AZ Travels the World

When checking into a London hotel a couple of days ago, the check-in agent compared my passport number to one they had on my confirmation sheet, along with all my other personal details, credit card number, etc. The number did not match, presumably because I was issued a renewed passport, with a new number, a couple years back.

I asked the agent where they got this number and he said that it is in my SPG online profile. I've gone through the personal online preferences and cannot find anywhere to modify this. Anyone know where this can be updated?

myperks

Have you stayed at this specific property before? IME at international properties, if you have stayed at this property before, have been registered with your passport number, it will show back up (and not a SPG profile issue, but an hotel internal guest system) .

On another sub-topic, this is also true with address/email/telephone number. I've had my profile changed on SPG.com but the property managed to revert back to my old information, even loading it onto SPG reservation confirmation subsequent to my original confirmation. Per discussion with Plat Concierge, they can't do anything about it but to change it to my current info. To my surprise a couple days later, it was changed again to my old info. When I arrived at the hotel, I had to MANUALLY ask the front desk agent adjust the info including my now expired passport number, IME.

AZ Travels the World

No, first time at this particular property (LeMeridien Piccadilly).

But perhaps the system is linked to other London hotels where I have stayed?

Or other LeMeridien properties?

myperks

maybe the system linked... i've only experienced this happening at properties I've stayed at overseas.

maybe the lurkers can give us some insight on if passport info is stored on SPG?

Starwood Lurker

There is a space for it, but I have never seen it filled in. Regardless, Platinum Concierge should be able to assist with its amendment or erasure.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

PTahCha

Maybe it's part of the StarGuest profile, or have I said too much?

GUWonder

Some Starwood hotels certainly do also keep on their systems the passport numbers of the guests. And if they have them, the data autopopulates the field on registration forms when the guest returns.

CP@YOW

This just happened to me. I checked in to a European Sheraton at which I've never stayed before and they had my passport number on file, except it was the old number from before I renewed last July. So clearly Starwood is keeping it on file centrally but it is not necessarily being updated by all hotels. (I've stayed at various other European SPG hotels, including Sheratons, where I've had to show my new passport, even this past week).

I thought others might want to know about this. I am a bit concerned from a privacy and data protection point of view; not sure if Starwood should have this information in their database.

MSPeconomist

IME a few top European hotels not only keep the passport information, but pride themselves on never asking the guest for the same information twice.

A bigger problem I've had with Starwoods in Europe is that they insist on changing the name on my reservation (and sometimes even my SPG account) to my full name as on the passport rather than the form of name I use on my credit card. I am NOT at all happy when this happens, especially when the hotel fails to inform me that they've done it without my permission. [The Sheraton at CDG is among the worst offenders.]

RogerD408

There are few, if any, constraints on what data is carried in CRM packages (financial, identity, personal, subjective, etc.). Some companies choose to use a centralized system that may be corporate-wide or locally by a franchise operations (and in this case may crossover several different chains). Anything handed over to the company may be considered fair game for them to use as they please. It will get to the point where we will need to ask just how they plan on using the data and hope we are asking someone that really knows.

EuropeanPete

It doesn't overly concern me, but there are some pretty major issues with the way that SPG handles its Preferred Guest information. I keep my profile on spg.com up to date and do almost all my bookings directly on SPG.com, yet I regularly arrive at a property to find one of several out of date sets of addresses, etc. when I check in. I assumed it was down to locally cached info at the venue, but I recently saw it on a couple visits to hotels I'd never been to before.

Not directly related to passport numbers, but it does show that somewhere in the system there's all kinds of information being kept up there in a bit of a haphazard fashion.

GUWonder

That's interesting. I've seen airlines do this kind of thing to loyalty program accounts, but I've never seen any hotels do this to hotel loyalty program accounts. Given how people -- women even more so than men -- may have at least somewhat differing names across different IDs, hotels really should ask for guest permission before putting in for name changes on loyalty program accounts. I can see why loyalty program owners/operators/system users may put in for name changes -- it may help with delivering on and expensing/reporting for status benefits -- but unsolicited changes can also create more work or other problems for customers.

RogerD408

I think we tend to look at SPG as being a single entity with everything interconnected. However, many hotel properties are owned/operated by franchisees and they are not limited to being comprised of only properties of a single chain/brand. As franchisees, they decide how they wish to run their properties probably with some guidance from corporate, but little mandates. Should an operating company have something in place that works for them, they keep it. If that process should happen to share information with other properties within their domain, that's fine. This does allow the guest to benefit from recognition at places they've never been and hopefully a good experience during the stay.

Personally, I'd like to know the operating company of a property. That way I would know if I should expect the same level of service from one to another and should I choose to patronize a particular franchisee, I can make better choices. However, I don't want to see property names become unwieldy, like Sheraton New Orleans by The Hotel Operators of Southern Louisiana in Metairie, LLC.

MSPeconomist

I agree. I'd like to see the identity of the hotel's owner(s) and operator listed on their Starwood website. For example, I recently learned that a hotel I know has been purchased by an outfit that does an outstanding job with some other Starwoods that they own/operate, so the given hotel went up in my opinion, although I already had a good opinion of the property in general.

In the case of some Hyatts, there's one I decided to avoid when I learned that it had the same general manager as another (Hyatt) hotel.

With Marriott, I avoid one owner/operator and I can do this by going to the list of hotels on the owner/operator's website.