Back in 2008 Starwood made a big deal about the introduction of SPG Flights. I panned it as a poor value.
Apparently not everyone got the memo though. SPG is bragging how someone spent a whopping 870,000 Starwood points to fly from Los Angeles to Rome in business class.
With that many Starpoints he could have transferred them into nearly 1.1 million airline miles on dozens of different airlines. A business class ticket to Europe using Flying Blue starts at 50,000 miles, using USAirways miles starts at 60,000 miles, or using AAdvantage miles is 100,000 miles. A first class ticket to Europe using AAdvantage miles is 125,000 miles. Or a round-the-world first class award on American or any OneWorld partners that allows for 16 flights runs between 180K-330K miles. Heck you can fly to Dubai in an A380 suite on Emirates with your own shower onboard for 217,500 miles, so he could have booked 5 such tickets with 870K Starpoints.
Or you can get even better deals at Starwood hotels. It’s very easy to get a value of 2.5 cents per Starpoint with hotel redemptions, in fact you can even get a value of 10 times that.
Instead someone burned it all on 2 business class tickets. What a shame.
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11 Comments On "Starwood Advertises Just How Bad A Deal SPG Flights Is"
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What a shame!!! I always wondered how they make it worth it to give out so many points… with people like us getting our money’s worth… With 870K points on 2 tickets, I now understand!
Wow! I tell you one thing – that guy don’t follow DD and he definitely aint a ddf member!
… and it probably took this guy many many years to accrue so many points…
Dan I feel your pain. You sound devastated 😉
(I understand why but its just funny)
I assume that this traveler bought tickets last minute so there was no availability for regular reward redemption. Maybe he has so many points from signup bonuses that he does not care…
Could have stayed 30 nights at cat 7 hotels.
@Paul:
Even more with 5th night free.
talking about starwood, they have a promotion for new members.
Bonus Beginnings, if you stay at any hotel till 2/28 u get back 4,000 points per stay, up to 12,000.
Register by January 31, 2013, then complete a stay between December 1, 2012, and February 28, 2013, and you’ll receive 4,000 bonus Starpoints® per stay — up to 12,000 bonus Starpoints.
Register at spg.com/bonusbeginnings to get started and book your next stay today.
SPG should reimburse him some points back. This is scandalous. There’s no way this guy knew what he was doing.
I haveamex paltinum business card with 200,000 points on it. Can I transfer them out to an airline? What is teh best thing to do to maximize these points?