The changes are good for almost all elites.
Golds are all better off, they just get a new benefit (choice of welcome amenity) with nothing taken away. Free internet is the most valuable choice, but someone who is expensing internet may take a $15 welcome drink or if they don’t drink they might take the points.
Platinums who stay 50 nights or more get to choose which nights they want priority for upgrades, and even which rooms they’re willing to use their upgrade priority for. Platinums all now get the choice of Continental breakfast (but they don’t get breakfast and the points amenity or the local amenity, and SPG is working with properties to refresh their local amenities). Platinums who stay 75 nights earn a 100% points bonus instead of 50% for their in-hotel spend, and get 24 hour check-in (which has some limitations, but is a unique benefit in the industry). Platinums who stay 100 nights get a personal Starwood Ambassador, a single point of contact with the chain to manage their reservations and preferences and work with hotels on their behalf.
I do think Platinums who stay less than 50 nights lose out a bit on the upgrade front, because they don’t get to express their preference for when they want upgrades, they’ll be behind those Platinums throwing down a suite night award and at the most popular resort properties one imagines this means that those Platinums will be upgraded less frequently than they are now. On the other hand, all Platinums now get breakfast so there are pluses and minuses.
Another limitation of the upgrade nights is that a 100 night platinum gets the same number of them as a 50 night platinum. So the 50 night Platinum can get an upgrade preference on twice the percentage of stays as a 100 night platinum. Although one imagines the 100 night platinum will get higher priority for their upgrades, though Starwood hasn’t released the formula that they use to prioritize upgrades among those requesting them.
I wish they had given the 10 suite nights to all Platinums, and that they’d continue to add suite nights as Platinums stay more than 50 nights. And I also wish they had added confirmed upgrades, at least for their most frequent guests, perhaps at the 75 night level.
All in all a positive change for most, everyone is given something new that they didn’t have before. And I believe the real game changer is taking away upgrade processing from the hotels and doing it by computer based on a consistent formula, for the advance upgrades.
But there have been lots of misconceptions popping up over the past 24 hours so I thought I’d engage in a dialogue over some of those.
I’d never choose Continental breakfast over the points.
Maybe you wouldn’t. But certainly breakfast for two people every day of your stay will be worth more than the 500 points at full service properties. You wouldn’t choose this if you’re just expensing breakfast. Even on a business stay, though, where you aren’t coming out of your own pocket, plenty of folks are on a per diem. If breakfast is covered, that’s more to spend the rest of the day (or to pocket if you don’t spend).
But hotels are going to give me coffee and a muffin and that’s it
There will always be non-compliant hotels, and those are fixed based on member complaints. And some hotels will push the envelope over what’s allowable. But there’s specific guidance on what continental breakfast means, coffee and juice, fruit, yogurt, cereal, breakfast breads.
But I don’t like Continental breakfast, I want a full breakfast.
Some hotels will offer a full breakfast. And hotels have been told to allow a buy up to full breakfast, if Continental is $15 and full breakfast is $25 a Platinum selecting breakfast should be able to buy full breakfast for $10. It’s not a requirement of the program, and the hotel isn’t out of compliance if they don’t offer the buy up, but most often it should be an option. If you don’t like Continental breakfast, and the hotel doesn’t offer a buy up, then take the points and you’re no worse off. But that seems like it’ll be a pretty limited case.
Your24 Blows: if I check in early I have to check out early.
Starwood will let Platinums staying 75 nights check in any time of day, 24 hours a day. At 12:01am if they want. That’s great for those arrivals in India, a year ago it would have saved me a full hotel night. Yes, if you check in at 5am you’re supposed to then check out at 5am though properties may offer some leeway. However, if you check in at 9am or later then you are still eligible for 4pm late checkout.
That’s a huge benefit, check in at 9am after an early arrival in Europe to take a shower. And you won’t have to check out early.
The drawback is that the benefit isn’t guaranteed, it has to be requested at least 48 hours out, it likely will be available most of the time but a hotel that’s sold out won’t have to kick a guest out early to accommodate, and won’t have to take a room out of service the day before in order to accommodate. So it’s not quite as rich as Intercontinental’s guaranteed 8am checkin for Royal Ambassadors, where they’ll put you in a temporary room if your suite isn’t ready. But it does offer checkin at 1am or 5am, something Intercontinental doesn’t, and that’s a benefit that no other chain offers at all.
What’s also nice is that checking in at 7pm should allow 7pm checkout, and even at a resort where late checkout is otherwise ”subject to availability’ (which in practice means ‘not available’ or at least the hotel isn’t obliged to provide it, it’s always funny when a hotel offers a Platinum member 4pm checkout for a fee, I always rather think that if it’s available at a fee then it’s available and thus should be provided free, but what do I know). Nice benefit at resorts.
I’m a Platinum who stays 60 nights I hate that I’m not top tier anymore
You won’t get an Ambassador or 24 hour checkin, but you’re still a Platinum and that remains top tier in the SPG program. At the hotel level they still see you as a Platinum, and they also see someone staying 75 or 100 nights as a Platinum. Advance upgrade benefits and early checkin benefits are managed in advance and through the corporate level, there’s no new Platinum75 or Platinum100 designator that constitue a new higher level in the program. So kudos to SPG for continuing to value their 50 night guests even as they add benefits for more frequent guests.
I love the idea of lifetime elite status, but I called up Starwood and they told me that my 500 nights for lifetime Platinum all had to occur in years in which I was platinum. Bummer.
Nope. You get lifetime Gold after 250 nights and 5 years of elite status, and lifetime Platinum after 500 nights and 10 years of elitePlatinum status. The elite status years do not have to be consecutive. The 500 nights do not have to all come from years when you were an elite. And of course award nights even now count as nights for this purpose.
What other questions do you have about SPG’s new elite benefits? What do you think of them?
Update: Typo before 6am this morning, lifetime Platinum requires 10 years of Platinum status, I wrote 10 years of ‘elite’ status. Sorry for the confusion!
Gary, do you think that my several years of comped Gold status (from AMEX some years, no explanation in others) will count towards the 5 years for LT Gold? Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near the nights requirement for lifetime…
There’s been talk in the past about upgrade to Platinum through the credit card spend (similar to Gold). I know that’s the credit card and not the program itself, but did you hear any news on that front in these announcements? I didn’t see anything but wanted to check.
@Brett no and I really don’t expect it. I’d love to see them incentivize higher levels of spend by awarding more nights/stays at higher spend thresholds, but I didn’t get the sense that that’s currently in the offing. And certainly they haven’t added any way to qualify for Platinum solely on the credit cards.
@Gene I assume so yes
Gary,
With regard to the LT Plat status, the SPG site seems to say in two different spots that the 10 years of elite status need to be at Plat (not any elite) status.
1.”Enjoy Platinum membership status for life when you achieve 500 eligible nights total and any 10 years of Platinum SPG status since joining the program.” (http://www.spgpromos.com/morepowertoyou/?action=main.lifetime&language=en_US&IM=SPGT_Annc_SPG_ENG_1&EM=SPGMorePower)
2. “What are the requirements to become SPG Lifetime™ Platinum?
To earn SPG Lifetime Platinum status, an SPG member must have a minimum of 10 years of Platinum status during his/her SPG tenure AND 500 eligible nights since joining the program.” From the FAQ’s at http://www.spgpromos.com/morepowertoyou/?action=main.faq&language=en_US&IM=SPGT_Annc_SPG_ENG_1&EM=SPGMorePower#lifetime.
So I agree that the 500 nights need not come from your 10 years of Plat status…..but I think SPG is saying you need 10 years of Plat status as a separate requirement in addition to 500 nights (for example 5 years of Gold and 5 of Plat would not be enough even if you had 500 plus nights)
Will the five nights a year earned through having the SPG Amex card count toward lifetime elite?
A minor point, but LT Platinum requires 10 years of Platinum, not just 10 years of elite status
Terrific post. This kind of extra analysis is why I subscribe. Thanks.
Yes Liffetime Platinum does require 10 years of Platinum, sorry for the typo before 6am, not ideal for a post that was meant to correct misconceptions, eh? Sorry! 🙂
Hilton and Hyatt provide breakfast AND points to top-tier elites. SPG won’t.
@Explore that’s correct. Hyatt’s 1000 points is valuable. Hilton’s 1000 points are meaningless. I don’t think Hilton really has even close to what SPG offers their elites.
I’m sure many hotels will end up give Plats a full breakfast over continental breakfast.
Just one data point, but I ended up emailing the W Hong Kong last night about this as I’m thinking of switching my points stay from the Sheraton to the W. They confirmed to me that I will be entitled to the full breakfast buffet as a Plat.
Thanks for the excellent analysis and I hope other hotels start offering lifetime status! As an aside, I just stayed 10 nights at the W Hong Kong – lots of breakfast and food options in the Elements mall and the MTR station underneath. I usually rue the lack of a free breakfast, but in a place like Hong Kong, there are so many tasty inexpensive options, as opposed to my normal travel to random places in the United States.
Gary, while Hyatt and SPG points are a lot more valuable than HHonors points, as an HH Diamond I can earn 6,000 HHonors points plus breakfast for a $100 one-night stay charging to a Surpass card, taking advantage of the current systemwide promo, and returning my 1,000 VS miles back to HH in a 1:2 ratio (retaining the miles at VS, or CO/UA under current promos, could be even more valuable).
As SPG Platinum I’d earn a little more than 500 Starpoints if I charged that $100 one-night stay to my SPG card and chose the breakfast amenity. No current promos apply.
SPG points are not worth 12X HHonors points, maybe half that much at best.
Thanks for this well thought out post. Nice too see blogs looking at both sides of the coin. Net, for most, this is pretty good news!
can I choose 500 SPG or breakfast on reward stay? thanks.
@aw yes
Was there any mention that they might change the AMEX SPG 40k spend limit for gold? I was hoping for spending 40k would atleast get you Platinum which sounds reasonable.
@jerome I do not expect them to offer Platinum for Amex spend even at $100k.
One side effect of this might be full breakfast at properties where continental isn’t offered — something similar happens to Hyatt Diamonds. If so, that would be pretty great — though over time I would expect some hotels to start offering the continental breakfast, just for plats…
Great overview I expect a bumpy road with Plat breakfasts as the stingy properties say only muffin and canned juice and others a generous buffet
I can see the threads now just coming 🙂
I am very disappointed with the changes from SPG. I expected more. Much more. As you’ve pointed out, and many of us have recognized for a long time – SPG USED to be the program to beat, but no longer. They had a long string of Freddy wins to prove that. But then the competition caught on, and SPG failed to continue to innovate, and are now lagging behind. They needed to do something, but this change is the same as doing nothing in my opinion.
We’ve seen this program become relatively less competitive v. others. We’ve seen massive MASSIVE point escalation for redemption at many properties.
I am a platinum member, typically staying 30-40 nights a year. I’ve been platinum for maybe 5 years straight now. This change appears to be completely meaningless to me.
I get the interest in wanting to reward those staying 50, 75 or 100 nights a year. Thats smart business, given the amount of revenue they bring in. I also get wanting to increase benefits for gold members. But for the bread-and-butter platinums like me staying 25-35 nights a year – and I’ll bet the vast majority of platinums fit this mold – these changes appears utterly useless.
I get… free continental breakfast. Really? Thats it? You want my continued loyalty for a danish, some fruit, and a cofee, and something that as a business traveler I can expense anyway? Really?
I am very disappointed.
Im also not impressed. I was looking at Hilton and a typical hotel that I would want to stay in (not be impressed with but rather not feel like it was a dump) cost 35,000 points for one night. 35k? Really? That’s way to high.
Sheraton points are less… I would say a comparable hotel would be in the 10-12k range. 35k points for a room I can get for 160.00 is a rip off. I’m not sure what I would do with my points but I’m starting to think its best to just give them to the airline or rental car company.