Nice. I have 48 nights booked during the promotion period. all hotels i am staying at are participating except for

1. St. Regis New York. no problem i will do points stay
2. W Hollywood . no problem i'll cancel and book SLS instead.

I should accumulate lots of points as all of my stays will include either Thursday or Sunday nights.

Very nice. Thanks a million Starwood^

Very nice, all hotels I normaly stay, Sheraton Düsseldorf, WESTIN Munich etc:mad: I get nothing!

Well that is quite the exclusion list. Luckily the couple stays I have didn't make the list. Glad I live in SD and stay with family when in the bay area.

Batting .333

Labor day weekend stay conveniently excluded.

Sheraton Arabellapark Munich excluded (like every Munich SPG property, apparently)

Goldener Hirsch Salzburg, triple points.

Additional 3000 points I wouldn't have had, I guess. Missing out on 3000 from the Munich stay being excluded, though. :mad:

Don't think this is a specialty promo, it's the quarterly blanket promo.

That being said, it works pretty well for me and certainly well enough to have me move back from Hilton, where I've been parked for the last two quarters. I expect to have about 45 nights during the promo period. Is is the greatest promo I've ever seen? No. But it's just enough to win me back.

I agree with those who have said this is a bummer for those of us who are consultants, too bad that they've knocked our typical non-travel nights into the triple bonus.

As far as the complaining on the non-participating properties. I was nailed with this last year at the same time when nearly all of SPG's New York City properties decided to not participate. That being said, this year's exclusion list didn't seem much longer than last year's. I'd be interested to know if anyone did a comparison.

And the end-of-year holidays, too. Just like every year, so I hope you're not surprised. Simply, when hotels are full, they don't have any incentive to offer promotions.

Direct Deposit
 

Perhaps its obvious to all but me, but for those who might be pushing towards a million-mile threshold with AA or a partner hit in the US Grand Slam, how would this promo affect those who elect direct deposit?

1. Will customers who direct deposit completely forego all bonuses with this promo?

2. Will they effectively get the normal earnings + the entire bonus converted to miles?

3. Will they get normal earnings converted to miles while the bonus remains in Starpoints?

This is the first time all my hotels in China, Taiwan, and Seattle are excluded. The first time the entire promotion does not apply to me.:mad:

Brilliant! Zero participating properties in Sydney.
Will switch my planned stays to another chain and inform the Westin why.

Zero participating properties in Brisbane also.

100% of the Brisbane properties are participating from what I can tell.

it's a so so promo...

Q4 is a lot of travel to Sydney, HK, JP, China, India, Dubai an most of the properties are not participating :-(
Very bad that you don't even have choice of 1 property in a city...

In the other hand, probably i'm staying in a participating property for over a month to use as "homebase" so that will collect enough points..

but it's really a bad sign that the list is so long, i hope SPG understands the impact of that

Oh SPG will understand the impact of it. I have had 70 nights this year so far and was planning for another 30-40 in 2011. I will be taking those nights to another chain because the hotels in my area are not participating. I suspect many SPG customers will do something like this.

I am half doing it for pure rewards optimization and half out of spite since I do not appreciate my hotel not participating. Will speak to the manager and give her a chance to give me 2x points anyway, but I doubt she will as the hotel I am stay at is notoriously stingy.

Way to go, SPG.

Well I was all set to sing the praises of this promo until I saw the non-participating list. Very, very disappointing. When you're talking that volume, you have to question if they should really be allowed to stay in SPG.

I have stays for all of Sept and Oct in a non-participating property, and there are no other participating properties in that city either. My stays usually encompass a Thurs too, so I was set to earn some big points.

Disappointing. There's a Hyatt up the road and they've got a promo from 15th Sept which is at least valid at that particularly property - may need to move some bookings.

This promo just makes my day. It works perfectly for me! ^

With 42 nights out of only 4 stays so far, I didn't really benefit from the FRN promotion earlier this year.

I'm also happy to be on the "lucky side" of the exclusion list, but it is indeed disappointingly long.

Thanks SPG! :)

Bummer the exclusion list is so long, and sadly covers most the hotels I frequent. It really sucks when there isn't one property in the city you are going is participating. I have about 40 nights left for the year. I think I may try to re-up with Hilton in the cities where SPG doesn't have any participating hotels.
:(:(::rolleyes:

I think that the overall calculus is that if you are SPG PLT and use the SPG AMEX to pay your bill, you're looking at 9 Starpoints total per dollar spent.

Frankfurt not participating:

Have migrated next two weeks of stays to the Carlson properties in Frankfurt. There is a double points promo until Sept 15, so works out fine for me (free breakfast too)!

The same reason that McDonald's requires all franchisees to participatate, except where prohibited by law, in their annual Monopoly game piece promotion. BRAND CONSISTENCY. It allows for a happier consuming public knowing that each McDonald's is participating. No need to check some list of non-participating stores. It also increases the effectiveness of McDonald's national advertising.

It is not "SPG" who will understand but certain properties who will understand. My German and my China travel for the rest of 2011 will go to InterContinental. However, still quite a few stays left for Starwood properties

Actually, they are hotels which are doing quite well without freebies (amentities, upgrades, points, and the like). It's the places sucking wind which are forced to hand over free meals to business travellers and the like.

Might've been easier to list the participating properties! I have an upcoming 17 night stay at Four Points Curitiba in Brazil, and nothing from this promotion to show for it!

Unfortunately there is no other worthwhile game in town, so I'll have to be happy getting to Platinumn on this visit. But, my domestic stays will go to Hilton!

About a dozen people have said this. Would you seriously want to look through a list of 875 properties and parse out the 150 or so that aren't participating? Seriously?

They'll understand because they'll already be full of other customers. If they really needed the extra 5 or 6 customers they may lose, they'd participate.

If their contract required hotels to participate in all promos, there would be a lot fewer hotels flagged under Starwood.

Well said. Did anyone who formulated this promo go to b school? When you have a major promo that 150 properties won't buy into that should tell you that there is something wrong with the promo.

All the Sydney properties opted out of one of the recent quarterly promos ?was it last year's FWN promo? They clearly did not suffer such significant consumer backlash to make them change their ways.If a hotel is getting an occupancy rate upwards of 90% they would probably find it better to lose a few nights stay than give an incentive to the majority of guests who are going to stay regardless.

When their occupancy levels collapse in the next downturn the hotels will run back to the promos and the few guests who didn't stay because of lack of a promo will also likely come running back.

+1 - If you are correct, the hotels which opted out will do just fine whether business collapses or doesn't. No need for them to buy into more freebies for them what aren't paying.

Question..I currently have a reservation for 2 rooms from Dec 19 -27 in PVR. If I change the reservation so my check-in date is Dec 18th; will I be eligible for the current promo?? Thanks

Very disapointed with the exclusion list=which seems to grow with every promotion.
What is the point of having a promotion that will be touted on a advertising and web sites that will lead to confusion and ill will when folks do not see bonuses posting and inquire about the points not posting-only to be told"Sorry that property was not participating"!Is it really wise to be so inconsiderate of travelers who will not be savvy enough to look for exclussions?

And trust me-a lot of the properties on the exclussion list are either half empty on weekends or having to sell rooms at a steep discount via priceline etc,,,

This sort of shenanigans made me leave Marriott Rewards. I hope Starwood Prefered Guest does not devaluate their program like MR did.

Always Holiday Inn Express, Motel 6 and Roadway !

In short, yes.

for those keeping score at home:

9 have questions about terms and conditions hypothetical scenarios to qualify for this promo
8 have all the answers
7 will boycott spg for this quarter and of course tell you about it
6 claim that the Hyatt promo blows this away and say spg just isn't what it used to be
5 will be "speaking" to someone at spg about this
4 are seriously considering jumping ship to hilton
3 are happy because they lucked out and have stays at participating hotels
2 have already opened up their computer calculator to tabulate the 3763 bonus points they will reap from this promo, and in their mind say, "YES!"
1 consistently gives sarcastic responses to anyone and everyone
0 FTer's will be happy unless they feel they are getting something for nothing

Wait you could apply the above after everyone promo is announced.

It's often even worse.

0 FTer's will be happy unless they feel they (and nobody else) are getting something for nothing.

Very funny.

As much as I'm disappointed at teh exclusion list, this promo and the extensive list of non-participating hotels is unlikely to change my hotel decisions for the rest of the year. I will select my hotels based on convenience and price. I may even go outside my usual chains since I'll have requalified for SPG and Hilton.

I agree that some of these hotels are doing very well and don't need to offer the promo, but if they are doing so well and don't want to agree to the basic terms of the SPG program then maybe they would be even better as independents or in another chain? Starwood is undercutting its own brands by letting hotels go 'rogue' ....with or without this promo.

Didn't you forget the partridge in the pear tree? :D

Actually, this promo is, IMO, right in line with all of Starwood's other promos. Some people will benefit, and others won't. The FRN promo did nothing for me, as I have few but fairly long stays. (I earned one FRN, which will go unused.) This one is obviously much better for me. And that's one of the things I really like about Starwood's promo program. If this quarter's isn't optimized for you, you can count on a different one next time, and a different one the time after that.

Awesome? Huuuh... Laaaame.... :rolleyes:

Awesome would be one free night for each night. THAT would be AWESOME! :D

Works for some people, doesn't work for others. Just like every promo.

Sort of. But, Starwood is hardly in a position to renegotiate contracts which would require that. I am certain that any hotel would sign a new master agreement with Starwood, but at a significant price. Who pays that?

I think so too. That's lousy, SPG :td: ALL German hotels are excluded. Haaalooo, geht's noch ganz gut?

Don't blame SPG, blame the German hotels. They have a habit of opting out.