Hotels limiting Free Night Awards to single-occupancy rooms only
 

This policy apparently changed at some point last year, and in a quick scan I didn't see any posts referencing, so...

< At the Pulitzer Hotel, Amsterdam >
Previously, you could book a standard award (12K pts) for 2 adults, and you were booked into a deluxe king room. My father did just this last summer, online with no issues.

Now, the hotel is saying that Starpoint redemptions are only valid for the "classic room". The issue is that they will not allow 2 people to book into a classic room, either for cash or using points. As soon as you change a search from 1 person to 2, the classic room disappears from availability.

So, the hotel is effectively not allowing any standard Starpoint redemptions - at any time - for parties of 2. You can only do a standard starpoint redemption if you are a solo traveler.

Is this allowed by SPG? I asked the Plat concierge and only got a very vague response that no, a standard award was not available for 2 people on my travel dates. I believe it's never available for 2 people.

Strange. Why not then let the plat concierge book your room? Alternatively, book a room for one and show up as two.

Interesting. Offering only a 'sub-standard' (single bed, 1 person max occupancy) as the Free Night Award appears to be against the spg T&Cs :

that is very odd.

The same is true for the Des Indes hotel in The Hague - standard redemptions are for single bed rooms only.

She wouldn't book it for me for 2 people. And a subsequent reply from the hotel says 2 people are not allowed in the room (some generic comment about fire hazard), and threatened an up charge if 2 showed up.

I can't tell if it's a letter of the law violation, or just a spirit of the law, but it appears to be a violation to me as well. At the very least, it's extremely unfair and not customer friendly. They've effectively raised their category level.

Thanks for all the comments. I'll send this to the lurkers for their thoughts.

Hi SAN-man,

The hotel is allowed to set single standard room occupancy.

According to the terms and conditions, "Free Night Awards are each valid for one free night, single and/or double standard room occupancy at participating properties, and include the cost of your hotel room and room tax/service charge".

Best Regards,

Christina Zhou
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

This is troubling and is something of an echo of Hilton's stealth devaluation which means that I place zero value on HH points and thus rarely stay at Hilton's anymore.

I would reasonably assume that any standard room would be capable of accommodating 2 people (and this is the norm with any other FG scheme I know even Hilton) and am concerned that Starwood think this is acceptable practice.

Whilst I don't need additional reasons to avoid this crappy property, the broader principle here is important.

Holy cow...so you have to travel alone in order to redeem a free night "award" at this hotel? Couldn't this lead to other spg hotels creating small single rooms and only offer THEM to members who want to use their hard-earned points? Bad policy, bad customer service :td:

As this question seems to hinge on the wording of the SPG T&Cs, I'd like to seek some clarification here.

This wording (from the "Free Night Awards with No Blackouts (1)" page) differs from the wording of the spg program master T&Cs on spg.com, which is "An SPG Member may redeem Starpoints for single or double occupancy rooms", which, IMHO, means that there's no provision in the rules for a hotel to limit Free Night Awards to single rooms only.

Very troubling change, if it's not just a fluke of some dates.

I booked a room in August 2013 for July 2014 at the Hotel Pulitzer, and the standard award room was still a Deluxe, and I had no trouble getting it for two people with a King bed. Looks like I dare not change anything about that reservation.

Thanks for looking into this, Christina, but I'm not sure I agree with your assessment. From my point of view (not the hotel's) don't those very T&C mean that I should be allowed to book either a single or double occupancy room?

Not only do I completely agree with this, I think it's also a very reasonable expectation that any customer should have.

I don't believe it's a fluke. Using dates flexible, I could not find any dates for 2 people for the next 15 months. As I mentioned in my OP, my Dad did something similar to you - booked in mid-2013 for June 2014. He also can't change it.

i'm facing a similar problem at the four points by sheraton in milan....award availability is only available for a single room....if i change the search to 2 people then availability disappears....

Wow, hotels must really love point redemption...

As posters have reported that this issue is also affecting hotels other than the Amsterdam Pulitzer, I've split out this discussion to a new thread.

/mod