I have been a very loyal Starwood person for nearly 15 years now and was invited to the Ambassador program before it was known as that or became official and got to know quite a few Starwood people and what impressed me was they were as loyal and passionate about the brand as I was. That has over the more recent years from what I can see changed, it happened before the merger to be fair but even more so afterwards. That said there are still some Starwood hotels I love to stay as and would never dream of staying elsewhere and Starwood is still my first choice, hitting 160 plus nights this year! The thing is however I also have done maybe 80 nights elsewhere this year which in the past wouldnt be the case!

What I have found is that outside the 'loyalty' and the addiction to more nights there are some amazing hotels out there in other chains or not really attached to any chain and some are amazing because they are stunning properties others because actually their location is suited better than Starwood hotels in the same city! My advice is yes its worth having some status in a chain if you do a lot of nights but actually it is false economy chasing all the points all the time and the only loyalty you should show in this game is to yourself as in reality the Loyalty programs are setup in the interest of the hotel corporations and while I knwo that sounds so obvious it can be easy to loose site of!

I now pick by the hotels themselves regardless of who they belong to as I do not feel Starwood is as balanced in giving back as it once was, various things are getting worse and I see very little getting better! So I am not going to let it stress me out I am going to pick hotels where I feel they are run well and staff have a genuine and caring attitude regardless of what brand might be above the door! When I find one I like I will go back lots, if however its not good then I simply wont return! What I can tell you from the last 6 months of doing this is that actually there is actually a lot of hotels out there that have great service and staff and you don't always have to pay a fortune for it, but there is no reason to stay at that old Sheraton or Westin that has seen far better days or a W that while the staff can be great is so obsessed with being a W it forgets its actually a hotel! To put that into context I count my favorite stays this year at two W's!

Someone who has since left Starwood said to a group of people who all did over 200 nights a year on hotels, we knw you stay at Starwood a lot but what I am interested in is why we dont get the extra 50-100 nights we are missing out on, we want them all and want to knwo how to earn them from you! That just doesnt exist in Starwood anymore and to be fair I am unsure it does in any other group either!