Houston Infinite Platinum

Well I usually take the wife to Santa Fe for about 4 days prior to the onslaught of Thanksgiving and the Holidays. However since I received 4 Resort nights in the last Promo, I thought we would hit Napa. Originally I was disappointed with this promotion since I could have used it many times for regular hotels stays, but since I thought I found a way to use them, this was great.

Upon calling the Plainum conceirge I found that this award will only work if they have "Traditional Rooms". I called and was told that that for half my stay I could use them and for the other half it was buy a deluxe room or use a bunch of points. As I researched this, there is a small difference in the rooms and the price is about $30/night different. I had hoped no blackout dates would have meant a reasonable inventory, but it has not.

I am curious as to whether others have experineced issues in trying to use this award.

skylane

I believe, I've bought up to the deluxe room for 1,000 points when using points in the fast. Perhaps you can do that with your free stay certs? Otherwise, keep checking back for traditional rooms to free up...

craz

some times $30 is the difference between a room on the Club floor (Club Room) and a reg room, even thou the Hotel doesnt even have a Club Lounge, and for the extra $30 you get a bottle of water and mouthwash and in rare cases a robe as well. Yet that Hotel wont have rooms available for a pts stay since its Standard rooms are all taken, and the only difference is the bottle of water and mouthwash, as all the rooms are the exact same size

Them the breaks, and unfortunately all you can do is to keep checking back or ask the hotel if they would be so kind as to allow you to use the cert on the other nights

Now you wish to say that this Napa Hotel doesnt have decent inventory just cause everyone else beat you to it, I wouldnt expect any Hotel to offer All its rooms, may I ask you how rooms are there in this Hotel and how many of them are considered Standard or "Traditional"? seems you are only ticked that you finally decided where you want to use your certs and their rooms are already spoken for. On top of which you are looking for Premium times

I never read where in the T&Cs it states that rooms will be avaialble anytime craz finally decides where and when he wants to use his certs

Staples puts the iPad on sale say starting yesterday for $99, the sale runs Sun to Sun and you decided on Thurs to go get 1 only to be told sorry we are all soldout and no rain checks, so you go ranting how unfair it is. Yes if they had all of 1 iPad and didnt publish that fact but if they had their reg allotment, its snooze you loose

Hopefully it will open up for you or you will find another place to use them at

neo_781

I don't believe your issue is directly related to the award. Its because there are no traditional rooms left. You couldn't use standard points either (but in that case most hotels will let you use traditional points for the next category).

Generally speaking Starwood is really good with award availability. However there are some anomalies in the system such as some hotels are all suites and therefore never have a 'traditional' room available for points. That is not the norm though.

neo_781

Is this the property in question?

If so it is a known issue. Only 20 standard rooms is not a lot to choose from.

tripaddict

You picked the toughest property ever to redeem awards.

Westin Verasa has only a small number of traditional rooms and after asking to book the first Friday + Saturday night available using the resort credit, the Plat Concierge finally came up with December 9, 10.

If you plan to travel somewhere else, you might consider using the free resort nights at a different property. We sometimes pay for the Westin Verasa rather than use points as it's a cat 4 (12k pts/night) and often fetches only $150 per night. This is not a great redemption option compared to other properties, IMO.

slocouple

If Mammoth is close enough, we stayed there last year and liked it very well. Beware the resort fee, though.

boston aa flyer

same thing happened with Westin Napa.... and they wont let you top it off with a 1000 points...

MDefl

There seem to be a lot of complications with this promo. That is unlike Starwood.

I suspect whatever comes next will be very good due to the slowing economy.

neo_781

Such as...?

jcmitchell21

When I booked my stay at Princeville, only half my stay was available with FRNs. I asked the Princeville Concierge if, as a Plat, I would be upgraded. She said yes. I asked isn't it irrelevant then if there is traditional room space since I won't be staying in one anyway. She agreed and booked my FRN into a higher room category. Hope this helps.

Starwood Lurker

It will probably help to get more Platinum Concierges in trouble like this one.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

azeckel

I had a similar issue when trying to book the Sheraton Maui. The Plat Concierge told me that I could only book the "Garden View Room" with FRN and the hotel was showing zero availability for that room type. I don't know the property well and assume that they must have 1 room that fits that description because I was booking 6 months out for the off-season. I ended up booking the Westin instead.

I asked to be upgraded as well, but I guess this plat concierge won't be getting in trouble - he wouldn't do it.

jcmitchell21

Truthfully, I am assuming that's what she did. I was told by generic CSR that there were no FRNs available my last 2 days, so I booked those nights with points. I emailed Concierge and she said she would take care of it. A few days later, my points were back and my FRNs were gone.

Starwood Lurker

If she had the assent of the resort, that is one thing, but it is not possible to do it otherwise. In another post you accredited this event to Stephanie whom you identified as being a guest relations manager at Princeville, so now I'm confused if the Platinum Concierge associate made it happen or if someone from the resort did.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]