Thanks to all for your postings regarding the addition of category 6 hotels.

Here's the list of hotels becoming category 6 Hotels:

Hotel Cala di Volpe - Costa Smeralda, Sardinia, Italy
Hotel Pitrizza - Costa Smeralda, Sardinia, Italy
Hotel Romazzino - Costa Smeralda, Sardinia, Italy
Hotel Gritti Palace - Venice, Italy
St. Regis Grand - Rome, Italy
St. Regis - New York

Each of these hotels is truly unique, not only within Starwood but within their market and within the hotel industry. In many cases they command rate premiums that are several hundred dollars more than competitive hotels or even other Starwood Hotels in their market.

It is worth noting, that within New York, which is one of our most popular redemption destinations, we now own and manage 8 hotels representing 4 different brands, totaling 4500 rooms. While the St. Regis represents the ultimate high-end luxury redemption experience, we are reducing the award price of the Sheraton New York and Sheraton Manhattan from Category 4 to Category 3 (a 30%/3,000 point reduction) to offer a less expensive redemption option.

As you can imagine, given the number of hotels we operate in more than 70 countries around the world, and the continual renovations they receive as well as varying economic conditions in the different markets, it is sometimes necessary for us to move hotels up or down in their award category assignment to make the redemption pricing appropriate. As an example, in the case of Mexico where the US Dollar is strong, we have a number of great resorts that are category 2 or 3 and represent a terrific award redemption value.

Additionally, in the case of any change of category, it is Starwood Preferred Guest’s policy to honor the prior point award price for members in the program prior to the change for a period of 6 months following the change.

Any changes that are made will be going into effect by March 1 and we will be updating www.preferredguest.com in the next several days with the entire list of hotels and their categories.


[This message has been edited by StarwoodPrfrdGuest (edited 02-11-2000).]