thesilb

Most assuredly, three years ago, one could not. But seems that has changed now. Thanks William & all for the info. Does sound like a rich proposition, but good to know!

trekkie

The SVO route is not exactly cheap or reasonable.

I attended one in hawaii and the crux of the sales point is that while status is lifetime and you are able to convert your points to spg points, it is capped at 80,000 points as on contract and doesn't allow for any influence by spg point devaluation. You also have to pay for the conversion and the fees are quite expensive compared to hilton.

What would be an alternative is to make yourself known to the gm of any spg OWNED property and negotiate with them in making you spg chairman card holder or whatever it is called, the invitation only membership above spg platinum.

The alternative is to hold onto a amex plat card or co-branded credit cards that offers spg gold memberhsip for the life of you being the credit card holder.

bchl

why isn't SPG considering to offer a lifetime Platinum membership? I believe that Hyatt/Hilton/Marriott are all offering one.. This could be a nice marketing tool to even increase the loyality of people frequent Starwood properties. I'm not saying you should give it out like incentives, you can easily set the level quite high.

If there should be a platinum lifetime membership, my life would make more sense then to reach another goal (just kidding )

Flemish

Hi,

I recently stayed at the Westin St. John and attended one of their SVO 1,5 hour sales pitches. The lady offered me gold status for life if I bought a week of their time share. I asked what about Plat? She said that a gentleman who bought 5 weeks got Plat for life....not sure what to believe here though...

Cheers,

Steve

Life_Platinum

I achived Life_Platinum status in the Marriott program because a record of consistent support since the time the program was established. :-:

hhoope01

Marriott offers lifetime status for all three of its "official" levels (silver, gold, platinum.) For platinum, one would need to be a member of their program for a minimum of 12 years, stayed at least 1000 nights, and accured over 3 million points.

Actually, I'm somewhat surprised that SPG doesn't offer some type of lifetime credentials. Given they have the tween level "preferred plus", I would think at the least they might think of something similar for long-time members high-stay members.

tjk1976

I find this all very interesting. I was contacted some time ago by the people marketing ownership in the new Westin Kelowna (which is a few hours from Vancouver, British Columbia). I asked about any SPG status benefits that would be available if I were to drop the several hundred thousand dollars that they were asking for one of their units. The answer was a flat no. I found this somewhat perplexing.

You would think they would address the SPG status question since, as a prospective buyer who is already SPG Plat, I factor how owning a vacation property would affect the frequency with which I stay at hotels and earn status. Even if they don't offer status, why not come back with something like if you buy, we will give you 100,000 *points, or SPG Plat for 2 years, or something!? There is a tangible cost associated with the points for which I'm sure a business case could be made.

I believe the Westin Kelowna is offering actual condos as opposed to time shares. Still, I didn't buy and never heard from them again.

b8b

Interesting... anyone on FT "Chairman" status?

Starwood Lurker

VIP...but hotel GM's don't invite people to be VIP.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]

Negma

To get the status through SVO (timeshare), you have to own roughly 4 - 5weeks of a two bedroom lock-off (roughly because each 2br L/O has different values based on the resort). It would cost around 150K to get there.

It is called 5* elite. You keep the platinum as long as you keep the properties and pay the maintence fees.

It can be done for less but it gets complicated. WWW.TUGBBS.Com has alot of information on this. In fact I found this site from posts on that site.

troyintn

Hilton does not either. It is a sore point with some of the guys doing a 150+ nights a year. It is the only reason I think about going ot marriott every now and then, along wiht Plat premier.

tjk1976

This is a bit of a tangent off of the original post and I know this has been discussed on other threads. However, this thread reminds me of the fact that you essentially get nothing for stays / nights that go beyond the qualifying thresholds for the top tiers of most loyalty programs. This is their biggest flaw IMO.

I've never understood why they don't offer something additional to Plat members who exceed 25 stays / 50 nights. By not doing so, they are effectively telling their best customers to go try out another brand since they have already received everything they will get from *wood. I think they should put some kind of super elite benefits for people who stay beyond the Plat thresholds; even if it were as simple as offering a 1,000 pt welcome amenity rather than 500 once you exceed 25 stays / 50 nights.

Not offering additional benefits is like putting a cap on a salesperson's commission. You're telling him, we'll pay you "x" until you sell your target of "y" but after you've reached that target, we're not paying you anymore. I don't get it.

badjuju

You can spend 50 nights a year until you die - you'll definitely be lifetime platinum.

hhoope01

I take it that SPG doesn't have anything like Marriott's Platinum Premier or the mythical AA 2% club.

c_stanley

You don't get "nothing" you get the benefits of the status level on your subsequent stays, which are substantial and presumably the whole point of shooting for the status in the first place.