ma91pmh

I am shocked that Amex and Starwood have collectively done so little to make this card more attractive.

Just compare the benefits with competitor cards from Chase:

* Chase Sapphire Preffered gives me the same 2x points on travel and has no foreign exchange fees. It offers an annual bonus dividend of 7% of points earned.

* Chase Hyatt gives 3x on Hyatt spend vs Amex 2x on SPG spend, no foreign fees, and two free nights on sign up (worth up to 44k points, vs Amex best offers around 25k) and another free night up to category 4 (so a 12k point value) each anniversary.

While the annual fees on these cards are slightly higher, the benefits are significantly better. My wife's SPG card came up for renewal and they offered 2k points. I found it insulting and converted to a no fee cash back card instead. This card needs some real improvement to be competitive again...

Travel22

Called same number today. Navigated to "cancel a card" and rep went through the same pitch.

Ended up offering 7,000 points to stay. I accepted.

JCary

Did you call after the annual fee posted or before?

Travel22

I called before. My annual fee is either May or June.

Before I had the chance to ask, the rep said my points would post in 1-2 weeks.

audio-nut

You need to take into account the value of a point before comparing offers/programs. Hyatt/Chase offers appear to be richer because there currency is much less valuable.

ma91pmh

I had that in mind when I wrote the post. I TOTALLY disagree that Hyatt currency is "much less valuable". We are staying at Park Hyatt Maldives this summer at 22k Hyatt points a night for a hotel very comparable to W Maldives. I would have to pay 70k SPG a night for that equivalent.

SPG has good value in it's places, I'm not particularly sold on the airline transfer option (if you look at Loyalty Travelers excellent analysis you will see that due to earning rates SPG is actually not the best for airline transfer)

So my point completely still stands. With Hyatt I can get a free night every year worth at least $200 to cover the annual fee, along with a lack of foreign transaction fees.

SPG/Amex - need to up the game

Jesperss

All depend on how you view the airline transfer.

US Air recently had a 50% bonus - I transferred 67.5k to US Air and ended up with 120k miles after the bonus. Booked two tickets on a United Flight that would have cost me 130k miles through UA but instead did it through US at 120k.

^

ma91pmh

that is a good redemption. there are good examples on both sides. net-net i don't think anyone can make a convincing argument that either currency is worth especially more than the other, so a logical corollary is that they are about equal value

lex

wow. i threatened to cancel my card and they did.

would not budge on the $65 annual fee, and no points either..

so be carefull.. on hold now attempting to get reinstated.

got it reinstated and then finally got 5k starpoints to keep card...

Mindray

I've had this card for three years now and have never tried anything like this. But after seeing this thread I thought I would give it a try. My monthly spend is about 3K on this card and my fee is coming up in about 2 weeks.

I called up the number listed in one of the above posts and said "Cancel my Card" which brought me right to an agent. The woman on the phone was incredibly nice. After asking me if I wanted to cancel, she proceeded to explain the benefits and asked if I stayed at SPG properties often. I said I did, but that the fee was the issue and if there anything she could do to help me lower the fee. Almost instantly, she offered me $50 off my next statement. I countered, asking for points instead. She offered 7K points. Sold.

Moral: it never hurts to ask.

I'll be trying this with my Citi AA cards that are coming due in a few months.

onlybeef42

Can you post the link?

ma91pmh

he did them airline by airline. here is one for american airlines. it shows the amount of points you would get for different spend levels within different programs. it did not take into account promos, status bonuses, additional credit card linked spend etc

so taking me as an example, i have an annual spend around $10k. at starwood that would generate a base of 20k points, which would generate 25k miles. at hyatt same spend generates 50k points = 25k miles. more ammo to my equal value argument (actually more to support hyatt being worth more as 50k hyatt buys more hotel stay than 20k spg but the same airline miles). my best options if i wanted miles would be wyndham, club carlson or hilton. however for me i tend to use hotel points for hotel stays (i used to be a mileage convertor until i started finding ways of extracting better value through hotels)

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyalt...otel-programs/

dabaobao

that's all good, but how about to united or something else that Marriot can transfer to?

JCary

Called to cancel. Was offered only $10 or 1000 points!! Took the point.

jschen

But for non-hotel CC spend, SPG is better ($20,000 of normal spend = 25,000 AA miles), whereas it would take $50,000 of normal spend to get the same 25,000 AA miles with Hyatt. Depending on your ratio of hotel and non-hotel CC spend, SPG is either equal or better value.

About your earlier point, does the W cost 70,000 starpoints/night during peak season? I thought it topped out at 30,000-35,000.