pinniped

You can always find really bad spots to use an award. But as someone who uses C&P two or three times a year, I sometimes pick ones up that are more like this:

C/P: 4,000 pts + $60
Award: 10,000 pts
Best paid rate: 179 Euro plus 20-25% in total hotel taxes.

Call it a US$300 room in total. That's around a six cents per point. In the new system, that drops to around 4.5 cents per point - a 25% devaluation.

So at the end of the day, it all hinges on how much the availability increases. I have a lot of trips where I look for the C&P but don't find it and end up booking a paid stay or even an HH or MR stay. If suddenly I'm finding a lot more utility from my Starpoints because the C&P is much more readily available, then I stop thinking of it as a devaluation and more of an enhancement.

If the availability doesn't increase on my specific queries for it, then I'll think of it as a devaluation.

shoreline

ha~ I think this means they intend on expanding availability by increasing pricing structure so many won't book.

Same inventory + fewer booking = expanded inventory for those willing to pay the price.

Way to go SPG !

Maybe they will increase how many points per dollar received with the AMEX (ha, not)

Medved

With this change coming (25% up) we may not expect any categories really going down. Popular beach destinations and European Grand Dames will go up again.

Medved

[QUOTE=rooivalk;20076816]This will be a devaluation for all Platinums as suites are now bookable using C&P, therefore reducing the likelihood of a suite being available for upgrade.

Suite rate is more than double than a regular room. So you can really get 2 rooms adjustent to each other for this price. When suites became somewhat available for double points on reward rates it didn't worsen upgrade chances.
In my 12 years with SPG good hotels continue to upgrade, bad hotels hardly upgrade no matter what.

yerffej201

I guess we'll see how much more availability there is.
The problem is that there is a solid devaluation or "enhancement" as we can see with the prices but there isn't anything backing it except the "intention" that we get more rooms. I get the information is proprietary, but that doesn't make the "enhancement" any better. With both cash amount and points amount going up, that's around a 40% devaluation. That's huge. Instead of buying SPG at 1cpm with old c&p you're now buying at around 1.4cpm.
I wonder what the "deluxe rooms" are going to be. Suites are so expensive given that as plat you should get upgrade to one anyways.

3Cforme

If the intention works out as:

- about the same number of standard rooms at higher C&P prices,

- a few upgraded (view, wth?) rooms at significantly higher C&P prices,

- a few suites at vastly higher C&P prices,

then color me unimpressed and my days with SPG & SPG Amex substantially done.

quinella66

Yes, this is a devaluation. Before the change, I remember seeing the Cat 7 rate and thinking that it was the most unattractive one, and that is now the new standard.

Another way to look it is that you are buying points in the redemption with the cash as compared to a pure reward.

For example, the cat 4 used to be 4k + $60 or 10k for pure points, which meant that you were buying back the (10k minus 4k) 6k for $60, or 1 cent/point, which was a great deal. Now, you are buying 5k back for $75, which is 1.5 cent/point - basically a 50% increase in cost.

It used to be an almost slam dunk to use C&P for all cats except 7. Not any more.

sfozrhfco

If more availability opens up in New York this would work out well for me. There are also a few category 5/6 hotels that rarely offer C & P and have relatively high starting room rates ie St. Regis San Francisco..which I would stay at with C & P availability.

We will see how things turn out after March 5.

quinella66

At $625 + 30k, if you value the SPG point even at 1.5 cents, which is on the low end, you are talking about $1000/night in cash+points. That can get you an overwater bungalow in Bora Bora.

paytonc

Yes, it's a devaluation, but seeing as cents-per-point on Cash & Points has been quite high -- I've gotten 6-7¢ in some instances -- a 20-25% devaluation doesn't automatically make it "unattractive."

Someone on this board once got a mistake bill on a C&P stay that showed the points reimbursement rate; can't find it in search, but it struck me as being quite low.

And agreed, it's not quite the devaluation I feared when I clicked on the thread title.

dcstudent

This is the first increase to the C&P rates in about 10 years so I'm not surprised, generally speaking at the increase.

I would have liked to see that hotels are required to make every standard room available for pure points AND C&P to go along with this increase. I know that isn't going to happen but I really hope that SPG did reach out to their hotels and that more hotels will start offering C&P and hotels that had been offering C&P will increase the frequency that they do. There are many CAT5 hotels I stay at that never seem to offer C&P and it would be nice if they started.

cxn

Starpoints are just another form of fiat money. You try to earn/buy/leverage it to get the best deal. Like my grandpa used to say, you will never know what it was like.

So 10 years ago I would stay at the St. Regis for 10k points/night. Now, 30-35k.

I try to at least get 3.5 cents out of each Starpoint since that is what I can buy them at from SPG. What I have seen is some of the hotels I stay at with the C&P/Free Nights, it is almost break even. On top of that, you dont earn any points on the cash paid. If they had added that option, it might have been somewhat better.

Example, staying at a Cat 1 Hotel based on 3.5cents

Free Night today: 2,000 $70
C&P today: 1,200 + $25 $67
C&P Future: 1,500 + $30 $82.50

In the example I am using, if I had to 'pay' for that same room it would be $95 all in. I am able to find some Cat 1 hotels cheaper and be below the $82/night rate. Not counting the number of points you would earn plus paid stays are eligible for promotions.

In the end, It would seem that a rate increase for the number of points for a free night is coming. I could see Cat 1 being bumped up to 2.5k points/night.

I dont hoard airline and hotel points anymore. Earn and Burn.

schley

I see this as a devaluation as I am not married to any particular hotel and am flexible to choose which hotel has c and p rates available. With this being significantly more expensive and me not staying 5 nights usually anywhere (to get the stay 5 pay for 4 via free nights) I don't like it.

I also look at the cpp for C&P vs free nights and those figures don't lie. I always cringed spending points via free nights as I hated seeing my balance drawn down that much. However, with these new changes the free nights 5 for 4 is even more attractive now.

The only saving grace could be when we have our category adjustments and some come down a category.

However take this example. If a property goes from a cat 5 to a cat 4 great you think. Well take a look at the C&P rates before the increase as a cat 5 and after the increase as a cat 4.

As a cat 5
4,800 Starpoints + $90

Moved DOWN to a cat 4
5,000 Starpoints + $75

All in all I will still do my cost analysis when finding rooms, however C&P has been the biggest perk for me staying with SPG. I will evaluate this change, but my feeling now is I won't welcome it in the future anymore than I will now.

yvr76

Something had to change as C&P availability was disappearing across the board. But I wish SPG had done one of two things with introducing this change:

- cash portion eligible for points
- guarantee availability of standard rooms for C&P bookings

TerryK

Thanks Lurkers for advance info. Looks like it is a trade off between higher points vs more availabilities.