Thunderroad
May 18, 07, 7:18 pm
In juggling some complicated vacation plans, I recently made numerous award stay reservations at Starwood properties and canceled several of them. I (foolishly, I guess) assumed the points would be properly deducted and recredited along the way. As I finally finalized my plans, an especially helpful Starwood phone reservation agent was reviewing what I'd done and found that about 50,000 points had mistakenly not been deducted from my account for one reservation but that 120,000 had mistakenly not been recredited for a cancelation. So a net gain for me of 70,000 points--though no thanks to me; thanks to a great reservation agent!
For whatever stupid reason, I've always been more careful about checking my airline mileage balances than my hotel ones, I guess because I have fewer transactions with the latter and they're often more straightforward. Most folks in this forum probably have been more scrupulous than I've been about their Starwood balances, but I thought I'd post this experience anyway for anyone who's been as negligent as me. I think Starwood reservations personnel are generally very good, but they're still human and they can make mistakes with points, especially when things get complicated.
For whatever stupid reason, I've always been more careful about checking my airline mileage balances than my hotel ones, I guess because I have fewer transactions with the latter and they're often more straightforward. Most folks in this forum probably have been more scrupulous than I've been about their Starwood balances, but I thought I'd post this experience anyway for anyone who's been as negligent as me. I think Starwood reservations personnel are generally very good, but they're still human and they can make mistakes with points, especially when things get complicated.