Originally Posted by itsme
To be super "technical," I think you'd get 10,124 Starpoints (or MP miles with a UA Visa card), since you would fall 50 cents short of getting that last point.
I had been under the impression that Starwood usually rounded off to the nearest dollar in awarding Starpoints, but I may be mistaken. If I am, then you're right, only 10,124 Starpoints.
Originally Posted by itsme
Aren't rooms and seats generally "first come, first served" in the sense that they try not to hold these "perishables" in inventory? I wanted to know if Starwood offered rooms only from a special set aside inventory, like the airlines do with "saver" awards, and I was told not, that if they have a "standard" room they will let it go for points as readily as they will for $s.
Essentially correct. What I was trying to say was that they do not (as some programs do) have a "special additional inventory" for elites, or allow elites to redeem awards where "normal folks" couldn't.
Originally Posted by itsme
As for SPG Gold, again I am uninformed about what it gets one, but you make it sound like it is fairly puny in the status scheme. Is that the case?
Starwood has a number of "tiers" in their program. You can find more detail over on the Starwood forum, but being Gold offers little more benefit than you'd get just from holding a Starwood AMEX card -- I think it's just the additional Starpoint per dollar spent at a Starwood property, although there may be something else as well. It is not like the Gold level in Hilton, for instance, that gives you true upgrades, or Gold in Marriott that gets you breakfasts, access to Concierge floors or Club rooms, etc.
It's at the Platinum (25 stays or 50 nights in a year) level that the major benefits start, in my experience. That may vary depending on the property, though; I've had exceptional treatment as a Gold at some properties, and only passable treatment at others as a Platinum.