Starwood has launched its new series of intimate concerts and made available music festival tickets that you can spend your points for, and if the events are the kind of thing that’s up your alley these opportunities can be a really great (non-replicable) deal.
You Can Use Your Points This Morning to Join Small In-Hotel Concerts
Starwood produces an in-hotel music series called Hear the Music, See the World.
Redemptions “which gives fans the rare opportunity to connect with their favorite artists in intimate settings” are on sale as of this morning at spg.com/moments.
Enjoy Concerts from Starwood’s Suites and Get Tickets to Sold Out Events
Starwood has offerings that let you attend performances from SPG Luxury Suites in venues like the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, Shanghai’s Mercedes-Benz Arena and London’s The O2.
Members can share their experience at the SPG “selfie spot” while enjoying the SPG bar and other suite perks.
They also make VIP tickets available to the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Barclaycard Presents British Summertime Hyde Park.
There’s also a sweepstakes for an all-expense paid trip for two to one of the in-hotel concerts and other prizes like 50,000 Starpoints. Through May 22 you can register and book a two-night stay at a Starwood property through the their mobile app to enter. Additional entries are available by sharing a photo on Twitter or Instagram from your favorite ‘SPG Moments experience’ or hotel stay and tagging #spglife.
This is Exactly the Sort of Non-Travel Redemption I Like to See
As I explained in The Craziest Things You Can Do With Your Miles, and Why You Don’t Want to Do Them travel redemptions are far better than getting your loyalty program to buy you ‘stuff’ because programs have to go out and buy the stuff, their costs to do it are high, and so you’ll always get a poor value for your points.
There are very few exceptions to using airline, hotel, and credit card loyalty points for something other than travel.
Most of those exceptions come under the rubric of ‘life experiences’ — the idea that you can leverage the relationships of a big company to gain access to things you probably couldn’t do on your own.
Don’t use your points for a new LCD toaster. Do consider using your points (when it won’t break the bank) for an up close performance, with just a few other folks, by a world-renowned artist if that’s the kind of thing that interests you. Or go to the Oscars, because without the contacts your bank has when in the world would you ever get to otherwise?
About these offerings, Mark Vondrasek, Senior Vice President, Distribution, Loyalty and Partnership Marketing for Starwood says,
Through SPG’s music program, we’re redefining what loyalty programs can do. We’re continuing to cultivate loyalty beyond reason with all of our members by providing them once-in-a-lifetime access to music’s top talent and the chance to see amazing performances from the comfort of SPG’s luxury suites in some of the world’s best venues.
I don’t like the idea of ‘loyalty beyond reason’. My whole point is to apply reason to loyalty! But I actually think these can make sense, because you can leverage your points instead of ‘to replace things you’d buy with cash’ to ‘experience things that no reasonable amount of cash would be likely to get you’. And I’ve often said that we tend to underinvest in peak experiences.
Thanks Gary! Was able to book a sold out concert that was reselling for $700 per person. I was waiting for prices to come down to $1k for the pair, but 35k SPG points is definitely much better.
Starwood Moments is a great, great, great program. I took my dad to a Cubs game a couple of years ago and sat in Starwood’s suite for 7,500 points (It’s since gone up to 12,500+). If you want to see the suite, my review is here: https://thepointsninja.blogspot.com/2013/08/moments-by-spg-seeing-cubs-from.html. Unlike some of the other cards that offer “experiences” that are really just a disguised points for cash redemption (hot air baloon rides, etc.), Moments offers experiences that you really can’t get anywhere else.
Given the image used to illustrate this article (which is presumably a picture of some celebrity I don’t recognize) I thought the phrase “intimate performance” would turn out to have a somewhat different meaning.
The pictured celebrity is Britney Spears although given the trajectory of her personal life I have no interest in any intimate performance.