i would say that while availability is there, it also sometimes depends on how your conversation with the agent progresses. For some properties, i have had cases in which unless i ask specifically for a certain category of rooms, the agent is usually not proactive in offering the room category. So unless you have stayed in a particular sheraton or westin and know their room categories, you are probably going to miss out on certain inbetween rates. I.e, the middle room categories.

I also have had a case in the past whereby the agent told me flat out that a certain room category is unavailable but when i call the property directly, that room category, albeit cheaper rate is available.

In the past 6 months, i have become a bit wary of dealing with starwood over the phone especially with their India call centres and Singapore call centres.
Call centres or commonly referred to by their agents as central reservations. They usually have a somewhat rigid approach in dealing with reservations. I.E, for properties with smaller number of rooms, the agents usually tell me that the property is having extremely high capacity and therefore tell you that certain diso....ed rates like the government rates or certain starwood diso....ed rates are not available when in actual fact they are. Its just that they are trying to veil certain information from you.

The properties i am referring to are the Australian starwoods.

I guess my opinion is that with starwood pushing for SPG members to book stays thru the website and enticing members to book stays by end of this year. it makes sense to try to make the reservation online. From SPG standpoint, they stand to gain as they can probably achieve higher bookings and more revenues and website bookings mean less human intervention and probably less manual work.

The only reason i can forsee why you would book a reservation over the fone is when you can previously book a rate over the website but cannot do so now as one of their websites have changed interface or that you need human intervention in your booking. You should however compare rates around and try to make an informed decision rather than based it on just a phone agent.

I have had trouble with starwood privilege programmes in Australia but will post that in another thread.

i hope this helps the op.