Starwood Hotels
 

See B1 of todays Wall Street Journal for details on Starwoods "new" FF guest program. No blackout days and other perks.

The new Starwood site - www.preferredguest.com is semi-functional when I logged on a few minutes ago (build 3.2a?).

The highlights are:
* No blackout days but does have capacity control
* Platinum and Gold levels based on # of stays, not by membership fee (if you are a SCI gold preior to 12/31/98, you will be automatically enrolled as gold and may continue to pay based on your anniversary date)
* At check in, Gold will be comp upgraded to a "preferred" room (high floor, better view) and plat will be comp upgraded to "specialty" rooms like SCI club room, and Westin smart office.
* Creation of a 5th category that requires 12,000 star points
* redeem for merchandise gift cert. (like Gap)
* more partners like ground transportation (e.g. BostonCoach) and AT&T

Current promotions:
* bonus of 10k points if you stay 5 times between 2/1-5/31 (no back to back stays)
* transer 20K starpoints to 20k miles and Starwood will addd an additional 5k miles.