Sizing Up Starwood’s 2013 First Quarter Promo

As mentioned by Mommy Points, Starwood Preferred Guest has leaked some details about their new promo.  For starters, one of the easy “pluses” is that you can head to their website right now and request a reminder when registration opens.  I wasn’t planning any SPG stays in the fourth quarter this year.  But at the last minute I decided to go for SPG100.  If I hadn’t registered for the promo when it was announced, I would have missed out on a bunch of points.  If you only take away one thing from this post, it’s free to register for these promos, so just go ahead and register for all of them when they come out. Someday, you’ll most likely thank me.

The first part of the promo (2,000 points after 4 nights) is somewhat on par with Starwood’s 2012 fall promo, assuming the four nights were all 4 independent stays.  Those using the iPhone app for the fall 2012 promo would come out ahead of SPG Power Up.  For those travelers who average longer stays, this part of the promo is a bit more lucrative than the previous one.  Also, since it’s a bonus after a certain number of nights as opposed to double Starpoints, cheap stays are more highly valued here than last time.

There are two moderately positive things to consider here.  If you’re planning close to 20 nights during this time period, the 10,000 bonus points at the 20-night threshold is a nice plus, though it’s really only 8,000 points here since you don’t get the 2,000 points for the 20th night.  As the T&C read, you get 2,000 points after your 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th nights, then 10,000 at 20 nights.  Another plus here is that pretty much all SPG properties are enrolled, which was not the case for the 2012 Fall promo.

All in all, probably a bit less lucrative going forward.  We’ll wait and see where the other big chains come out.