paul577

Not necessarily or even probable. 45 nights, plus 5 for the CC, at the Four Points Black Hills of Dakota or the like( @ say 3,000USD) cf 25 stays , 40 nights in NYC, Sydney, London, HK (15000-20000).

stimpy

Just curious, how do you, or the WSJ know this? I would think that people who stay 75 or 100+ nights already have an Ambassador, right?

And another thing, a good many of the 100+ nighters out there are consultants or engineers who are on long assignments and who do most all their nights in a single hotel. So I don't think these people will have any new or adverse effect on the general population of Plat's.

MSP2SEA

One benefit of this new program would seem to be that it will clarify which rooms/suites are in the upgrade pool at each property, and which are not... regardless of which method you are using (conventional or suite nite awards), the same rooms are in the pool if I'm reading correctly.

In the past you might be able to figure that out by calling the platinum line or the hotel manager... but now we should be able to determine it right on SPG.com, right?

Land-of-Miles

Probably this data was leaked by Starwood to the WSJ as part of their PR drive

As to the 2nd point I don't know that significant nightly stays necessarily means a bias towards a single property. It probably does point towards a travel pattern of multiple nightly/weekly stays rather than individual nights so matched perhaps better to the consulting profession that the legal profession There will undoubtedly be a number of those who hit multiple night targets at a single property but I would expect this would be the minority of the 75 to 100 night qualifiers.

EuroHannibal

Platinum Preferred Guest Online Chat
SPG Agent.





Chat History
SPG Agent. has entered the session.
Eurohannibal: Hi, just wondered if i hit 50 nights last year please?
SPG Agent: Welcome to SPG Platinum Online Chat. My name is SPG Agent.
SPG Agent.: Hello Mr. Eurohannibal
SPG Agent.: Let me take a look for you.
Eurohannibal: hi
SPG Agent: One moment.
Eurohannibal: thx
SPG Agent: I am showing 38 stays and 47 nights for 2011.
Eurohannibal: argh! thanks ))
SPG Agent: Was there anything else that I can assist you with today or perhaps any bookings?
Eurohannibal: can you book me three nights for mid 2011?
SPG Agent: I wish I could but I cannot unfortunately turn back the clocks.

Look Ma No Hands

I love these new benefits. My husband & I have both been Plats for years & while he is pretty close to getting lifetime Plat, I still have a few more years before I can get there. We both are in the 50+ nights a year range so the Suite Certificates are a great addition.

I have a question for one of the Lurkers please. I think I read on this thread that the 5 nights from the SPG Amex count towards the 50 nights. I've had the Personal SPG Amex for a few years now but last week I applied for the Business SPG Amex as well & it just arrived today. I've already got the 2 stay & 5 nights credit for the Personal card but would I also get an additional 2 stay & 5 night credit for the Business card? If yes then will that post to my account for this year?

Land-of-Miles

As I was pounding the treadmill in the gym earlier I got to thinking that what I find most odd about many of the new benefit changes (not exclusively the suite nights awards) is the single simple definition of loyalty that seems to be applied based on nights stayed.

This seems quite a crude measure of loyalty but quite a common one in the Hotel Chain Frequent Guest programme world. If this was an airline scheme though isn't it the equivalent of counting miles flown in economy in exactly the same way as miles flown in First or Business Class? So far as I am aware no airline does this, but almost every hotel chain does something similar with the exception of Hilton.

One explanation for lavishing benefits on frequent nights stayers is that they will tend to be reserving the basic room types and this is where the bulk of the inventory lies and room upgrades etc. for guests fitting that profile does not generally mean revenue loss (i.e. reserving base category rooms rather than the suite they would have been happy to pay for if they did not expect a good chance of an upgrade).

Still the airlines think very differently about the definition of loyalty even though they face potentially exactly the same problems. This is not a Starwood gripe just a genuine question, why do airlines and hotel chains measure loyalty (and the rewards that flow from it) in such different ways?

Robert Leach

I was sort of thinking the same thing. One of the more frustrating things to me about the entire program -- which IMO is generally a great program -- is that the nomenclature for suites is very fuzzy and non-standardized.

Upgrade eligibility rules use terms like "standard" suite but when you look at any given property, rarely if ever do you see the term "standard" used in the descriptions of suites available to book. You'll see a "One Bedroom Suite" or a "Junior Suite" or an "Ocean View Suite" or and "Ocean Front Junior Suite" or whatever, but you rarely if ever see the label of "Standard Suite" -- which just makes things confusing when it comes to upgrades.

Since those requesting Suite Night upgrades will see what rooms may actually be requested as an upgrade, it should flush some of this out into the open.

Overall, I think these new features represent a wonderful enhancement to the program, and I can't get over how many entitled individuals feel like they've been cheated because "If I had only known this last year I would have stayed 50 nights!"

wilsonnyc

yeah, that piqued my interest too and got a response that indicated this is correct. However, upgrade options for the certs will seemingly only deliver results if they are available, so you'd really only get a true sense of which rooms are in the upgrade pool property to property if all room types are not sold out.

Nonetheless, this should take some of the guessing out of the game. ^

ksdlflyer

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean here so I'll lay out what I thought when I saw it. If you get time please explain what I misunderstand.

It seems to me that airlines do exactly the same thing. Let's take two people from the project I run. One of us travels from the West Coast to the Northeast every week and the other takes a direct flight of less than 3 hours. The person who takes the direct flight spends ~160% on airline tickets of the person coming from the West but has a lower status ranking (Platinum vs Diamond). Not only that, both are often on the same flight to the final destination after the person from the West makes the connection.

It seems to me that the airlines allow people to qualify on segments (analogous to stays) and miles (analogous to nights) but that miles is rewarded more than revenue. When Delta tried to reward based on revenue it went very poorly for them and thus they stick with this status quo.

I love this program but, hey, of course I do because I had 26 stays and 94 nights last year because I didn't have to travel as much. The only program of the new the ones that I don't love is the 10 year platinum requirement because I'll hit 500 nights with 5-6 years left to go. I'd love to see a way to make it on nights. I understand why they do it though so I'm not complaining. We used to be forced into other programs and I've only been allowed to use Starwood since I took my last job.

MSPeconomist

I remember being told that the hotel gets a ranked list but is free to ignore the ranking and, for example, give the better upgrade to someone who is a frequent guest at that property. IME Starwood hotels have been increasingly preassigning suites and upgraded rooms so that it is not a matter of who checks in first when a suite is available.

MSPeconomist

Yes in some cases, but not always. The people who qualify for Plat on the basis of 25 stays can have far more than 25 nights. How much is spent depends on the type of hotel as well as the locations of the hotels they use. Fifty nights in a Four Points can cost an order of magnitude less than 49 nights in the Tokyo Westin or the Singapore St Regis, to give two examples of hotels where I have stayed.

MSPeconomist

I do understand this, but I would imagine that a good Ambassador routinely request that his or her guest be treated well by the property, whether or not the terms suite upgrade are routinely used without it being explicitly requested. The fact that your Ambassador contacts the hotel on your behalf tells the hotel that you have an Ambassador and therefore are not just a Plat. In the future, knowing that someone has an Ambassador might cause the property to conclude, incorrectly in some cases, that the person is a Tier One Plat, also known as Plat100.

MSP2SEA

Ahh... a flaw in my logic... still seems like we could crowd source this with FTers to get a pretty good picture fairly quickly.

Rolling Stone

Actually the SPG does take a number of different criteria into account. There are different levels that give different point earning levels for each dollar spent. A Preferred level only get 2 points, while Plats get 3 and the new Plat level gets 4.

The room type you book and the rate you pay, along with the additional spend in a hotel also figures in how you are rewarded for a stay.

As an aside, are you going to strive to meet the 50 room night criteria in 2012?