Update: Aaron notes that Starwood is letting people make reservations at the current rates as long as they get the points by the day of the actual hotel stay!
Coming soon: How to land a round-trip ticket to/from select North American cities and Israel for just 20,000 Starpoints, courtesy of S.B.S. (who else?!?)
Related: Starwood’s RevPAR Explained.
All Starpoint Redemption Options
Every year Starwood does an adjustment of hotels to make sure that they are in the correct RevPAR category. In years such as 2002 when travel and hotel rates were down, hundreds of Starwood hotels went down in their category rankings.
As the Starwood Preferred Guest program is dollar-denominated, when foreign currencies go up against the dollar, they will also rise in their RevPAR category. This fact, combined with generally high hotel occupancy rates last year mean that a number of Starwood hotels will be going up in category, although some will go down as well.
In the following complete list of Starwood properties you can see which hotels will be changing on category on 03/04 by the red dot before the hotel name.
If you are planning on staying in a Starwood hotel that is moving up in category, you should book it at the lower rate immediately. You are allowed to book a future stay at the current rate until 03/03. Starwood awards are generally fully refundable until the day before arrival.
Here are some brief category change notes:
-Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles (a nice, recently renovated hotel) is moving up from being a category 2 bargain to a category 3.
-The only Starwood property in Israel that will change category is the Sheraton City Tower in Ramat Gan, which will move from a category 3 to a category 4. The only other Starwood hotel in Israel ranked that high is the Sheraton Tel Aviv Hotel and Towers.
-In the good-news department, the most opulent hotel in the garden isle of Kauai, Hawaii, the Princeville Resort will fall from a category 6 to a category 5!
Complete list of Starwood Category 1 properties.
Complete list of Starwood Category 2 properties.
Complete list of Starwood Category 3 properties.
Complete list of Starwood Category 4 properties.
Complete list of Starwood Category 5 properties.
Complete list of Starwood Category 6 properties.
Complete list of Starwood Category 7 properties.
For reference sake, here are the hotel point options available, by category:
|
|
Starpoints Needed, by Hotel/Resort Category |
||||||
|
3,000 |
4,000 |
7,000 |
10,000 |
12,000 – 16,000 |
20,000 – 25,000 |
30,000 – 35,000 |
|
|
just 2,000! |
just 3,000! |
7,000 |
10,000 |
12,000 – 16,000 |
20,000 – 25,000 |
30,000 – 35,000 |
|
|
1,200 Starpoints +$25 |
1,600 Starpoints + $30 |
2,800 Starpoints + $45 |
4,000 Starpoints + $60 |
4,800 Starpoints + $90 |
8,000 Starpoints + $150 |
n/a |
|
|
n/a |
n/a |
28,000 |
40,000 |
48,000 – 64,000 |
80,000 – 100,000 |
120,000 – 140,000 |
|
|
1,000 – 1,500 |
1,000 – 1,500 |
1,000 – 1,500 |
1,000 – 1,500 |
1,500 – 2,750 |
1,500 – 2,750 |
1,500 – 2,750 |
|
|
3,000 |
4,000 |
7,000 |
10,000 |
12,000 – 16,000 |
20,000 – 25,000 |
30,000 – 35,000 |
|
|
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,000 |
1,000 |
|
|
n/a |
n/a |
60,000 |
70,000 |
n/a |
n/a |
n/a |
|
Award chart is courtesy of spg.com
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12 Comments On "This Year’s Starwood Category Adjustments…"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
will the airline point transfers be effected by all this?
i cant wait i have my 20,000 points waiting
This has absolutely no affect on transferring Starpoints to airlines.
Those have continued to be, with some exceptions for better (British Airways 20,000:32,500. LAN:20,000:50,000) or worse (Continental, United 20,000:12,500) 20,000 Starpoints for 25,000 miles on dozens of airlines.
ABSOLUTELY incredible job at this roundup dan-
WE LOVE YOU!!!
Person A View:
Financial reviews:
are computer generated every 90 days. The age of the account must be 5 months old for eligibility. A couple of reasons (actually the BIGGEST reasons) reviews are IF the card holder carries a balance that EXCEEDS 26% of the total credit limit of any CREDIT CARD OR CHARGE CARD. This is also a computer generated risk assessment. If you have ANY number of cards and are carrying this amount of debt then you are liable to come under the glass.
The system is flawed. AmEx DOES NOT like to see revolving balances. Period. 1-5% max and you can consider yourself safe.
Person B View:
Many people have pointed this out: They don’t
have the resources to do a financial review on
every customer, even if they would like to.
I think of it more like a roadside sobriety check:
if pulled over, you must comply, but some places,
times and dates are more likely (1 AM outside the
roadhouse versus 10AM outside the church.) It
could happen anytime anywhere, but if you act
too strange, anytime is the right time.
If they reviewed (just guessing) one in a thousand of
their customers with FICO over 750, one in a hundred
over 700, but one in five under 620, that would make
sense. And there are obvious triggers, too. (Max out
all cards, or buy chewing gum for eleven months and
then fly to Tahiti!)
What I have learned from the many postings here:
You are not immune, no matter how clean you are.
Some one will get F/R (did) even before they see
their first card. Someone else (me) may avoid F/R
even when maxed out. It’s a random draw, but your
chances are based on your apparent risk.
I would like to know what is the official Ctownbochur opinion on IBM (Lenovo) ThinkPads and if the opinion is positive then you might want to let you readers know of the 15% coupon (USPSUPERSAVINGS) and that they are having huge sales.
Another great way to buy an IBM is through the IBM Shareholders Purchase Program @ lenovo.com/ibmspp and enter the code: 536686.
I hear you can get further savings by calling them and asking for it.
I have 20k starpoints waiting for the info…
dan thank you so much i am going to italy in a month and i wanted to stay in one of hotels and thanks to you posting it that it was going up to the next catorgory i reserved it today and i saved myself a heck of alot of points bec it was a diffrence of like 20,000 points a night for the next level thanks so much
Are Nights & Flights a good deal?
also you can booked on the phone even if you dont have the points cause its taking a long time for new card holders to get there 10000 points and they confirm you reservation as long as the points is in a day before you come
It seems that Starwood has pulled a fast one!
While the email announcing the updated redemption list has only the Tel-Aviv hotel as going up in price among the hotels in Israel, in actuality ALL the Le Meridian hotels in Israel have gone up!
The Le Meridians in Haifa and the Dead Sea have gone from category 1 to category 3 and the Le Meridian Eilat has gone from category 3 to category 4.
This is a tough blow for all of us in Israel.
as someone posted earlier Le meridian dead sea went from a category 1 to a 3 is there anyway to change that its a big blow