torontotravel

Has anyone heard when SPG will be making its category changes(hotels going up or down in category)? It's usually in February..but was wondering if anyone had heard anything concrete?

KENNECTED

Welcome.

It's November, so to answer your question, no.

When the changes are announced, one of the Lurkers will post that information.

torontotravel

In the past I've noticed that sometimes people get information in advance..but thanks for the info. And thanks for the welcome to the site.

KENNECTED

I think that is just speculation, unless you have a specific post you can refer to. Unless the Lurkers post or an email comes from Starwood/SPG, I would take any other discussion with a grain of salt.

LovetoTravel83

The lurkers usually announce it in advance. I believe it is 2 weeks in advance before the category officially changes.

controller1

The announcement dates and effective dates for category changes for the past three years:

2014 - Announced February 20 / Effective March 4
2013 - Announced February 20 / Effective March 5
2012 - Announced February 16 / Effective March 1

torontotravel

thanks for the info.

Super Larry

I've been looking for new redemption rate for 2015, but was unsuccesfull. Unless I missed the thread somehow. If so, please post the link. If not, when are we gonna read about it? Starwood Lurkers??

lcpteck

No announcement yet.

Oxon Flyer

You probably haven't found anything because over the past years SPG's annual redemption rate review has been done by changing a hotels award category level, rather than changing the redemption rates themselves.

We have already, of course, a speculation thread for 2015 for this : post #6 lists the dates the changes have been announced each year. HTH.

jaejaez

As a matter of speculation, I am betting that the two St. Regis properties in Abu Dhabi will go up to Cat. 6 from their current Cat. 5 status.

Their rates have been climbing steadily.

Also hoping for W Paris to come down a step...

Medved

I hope San Seb Maria Christina will go back to 5 . 6 is an overkill there

BigBopper

European properties SHOULD go down based on the value of the Euro. However, the criteria stated has also changed year to year from past performance to estimated future performance. So um....my guess is meaningless.

el_tigre

Actually the criteria to determine a property's category has always been projected revenue for the coming year. Any older FT posts claiming it is based on past performance were based on false assumptions that have since been corrected and clarified.

But it will be very interesting to see if/where European properties drop, assuming category changes are announced next month. At this time last year, the dollar was at 1.35 to the Euro. Today it is at 1.12, and seemingly getting closer to par every day. Hotel prices have obviously been climbing in Europe the last several years, but I am curious if that is enough to counterbalance the 20% drop in the Euro over the last 12 months.

Of the category 7's that could drop, I would think the W Paris, St. Regis Rome, Schloss Fuschl and Hotel Danieli could all see changes back down to 6. I'm guessing most of the Greek properties that moved up the last two years could also go back down (the ones that are still around anyways).

rgm18

Shouldn't we be hearing soon? Any word?