sam33

In early December my account showed 17 nights ytd - 8 stays to maintain platinum status. Wanting to retain my status, I did a mattress run and booked 8 stays thru the end of the year. My account then showed no stays remaining to requalify. I am absolutely certain that I counted 25 stays as per my account profile on spg.com. A week and a half ago, I signed in to my account and noticed my status had been changed to gold. Following a series of phone calls to the platinum line explaining what had happened and requesting they look into it, I was told that I may qualify for a 'Platinum Exception' as the system was only showing 24 stays for 2014. This is the email I received a few days later:

Dear <>,

Thank you for contacting Platinum Liaison concerning your request to exceptionally retain your Platinum status for another year. It is always a pleasure to assist a loyal member.

I would first like to thank you for your loyalty to Starwood Hotels & Resorts as well as to the Starwood Preferred Guest program. I have carefully reviewed your account and I regret to advise you that we will not be able to extend your Platinum status exceptionally. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause. Please rest assured, once you have had either 25 eligible stays or 50 eligible nights in 2015 your account will immediately be upgraded to the Platinum level and you will continue enjoying the benefits of Platinum you previously enjoyed.

We appreciate your participation in the Starwood Preferred Guest program and thank you for being a loyal SPG member. We hope to have you as a Platinum member again and look forward to welcoming you at Starwood hotels around the globe soon. If we can be of further assistance Mr. <>, please reply to this email. If you prefer, you may also chat with us online or follow this link to have us call you.

Best Regards,

<>

Platinum Liaison

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

My question is, if someone who's been platinum for around ten years, is lifetime gold and short by one night doesn't qualify for a Platinum Exception, then who would it be aimed at? I found the letter irritating as it seemed like condescending boilerplate and not like my situation had been seriously considered. I've come to expect much more that that from SPG over the years, even if it was my error, which I'm certain it wasn't.
Any suggestions on how to proceed would be welcomed...

gooselee

I'm confused. Did you end the year with 24 or 25 stays?

Perhaps you could pull your email folios or just go back through your SPG account history to make sure everything posted correctly?

miloworld

On the contrary, the reason could be the program wasn't meant for guests like you. Lifetime gold and years of plat means you're very likely going to maintain loyalty and have plenty of future stays with them.

Not trying to be rude but perhaps while reviewing your acc, your historic stays were at lower category hotels? and your bills didn't bring enough revenue for them to consider you a VIP (again, not trying to be rude, just my 2 cents).

As @gooselee said, confirm your stays from the previous year. If SPG is correct, book some future stays and tell them how passionate you are with SPG and ask them (a different agent) to look into it again.

RogerD408

Yes, I agree, that letter sounds like boilerplate to me as well. First, I would go back and list the 25 stays your records show and write back to them that according to your records you do qualify and request they update their system accordingly. Also, point out where you specifically made stays to requalify. They may have one or more stays coded improperly as ineligible. After all, each of those nights will count towards LTP.

As for the "exception", it sure sounds like it should have been granted given your history. Unfortunately, sometimes you run into staff that believes any benefit provided is coming out of their personal pocket and will therefore be denied if at all possible. I don't know if the Lurkers will be willing to step in, but a PM/eMail may help you too.

MSPeconomist

It sounds like one of your stays was somehow dropped from your account. At any time during the year, did you use a third party booking site, a non eligible rate (travel industry or something similar), a master bill, a room paid by someone else's credit card, etc.? Could there have been a problem with a post-midnight arrival or two back-to-back reservation in the same property that should be converted to a single stay?

You should of course check that the eight late stays posted correctly, but I suspect that the problem is that an earlier stay was disqualified for some reason.

Do you have any printouts of your account activity or the information saying how many more stays you needed to requalify?

sam33

I don't know - the letter (as boilerplate is) says nothing about what they considered. I do know that I often pay a premium to stay at SPG properties specifically for the platinum benefits, which I'm less inclined to do as things stand presently. I will be in Singapore next week and see several other options outside SPG that are much better priced, so I will wait and see what happens with this.

sam33

You are probably correct, but I have no easy way of finding out what actually happened. I know that I ran my count off the 'x nights remaining to requalify as platinum' line on my account, and that I definitely counted to 25. All 8 stays in December posted correctly. The first gentleman I spoke to when I called the platinum concierge about this said 'Oh, I see what happened. Please hold and I will try to fix it' - but that call disconnected while I was holding and subsequent attempts yielded only the 'platinum exception' suggestion. I counted 25, it seems SPG counts 24, but I feel entitled to a little break considering my history in the program - isn't that what 'exceptions' are for...?

MSPeconomist

Do your CURRENTLY count 25 stays in your account record (where the points you earned are listed) for calendar year 2014, not counting stays spanning either NYE?

Start from your account and using that data, make a list of the hotel names, locations, and dates of every stay that SPG currently credits to you. It's easy and all of the information is right there, but you need to do this very carefully.

RogerD408

For grins I went to my account on SPG.com and I was able to see all activity for 2014 with a column showing Eligible Nights. Have you counted those up to confirm their 24 number (don't add the numbers) and include the two if you have the SPG AMEX? Are there any stays showing "-" in that column that should have counted?

Unless you can show stays adding up to 25, then you are at their mercy to grant Platinum given your stay history. Politely asking is the best approach here. I once missed the threshold at another chain, but they had sent an email saying I qualified for status when I really hadn't. When I got dropped a level, I sent the email in and got bumped back up. Only by asking was it going to happen.

miloworld

I agree on you 100% on this, there are many more reasonably priced properties in SIN. Except for marina bay sands, it's worth anything.

sam33

They sent me a copy of the master statement for 2014 which only shows 24 stays. However, the SPG account profile showed me 8 remaining to qualify for platinum status. I am 100% certain of this. I seem to have wasted $$ on an 8-stay mattress run, and would obviously have done one more stay if necessary, but I relied on what was showing on SPG.com. I have no idea if any earlier stays were deemed ineligible and that's why I'm short, only that I relied on information provided to me my SPG.

jibi

SPG.com > click your name > My Starpoints Activity > Refine by: All Qualifying, for: 2014

Count them up. This will include revenue stays, award stays, cash & point stays, and annual credit card bonus nights. Check for reservation confirmations in your email, too. Perhaps one of the stays slipped off your account.

As for the exception, call them and talk to someone. A colleague of mine did that for Gold (being nowhere near it) and they reluctantly granted it to him as a "one time only" exception. Of course, that was only Gold. Your case is much stronger, imo... especially if you have the 25 stays.

CPRich

If OP has 25 stays, there is no "case" needed for an "exception". Just send proof of the stay that's not on SPG's list.

But I don't see data to suggest that OP had 25 stays

gooselee

This. It is not a matter of OP and SPG "counting" differently. OP needs to go through his email and records (maybe even CC statements) to determine whether or not he actually had 25 stays in 2014.

If so, then there is grounds to have SPG correct their records and properly award status. If not, then OP has no argument.

UKTraveller4Fun

Hi

Leaving the 24 or 25 stays to one side for a minute and to your question regards the exception while you have obviously been a Plat for nearly a decade in those years you qualifed as a Plat how many were by 50 nights (and was it just 50 nights or 60-70 nights) or was it always on 25 stays or more a year (and if so again was it by 30 -40 stays or nearer the 25 mark)?