Starwood Preferred Guest - Today's lesson: Mind your "P"'s and Q's

This is my first stay as an SPG Platinum, and it struck me that I wasn't offered a welcome amenity on check-in last night (I was upgraded to the club floor). So, I went down to the desk and inquired.

It seems I was registered as SPG Gold because the "P" prefix wasn't on my account number as entered. I remembered the A on my old card, and just noticed that the prefix was different on the platinum card. I know I presented my PLT card at check in, but I had made my reservation directly with the hotel, so I guess it wasn't recorded correctly at that time. I probably should have guessed something wasn't right when I got a "gold" colored sleve with my key.

In any case, the front desk clerk found the problem, and offered the appropriate choices of an amenity (I took the points). Lesson learned.

If you made the reservation while you were Gold, there would be a G in your reservation. They are not automatically refreshed, but if you become Plat after making a reservation as Gold, a simple call asking them to refresh your status should do the trick.

That wasn't the case here. I got the Platinum in January, and this is my first Starwood stay this year. I didn't even call to make the reservations until I had my PLT credentials in hand.

It could have been my own mistake. I called the hotel directly to see if they had a corp rate with the client I am seeing this week. They don't (yet), but were kind enough to offer a significant discount for me anyway.

Lesson 2: Next time, just call the PLT line to begin with.