Update: Multiple users are reporting having success at getting approved multiple times for the same Starwood card without canceling the previous card. See the comments for more info.
Starwood AMEX Consumer Credit Card Linky
Starwood AMEX Business Credit Card Linky
AMEX, unlike Chase and Citi, may not let you have more than one of the same card.
In other words, you can have a Starwood consumer and a Starwood business card, however you may not be able to get 2 Starwood consumer or 2 Starwood business cards at the same time.
Therefore you might want to cancel your current Starwood consumer or business card before applying for the same card again.
The fee for both Starwood cards continue to be waived for the first year.
When you apply for a Starwood card online you will get an approval decision within 60 seconds along with the amount of your new credit line!
You may have good luck and be able to get another 2,500 bonus points for adding an additional cardmember for free when you call up AMEX to activate your new card after you receive it in the mail.
Program Background:
Starwood Preferred Guest is a loyalty program, just like any airline’s mileage program, except that Starwood is a hotel brand and the currency is Starpoints.
Starwood hotels include chains such as Sheraton, Westin, and W hotels.
You can manage your Starwood Preferred Guest on the Starwood website: www.spg.com
You will never lose your Starpoints by canceling the Starwood credit card. The points you earn are automatically transferred by AMEX into your Starwood Preferred Guest account every month. AMEX will never take back points once they are deposited into your Starwood Preferred Guest account.
Another great benefit of the program is the ability to transfer Starpoints between household accounts for free! (Raise your hand if you wish that your favorite mileage program had the same benefit…)
If you apply for a Starwood card without providing AMEX with your Starwood Preferred Guest member number you will be automatically assigned a new Starwood Preferred Guest member number by AMEX.
Just call AMEX to find out what the number is. If you have been assigned more than one Starwood Preferred Guest member number, just call up starwood to merge the accounts.
Card Benefits:
You earn 1 starpoint per dollar spent. There is currently no points/mileage currency in the world that I know of that is more valuable than Starpoints, which is why this is my favorite card on which I do all of my spending!
Both the consumer and business Starwood AMEX cards come with AMEX’s premium return privilege-if you don’t like something that you bought for up to $300 on the card, you have 90 days to return it to AMEX for a refund!
Both cards get you Preferred Plus status in the Starwood Preferred Guest. This allows you to get free late check-out and space-available room upgrades when staying at Starwood hotels.
If you spend $30,000 on either card within 1 year, you will be upgraded to Gold status in the Starwood Preferred Guest program.
The business card also comes with AMEX Open Savings, use it when you buy a Delta or Jetblue ticket and get an automatic 3% statement rebate. Use it at Fedex/Kinko’s and many other places and get an automatic 5% statement rebate!
Redemption Options:
The possibilities for Starpoints are practically endless. One of the great aspects of the program is that you are effectively hedging your bets by earning Starpoints instead of miles. If you earn miles with one carrier, you are limited to the availability of that carrier and its’ alliance members. With Starpoints you will always have dozens of possible avenues to find the availability that you need.
Here are just a few of the many redemption possibilities:
-You can redeem them for unrestricted free nights at Starwood hotels starting at 2,000 Starpoints.
-You can redeem them for restricted Cash & Points stays starting at 1,200 points+$25.
-You can transfer them to dozens of airlines worldwide at a 1:1 ratio and get a 5,000 mile bonus for each 20,000 starpoints transferred.
-You can transfer 20,000 Starpoints to LAN and get 50,000 kilometers in the exchange. LAN will even give you 5,000 more kilometers for free just for signing up!
A RT ticket from the US to/from Brazil is just 48,000 kilometers. A RT One-World alliance ticket from the US to Israel is under 100,000 kilometers!
-You can redeem them for a Nights & Flights reward where you book 5 nights at a Starwood hotel stay at the same time as transferring points into an airline. There is a significant Starpoints savings by redeeming in this manner.
-You can transfer 20,000 Starpoints into 25,000 Amtrak points which transfer into 125,000 Choice privileges (Enough for over 6 nights at $350 Manhattan hotels!).
-You can also then transfer 250,000 Choice points (40,000 Starpoints) into 100 Southwest credits, enough for 12 free RT tickets with a yearlong free unlimited use companion pass.
What do you do with your Starpoints? Please post a comment and share!
Leave a Reply
42 Comments On "Comprehensive Starwood Program Refresher!"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
“AMEX, unlike Chase and Citi, usually does not let you have more than one of the same card”.
You wrote before in the summary page
“Maximum Number Of Continental Cards (which is a chase card) You Can Have Open At One Time: At least 2 of each consumer and business”.
So does it let you have 2 of the same card or not?
starwood does give u as many cards as you apply for. we had several personal and one business card….and they give you the 10,000 sign up points for each card they give u! we had three personal starwood cards with a total credit line of $15,000. we now cancelled all but one, and have that credit line on that one. this is the way not to have to pay the yearly fee…as the first year comes to a close, cancel that card and apply and receive a new one!
is there an amount you can spend on the card to get platinum status? or is that only possible through qualifying stays?
I had at some point 3 starwood personal cards and 1 business, and got 10.000 for each one. I just applied for them in one-month interval
This is kinda old news… Besides I don’t think it’s a great idea to cancel and reapply for the same card, I think that’ll probably hurt someone in the long run…
I have two personal and two business Starwood cards for myself and my wife. Despite the fine print on the application that says that the bonus can only be earned once, between me and my wife we have gotten the bonus eight times!
I have 69247 starpoints – i need just over 10000 points more to get 2 tickets to israel… i want to go in march!!
Thanks for a great website!
I currently have lots of them on my account. Here is a screenshot of some of them.
I’ve even recieved the bonus when switching from a Hilton HHonors to an SPG.
hey man-i was actually able to apply for 8 in a row. and got accepted. then i cancelled all except one and kept the credit line.
platinum status is only possible through qualifying stays
I don’t get it. How do you get TWO tix to Israel with 80,000 starpoints?
I just had 2 jetblue amex’s at once – I cancelled the old one a day or 2 ago tho…
will this hurt ur credit score. and do I have to wait the one month interval or can I just apply for a bunch of them btw I just got in the mail my business one and consumer one. thanks for the help
theoretically if I get lets say 3 of each does that equal 60.000 SP and if I cancel them all but one how can I transfer credit limits. when I azked then about it they said I couldn’t combine credit lines thanks
As I have said on many occasions, I open credit cards all the time, and I have an excellent credit score.
While you may take a small hit in the short-term when you open a card, as long as you pay your bills on time your score will go up in the long-run.
I don’t recommend applying for 5 Starwood cards at one time, apply for one of each today and then wait a month or so before getting more…
yaakov:
I write in the post how to get 2 tickets to Israel with even less than 80,000 starpoints!
is starwood the best amex card? i have the amex blue card right now
I’m convinced that the Starwood card is the best credit card for purchases, period.
How many starpoints would i need to get a free flight to israel including hotel stays for one week, Thanks
i just signed up for the consumer and business two weeks ago. would it be stupid to sign up for those two again, without canceling the first two. one more thing how do i get them to combine my credit line if i were to cancel all cards but one.
Yitzi:
It all depends where you want to stay in Israel, and if you want unrestricted nights, cash and points nights, or nights and flights.
There’s no easy answer to the question.
Go to Starwood’s website or call them up for more info.
Joe:
Personally I’d wait a month before applying again, but that’s just me.
You can reallocate your credit lines between cards very easily on the American Express website.
Dan. You replied to someone that you wrote in the post how to get to isreal with less then 80,000 starpoints. I dont see it anywhere. which airline allowes you to fly to israel for 50,000 miles?
From the original post,
“-You can transfer 20,000 Starpoints to LAN and get 50,000 kilometers in the exchange. LAN will even give you 5,000 more kilometers for free just for signing up!
A RT ticket from the US to/from Brazil is just 48,000 kilometers. A RT One-World alliance ticket from the US to Israel is under 100,000 kilometers!”
I find the lan program difficult and the language very hard to understand.
You’re going to have be more specific than that…what do you find confusing?
btw if I purchase a laptop under an amex. I have 90 days to return it free of each charge or not?
can u give a rough estimate please. thanks a ton also what about florida I might wanna go for chanukah with hotel stays, generally how many SP would it take
how about a refresher on the continental cards seeing as how valuable continental points have recently become
I called lan and asked re making a reservavtion with one of their partners. the customer service rep told me if I want to use on of their partners the cost would be in the miles the partner uses and not in the kilometers lan uses.
Yitzi,
Amex return protection is limited to $300 per incident.
thanx
is there an anual fee on th AMEX CC?
The Amex Buyer’s Assurance Plan doubles the original warranty up to one year. If you cancel the card will you lose the coverage on a product already purchased?
loyal reader:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/2890
Also this might help:
http://plane.lan.com/lanpass/canjee_kms/tabla_premios-en-us.html#ow
JFK to TLV via LHR is a category 4 One-World alliance award, requiring 95,000 LAN kms. in coach, 140,000 in business, or 190,000 in first.
40,000 Stapoints nets 105,000 LAN kms. including the 5,000 new LAN member bonus.
I HAVE BOOKED A TICKET THROUGH LAN FOR 40,000 STARWOOD POINTS AS DESCRIBED. IT IS NOW CONFIRMED FOR HIGH SEASON SUMMER TRAVEL THROUGH IBERIA. THERE WAS NO AVAILABILITY ON BRITISH OR MALEV. IT IS AT LAN’S AWARD LEVEL OF 95,000 KM.
to fly to isreal on air france is 50,000 miles (40,00 starpoints). can starwood points be transferred to air france??
aslo, why do i get the lan emails in spanish???
“When you apply for a Starwood card online you will get an approval decision within 60 seconds along with the amount of your new credit line!”
I applied online for the card but I did not get a decision or credit line etc. within 60 seconds as you posted.
Did anyone else get flowers from amex with a happy holiday card?
can i transfer points between my brothers and my card?
why do people keep asking questions that DAN ALREADY ANSWERED IN TEH POST?
STERN- AIR FRANCE IS CHEAP IN MILES, BUT THEIR FEES ARE OVER 250.OO FOR A TICKET TO ISRAEL VIA CDG. I LEARNED THAT THE HARD WAY. THE SAME TICKET BOOKED VIA CONTINENTAL COST 90,000 MILES AND 76.00 IN TAXES AND FEES.