "priced" itself...but it's available and is a good award.

As for the PdG Paris issue, I feel for you, but I sense you have a steep hill to climb. Still, given the high value of customer satisfaction, particualy among major/loyal customers, I could see justification for an exception to keep you happy, if that's what it took. Not sure SPG will view it that way.

Oh boy - I have a very similiar issue - only I booked a room at PDG under the old rate (60k points for 6 nights) - then later 'wood told me I need 2 rooms since I have four people in my family (3 max limit per room) - so now I am booking the 2nd room at 100k points. So, I did not get grandfathered into the lower category rate or my second room because there was a gap between booking dates that did not work to my advantage (clearly!).

If you get it over-ridden let me know because the logic of this one is killing me.

DISAdam, I never got an email from you, so I assume you were able to get a supervisor? If not, I'm officially caught up. ;)

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com