Originally Posted by psyflyer
I recently booked a 4 night stay at the Western Cape in CPT and the CSR on the phone said to me while he was looking for differences in fares/prices (i.e. was thinking about using corporate acct etc) "Sir, you have a lot of points, how about using some?" He went on to say that the same room that I am reserving for circa USD $500/night could be mine for USD $60 and 4000 points/night... I declined but hanged up perplexed about my strategy.
Not sure I'm tracking . . .
Given a choice between $500 per night or $60 plus 4000 Starpoints, using the Starpoints option has each point saving you 11 cents! Pretty good deal.
The tickets (if I understand you correctly) cost 120K NW miles to save $8000, which would make each mile worth about 6.67 cents. I presume you think that's a good deal or you wouldn't have taken it (and I agree), yet you're turning down a deal where you'd save nearly twice that. Not sure why.
Oh, and if you're paying $500 per night at the Western Cape, that's got to be at or near Rack Rate. Starwood has a "50% off" offer (SPG50) that allows you to pay only 50% of rack rate for up to 5 nights for a total of only 1000 Starpoints. If the "SPG50" rate is offered, for four nights you'd save about $1000 for 1000 points, or a saving of $1 per Starpoint. Now *that* is a savings! (And the nights on SPG50 count for stay and nights credit with SPG as well.)