Bad availablity for awards in India
 

I've been a HUGE fan of SPG, but have to think twice after attempting to use points for stays in New Dehli, Agra, Jaipur and Mumbai. Many of the SPG properties have plenty of vacancies but won't take points since they are not "standard rooms." I even asked the Plat concierge aboout using extra points for suites. Nope. So what difference does it make if you don't have blackout dates if the hotel only makes one room available for points?

I booked a bunch of rooms at Hiltons instead. If I run into this again, I'm out of SPG. Why earn all the points if properties want to significantly limit the number of available rooms.

No SPG properties would take points in Mumbai or Jaipur. New Dehli was avail only at Le Meridien.

I am planning a trip to India for October, and would certainly echo your concerns about room availability, particularly for the ITC Welcomgroup hotels (usually Sheratons). Definitely a less expansive definition of a "standard" room than anywhere else in the world I have tried with SPG.

However, one suggestion I would mention: the availability of reward nights for many of the hotels has varied widely over the past 2-3 months I have been trying to put this trip together. One week rooms at the Maurya in Delhi are not available for a certain date, and the following week they suddenly will be. Ditto for the Maratha in Mumbai, and the Le Meridien in Mumbai as well (though not the Grand Central... I've never found availability there for any of my dates.)

So, not sure how soon your trip is, but it could pay to keep at it. I agree it shouldn't be this difficult, though. It will be interesting to see if some of the new Westins being opened over the next couple years (in Delhi and Bangalore, maybe also elsewhere?) will be noticeably easier to book.

Getting a PAID hotel room has been difficult in May. This is with SPG as well as Hyatt.

Demand is just very high, supply is limited.

Agreed with this in general. However, I'm currently researching availability for an India holiday and find good award availability in Agra, Delhi, Cochin, and Chennai. I've also found fairly decent Cash & Points availability as well. It may depend on your dates, but more info may help.

Bangalore & Mumbai are really hard to get anything at (including paid rooms sometimes).

1 thing I've had to do in the past is do seperate bookings (ie, book 1st-3rd, then 4th-6th, and 8th-14th for example for a 2 week stay) and watch for availability on the "missing dates" over time. Once you get a booking for the full time you need, you can many times get the stays combined to 1 record by contacting the hotel.

Also, I've even shown up at the hotel once with a missing day or 2 over a 14 day stay & just talked to the folks there who got my stay filled up for me (of course, I had cancellable reservations at other backup hotels just in case).

Le Meridien is a pretty nice property in Delhi.

I'm looking for mid-September and finding rates of $370-$500/night all over the place so I can't imagine rewards will be easy. November will be even harder from past experience. Might the Indian economy slow just because companies can't afford to pay for the hotel rooms?

At which hotels in India have you seen any C&P availability for any dates? I've been checking many of them regularly online and have had Platinum concierge check months at a time, and have never seen availability. Would be great to know which hotels have at least assigned a room to the rate plan.

Does Starwood even have a minimum percentage of rooms that must be "standard" rooms for purposes of award redemption, and if so what is it? (5%, 10%, 50%, etc.)

Not that I'm aware of...but whatever standard rooms are identifiable are available for awards.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

And who is it that identifies what is a "standard room", the hotel itself? Does the hotel really want a $50-$100 reimbursement from Starwood for an award booking when the same room can be sold at $200-$400?

Starwood really ought to have a minimum percentage of rooms that are to be designated as standard rooms or the marketing material (about if there's a room, it's available for redemption) will be perceived as misleading.

For what it's worth, I expect more Indian hotels to jump up a category next year -- and in the interim (and maybe even afterwards) getting an award booking at standard marketed award levels will be a pain. :(

Le Meridien Cochin
this friday through next monday (July 20 - 23)
next friday through next monday (July 27 - 30)
(and the next 3 weekends after that)

The Mugal, Agra
I had a week in early September that was available last week - it's not now. Unfortunately, I didn't book it yet. :(

I haven't checked too much beyond those, but had good luck when I was looking before, so didn't do an exhaustive search.

Yes. We say that in the Terms and Conditions of Membership as well. Besides, who is in the best position to know? The frequent stay program or the actual hotel?

Not sure that this is a real issue or just a perception issue. If a hotel sells 90% of the their room availability, they're going to get the $200 - $400 they would have gotten from SPG anyway, so there is no incentive out there for them to fudge on the numbers of standard rooms.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Some of us SPG customers would appreciate it if SPG required that a minimum percentage of a hotel's rooms are made available for standard award redemptions.

There may be an incentive for the hotel to severely restrict how many rooms it makes available for award redemptions until a point in time when the hotel knows it's hit (or certainly going to hit) the 90% occupancy level. This is yet another reason why I'd like to see Starwood require that a minimum percentage of rooms at the individual hotel properties be classified as "standard rooms" for purposes of award redemption. Last minute award availability might be useful for the likes of me but is generally not useful to most SPG members who want to use points for scheduled leisure purposes.

Yes, there are probably a lot of things folks would appreciate; however, reality suggests another outcome in regard to this request. ;)

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think hotels work on the assumption that they aren't going to sell out. Quite the opposite, actually. :)

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Yes, and that present-day reality is why I communicated my interest/request/suggestion. ;)


Would hotel property owners pay independent consultants -- consultants who are independent of the brand/loyalty program operator/management -- to tell them how to maximize their position vis-a-vis the brand/loyalty program operator/management? :D That is, in this case, how to make sure award bookings don't cannabilize higher revenue standard booking streams (even controlling for occupancy levels) or result in lower revpar.

So a Starwood property could have no rooms considered standard? What about one small room with a twin bed? This is beginning to sound like a topic for a Ben Mutzenberger column in USA Today! No blackout dates does not mean in any way you can actually use points for a room. LOL.

LOL, indeed. :D

This kind of reality only exists in the realm of conspiracy theory. However, there are some Starwood properties whose lowest category rooms are deluxe, not standard. Still, they somehow manage to put these deluxe rooms up for standard award availability. ;)

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Are any of the current Starwood hotels in India amongst those hotels which have no standard suites to which the Platinum upgrade benefit is applicable?

There's also evidence that in India, there are proporties not making rooms available despite listing themselves in an award category. I think I found some properties in Dubai not participating as well. This is not in alignmnet with SPG marketing which implies you'll be able to stay in properties at any time. And I caought the typo...Ben Mutzenbaugh is the right name.

Sometimes rooms listed as "deluxe" on SPG.com are actually "standard rooms" for purposes of redemption. In such cases "deluxe" is the spin to make a "standard room"-buyer think that they may be getting something better than they would expect if knowing exactly how the hotel categorizes all of its various rooms.

Really? Well, send me this hard evidence and if it holds water, then I'll see that something gets done about it. Until some factual evidence is presented, it all falls into the conspiracy theory realm, precisely where it belongs. ;)

You can't sling a dead cat and not hit an SPG non-participating property in Dubai. ;) There is probably more per capita of non-participating properties in that country alone than any other four countries put together.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Online Guest Feedback Coordinator
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Are there any hotels in Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, or Calcutta (Kalkota) that offer fairly good rates for US travelers? Could factor in to my decision from a Hilton stay...

India Hotel stats
 

Recently, I read some stats . The number of hotel rooms in the whole of India is around 150000 almost as in just Las Vegas.
My expeiernce in Bangalore, Due to extreme demand for good properties, its been hard to get cash rooms either.

Delhi has an even more acute shortage of decent hotels and hotel rooms than Bangalore. A good number of people who intend to visit India thinking it will be a cheap tourist destination with great value on the lodging end come away shocked by the prices if not shocked by the lack of availability.

I expect Starwood to hike the award category of some more Indian hotels this coming year.

There's a huge difference in pricing and availability between what Indians call "the metros" (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and, as far as hotel occupancy goes, Bangalore and Hyderabad) and other, smaller cities, even those that are popular with tourists. For example, I had no problems at all finding award rooms at the Sheraton Mughal in Agra or the Trident Hiltons in Jaipur and Udaipur earlier this year, and paid rooms at all three start from under US$100.

I was unable to book a room with points at the Sheraton in Agra almost 300 days before a stay.

non-smoking?
 

I just found that checking non-smoking (Maurya, New Delhi) removed the awards options. I guess non-smoking isn't 'standard'? I booked anyhow, hope the room will be clean smelling.

Sylvia

The shift of a growing number of properties in India to only selling rooms denominated in a strengthening Indian rupee rate -- combined with even higher levels of demand/occupancy for rooms (with prices up as well) -- means that there will be some more Starwood properties in India jumping up categories. Book your SPG award reservations for rooms sooner than later to beat the upward category moves (yet again) in India.

Hotel rates in India are now some of the most expensive in the entire world. Metro cities are routinely hitting that 20,000 Rupees number, which translates into roughly 500 dollars after you calculate the taxes and luxury taxes.

Most hotels used to have 2 seperate rates, one for foreigners and one for local populations. The wealth in India has increased to a point that it doesn't matter who's staying; everyone is getting gouged.

At these rates, you can easily stay at the Mandarin Oriental, Raffles or Peninsula in several cities.

Can anyone suggest any alternatives in the 100-150 range?