SPG 'Better by the Night' Promotion - pre-launch discussion and speculation thread

First of all, I have no axe to grind with this promotion in terms of the earning criteria. It doesn't work for me, but such is life.

My concern on a broader perspective is that we now have a split between regions and countries due to other promotions running at the same time. SPG is a global program and the division of the promotions by geography is setting a rather worrying precedent. It certainly makes it harder for someone with travel patterns across multiple countries to actually make use of the promotions as well as hoped. For example a couple of 2 night stays or a 4 night stay in Asia won't yield a return via the local promo, nor will you get the double or triple points that the main promo would be eligible for.

The net result will potentially be members skipping properties in a particular region or country as a result of a disconnected promotion strategy. It is certainly confusing at best and will definitely catch some members out. I'm sure that SPG have done this with what they see as good reason, but I'm yet to be convinced of the benefit of it to either Starwood or SPG members, especially if it becomes a longer term strategy.

Well, I like the points although I've traditionally hopped properties in Q1 in order to requal for Platinum right away. My current travel has me doing some one-night stays as well, so this may be interesting depending upon what Hilton puts up.

At least it's not a FWN! ^

sucks....hope something else is offered for ap....

I'm staying on a Buy Two Get One Free rate. That technically is not the same as a Free Award night do will I get Triple Points for staying three nights?

The revenue is divided up equally among the three nights and posted as a three-night stay, so if you are staying on a qualifying night, you should get Triple Points.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Thanks for the clarification that Asia is excluded. I assume you read my posts saying there was a disconnected between the landing page, T&C page and the exclusion list. The intent appears to be that Asia was excluded but as per the T&Cs and exclusion list it was not. All these pages are offline now and I suspect someone is scrambling to make them consistent.

A lot of my stays are in Asia and I dislike their exclusion. The MasterCard promo should not be a replacement as I suspect that MasterCard is footing a lot of the bill for this.

My apologies, but I don't believe there was a disconnect at all. The offer said that hotels and resorts in North and Latin America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East are participating and the non-participating properties in those regions were listed.

Asia Pacific is not participating at all, so there was really no reason to list them as non-participating because they were never mentioned in the offer; however, because some here were confused by that, I'm fairly certain they will be added in when the site becomes live again. I believe that Thyetus' earlier message also confirms this.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Most companies use the published T&C to resolve any discrepancies on promos. In this case there is nothing in the "early insight" T&Cs that excluded Asia Pacific. Those who implement the promo generally code from a requirements document that should be consistent with the T&Cs. If the requirements stated essentially the same thing as the T&Cs, AP would have been included. Maybe it would have been noticed and corrected, maybe not.

A few years ago United Airlines offered an "Early Bird" promo that gave a large mileage bonus. The promo wording and T&C however were inconstant. The T&Cs offered a higher bonus. Myself and others informed UA of this but UA continued to publish the T&Cs with the higher bonus in some places, e.g. USA Today. There was a lot of pressure from FT members to honor those T&Cs. UA finally gave in. Their legal department recommended that they do so.

I was told by UA employee that was in a position to know, that it ended up costing almost $1,000,000 to resolve this. I have some details on the issue at http://genefowler.com/MPW004 . Be warned that some of the links, especially the one to the FT thread at the top of the page, no longer work. FT changed the their URLs a while ago. The ones in the middle of the page go to the Wayback Machine archive which have copies of the FT threads.

I brought up the inconsistencies to prevent such an issue with SPG. I bet it will be perfectly clear what properties are included/excluded when these pages next see daylight.

Thanks for the early heads up. As this promotion is one of the worst I've seen in the past years from SPG, I've booked all my Q1 stays at Hilton. I guess that's the main benefit of this promotion for me.

So instead of taking advantage of the 'whatever' promotion it is at SPG, you have decided to book all your Q1 stays at a program with no promotion at all so far. Interesting strategy, indeed. I suppose you value the base hilton program much than an SPG program with potentially some points bonus.

I'm hoping Starwood would revise this promotion to include quadruple points for four-night stays...

As a follow up to our post earlier today, here are some details for those who have already registered for our SPG Better by the Night promotion, officially beginning January 9, 2012.

1. Your registrations do count. You will not need to re-register once registration opens officially on January 9, 2012.
2. For registering early, there is no additional bonus or benefit. Your earning based on the promotion details will begin on stays starting January 9 and continue through April 8, 2012, like all other members who register during the official registration period.
3. We know you have not received a confirmation email confirming you are registered. If you are unsure whether or not you did successfully register, you can visit the registration page again beginning January 9, 2012 and try to re-register. If you see a message “You've already registered for this promotion, no need to register again.”, you have successfully registered for the promotion. We will send you an email to remind you.

For those of you who have not registered yet, check back on January 9, 2012 when registration officially opens. SPG.com/bythenight.

And, until January 9, we ask that you please avoid reposting the link to the registration page on any other communication channels (blogs, twitter, etc.). The page has been temporarily pulled down; thus, it will be a poor experience for those that you do send there that do try to register now but can’t because they are clicking on a re-posted, not live link. We are committed to providing the best experience for our members, both during their stay and with our promotions. So thank you for respecting this as we look to launch our next promotion. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Reallys pee's me off that certain hotels exclude themselves especially when I am going to stay in them. If this continues then it may be a move to a different hotel partner as this get's more and more ridiculous.

I was going to have about 65 stays during this promo period at Sheraton AP properties, will now look to see what other Hotel Chains are available in the areas I will be visiting

I've just reg'd for a Hilton promo. Forget the exact specifics, but it was something like: spend five nights at a Hilton resort and get a free night anywhere. That's way worse than this promo, yet there is tonnes of kvetching. ˇBasta! I have an APAC stay coming up in a few weeks also, but you dun see me whining about APAC not participating. I just simply won't change my res from C+P to rev.