I dunno -- does anyone find this mildly annoying or maybe even a bit insulting?
SPG appears to desire to reduce the amount of time each year that they'll have a promo going. Last year, the spring haitus was just two weeks. Now it's more than three, with them sort of putting teasers in during the gap.
Last year, the late fall haitus was 5 weeks (Aug1 to Sept 5). Now, they are going to go two full months without a promotion, but disguising it by letting us choose which 2 months we go without a promotion. Would anyone be surprised if, after this promo is "over" in September, there will be another gap? (I say "over," because it's only truly going to be over for one third of us -- for the rest it will be over a month or two earlier.)
Obviously, we'll still have to see what they have in store. And maybe it's wrong to expect 12 months of promos every year. If Starwood needs to ween us off promos and get it down to 8.5 months a year, fine. I just don't really wish to have them pretend otherwise with a "choice."