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Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, and 30,000 more Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases) The US Mint should be able to help you there in no time!


Starwood is offering 20% off Starpoint purchases until 12/31/09.

Normally it costs 3.5 cents per Starpoint, it’s just 2.8 cents per Starpoint with the promo.

So does it make sense to spend 2.8 cents per Starpoint?  It can if you put them to the right use.

If you’ve got 19,000 Starpoints and want to transfer them to miles then it probably would make sense to buy 1,000 Starpoints for $28.  That way you’ll have 20,000 Starpoints which transfers into 25,000 miles on most airlines (including Flying Blue where 25K is enough miles for a RT trip to Europe, Israel, or Russia with promo awards with some fees) or 50,000 kilometers on LAN (enough kilometers for 3 RT tickets for flights like NYC-Toronto).

Another good use is for Cash and Points hotel awards.  Although these awards aren’t completely unrestricted like regular Starwood hotel awards, they offer great values. Here is how to search for Cash and Points availability. Plus you don’t pay tax on any Starwood hotel rewards.

Here are some examples of hotel stays at various Starwood hotels with the cost of buying all of the required Starpoints to stay there.

Category 1:
Unrestricted award: 3,000 Starpoints. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$84
Weekend award: 2,000 Starpoints. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$56
Cash and Points award: 1,200 Starpoints+$25. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$58.60

Sample hotel: Four Points by Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport, 12/26,
Paid rate: $103USD with tax.
Award rate: 2,000 Starpoints.
Value per Starpoint: 5.2 cents

Category 2:
Unrestricted award: 4,000 Starpoints. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$112
Weekend award: 3,000 Starpoints. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$84
Cash and Points award: 1,600 Starpoints+$30. Total cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$74.80

Sample hotel: Four Points by Sheraton Geelong Victoria Australia, 11/24,
Paid rate: $155USD with tax
Award rate: 1,600 Starpoints+$30.
Value per Starpoint: 7.8 cents

Category 3:
Unrestricted award: 7,000 Starpoints. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$196
Cash and Points award: 2,800 Starpoints+$45. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$123.40

Sample hotel: Westin Harbour Castle Toronto, 11/24,
Paid rate: $260USD with tax,
Award rate: 2,800 Starpoints+$45.
Value per Starpoint: 7.7 cents

Category 4:
Unrestricted award: 10,000 Starpoints. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$280
Cash and Points award: 4,000 Starpoints+$60. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$172

Sample hotel: Westin Melbourne Australia, 12/06,
Paid rate: $290USD,
Award rate: 4,000 Starpoints+$60.
Value per Starpoint: 5.8 cents

Category 5:
Unrestricted award: 12,000 Starpoints. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$336
Cash and Points award: 4,800 Starpoints+$90. Cost @ 2.8 cents per point=$224.40

Sample hotel: Le Méridien Piccadilly London, 11/15,
Paid rate: $380USD,
Award rate: 4,800 Starpoints+$90
Value per Starpoint: 6 cents

Related:
Get 1,000 LANPASS kilometers for signing up for a LAN account.

Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, and 30,000 more Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases) The US Mint should be able to help you there in no time!

This deal was sent to all of our dansdeals.com facebook group members. Join the 1,197 people already registered on the Dansdeals.com facebook group to automatically receive similar alerts! If you are not receiving alerts then check your spam folder for the alert and be sure to mark it “not spam”
Every deal is sent to followers of the dansdeals twitter page!

Clarification: This deal is basically only good on non-stop flights, and is best on short-haul flights.  Go to the comments to read an example for how to calculate the pricing of a stop flight and why this isn’t a good way to get from JFK to Tel Aviv.

Note: Starwood Starpoints transfer into LAN kilometers at a 1:2 ratio.  If you transfer 20,000 Starpoints you will get 50,000 LAN kilometers due to the doubling of the 5,000 point bonus that’s awarded with every 20,000 Starpoint transfer into miles!
You can also use 60,000 Starpoints with Starwood’s “Nights & Flights” option for 5 nights in a category 3 hotel and 100,000 LAN kilometers.
I have personally done and can confirm that both of these transfer options work, although it does take a couple weeks for the transfer to complete.

LAN has made some major changes to their OneWorld award chart.  They now charge a set amount of miles for each flight segment, which makes connecting flights cost significantly more kilometers than it did with the old chart.  At the same time there some new bargains especially on short-haul nonstops that can be found with the new chart.

LAN Oneworld Award Chart Linky

With the new chart just 20,000 Starpoints will get you 8 one-way tickets between LaGuardia and Boston, or 6 one-way tickets between Chicago and Toronto!

LAN is one of the only foreign airlines that does not charge a fuel surcharge on award tickets.  Plus LAN doesn’t charge other fees like US airlines do for award expedite fees and the like.  There is no charge to change the date on award tickets.

You must call the LANPASS award desk to redeem a Oneworld award at 866-435-9526, option #5.

If you find any other great uses with the new chart then please leave a comment!

In the chart below are the prices for sample routes in LAN kilometers and their equivalent in Starpoints assuming that you transfer 20,000 Starpoints for 50,000 LAN kilometers.  See the LAN link above for business and first class rates.  Please note that not every route listed below is a bargain.  It gets harder to find bargains as the flight distance increases.  (For example the JFK-Hong Kong route can be had for just 40,000 Starpoints during off-season by transferring directly to AA.)

You can use the great circle links below to calculate the distance in kilometers between any 2 cities.

Most of the flights below on are for travel on AA, but some routes include flights from Alaska, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Qantas. 

Related: Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, and 30,000 more Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases) The US Mint should be able to help you there in no time!


Update: All of the tickets are now gone!

Free Concert Tickets Linky

Just register with your Starwood number and you’ll get 2 codes for free tickets.

Then search for still available concerts by just entering in a date range from today until next year and you’ll see all of the concerts you can get tickets to for free!

Starwood Promotions Linky

Current promotions vary from 1,000 bonus points per night to a free weekend night with every 2 stays at Asia/Pacific hotels.

Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, and 30,000 more Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases) The US Mint should be able to help you there in no time!

Starwood has added a wonderful new flexible search option for cash and points availability on spg.com

First off, some background information:  There will always be a debate on whether you are better off using your Starwood Starpoints on hotel stays or transferring them into miles.

When you transfer them into miles you get a 25% bonus, so 20,000 Starpoints becomes 25,000 miles on dozens of airlines.  You are better off earning Starpoints with credit card spending than earning miles as you will earn more miles by transferring Starpoints into miles than you will by just earning miles.  Plus you’ll have the flexibility to choose from dozens of airlines.

But there are numerous ways of using Starpoints for hotel stays that can be even more lucrative than miles.

-The traditional Starpoint hotel usage allows you to book a room at any hotel without any capacity controls.  Even if it is peak season and rooms are a small fortune, you can still redeem the same amount of Starpoints for a room, starting from just 2,000 Starpoints per night depending on what category (1-7) the hotel is in. When you redeem 4 nights with points in this manner, the 5th night is free!

-Another variation is the nights and flights option where you get 5 free nights and 50,000 miles for less Starpoints than it would normally cost to book both separately.

-Finally there is one of my favorites, the Cash And Points option.  It’s available on category 3-6 hotels (its also available for category 1-2 hotels in Asia/Pacific) and is often a bargain.  I’ve gotten $500 rooms for just 2,800 Starpoints + $45 for a night with Cash And Points.  Do the math, that’s a value of over 16 cents per Starpoint! ($500-$45=$455/2,800 Starpoints=16.25cpp.  And that’s not even counting the upgrade from the room into a 3 balcony suite normally costing over $1,500 per night!) There are some truly amazing values out there with Cash And Points.

The only problem with Cash And Points is that unlike with the traditional Starpoint hotel usage the rooms are capacity controlled.  Until this point the only way to check availability for Cash And Points has been to manually plug in each date that you want and see if Cash And Points comes up as an option.

Now all you have to do is type in your destination on spg.com and you don’t even have to enter a date, just click “find now.”  A list of the hotels at your destination will then come up.  Click on the “Cash And Points” option and then select “Dates Flexible.”  An easy to use calendar will pop up and you can easily find dates that have Cash And Points availability! You can even have multiple calendars open at the same time for all of the different hotels on the search results page.

Thanks for the new functionality Starwood!

Related and continued from article: Starwood Boots 4 Israeli Sheratons Out Of Their Program

I’ve been dealing extensively with Starwood concerning my reservations at the category 4 Sheraton Plaza in Jerusalem, which is unfortunately no longer a Starwood property.

I had 4 reservations there for cash and points (4,000 points and $60 per night) and received 4 emails each saying that I could move my stays to the luxury Mamilla Hotel at the same rate or if I would cancel my stay I would receive 10,000 Starpoints.

So I requested that all 4 be canceled in exchange for 40,000 Starpoints.  In response Starwood said they are only giving 10,000 Starpoints per member and my stays have been canceled.  Of course I had only asked to cancel them under the assumption that each canceled stay would receive 10,000 Starpoints as was implied in each email. (Was I being presumptuous or is Starwood wrong? Read the email massage from Starwood in the related link above and comment!)

After much negotiation and attempting to reinstate my reservations Starwood has given me 2 options.  Unfortunately they are not offering any cash and points options which is one of my favorite uses of Starpoints. (At the time of booking the Sheraton Jerusalem cost $375/night to book. At 10,000 Starpoints/night that’s a return of 3.75 cents per Starpoint.  But the Cash and points option at 4,000 Starpoints +$60 per night is a return of 7.9 cents per Starpoint.  Of course the other good redemption option is 5th night free which reduces the effective rate on a category 4 hotel to 8,000 Starpoints/night or a return of 4.7 cents per Starpoint.)

1: Stay for 2 nights from Sunday-Tuesday (08/30-09/01) at the Mamilla Hotel at the regular category 4 rate (10,000 points/night) and still receive a 10,000 Starpoint bonus effectively making the cost 5,000 Starpoints/night.

2: Stay for 4 nights from Friday -Tuesday (08/28-09/01) at the Mamilla Hotel at the regular category 4 rate (10,000 points/night) but I would not receive the bonus Starwood point, so the cost would be 40,000 Starpoints.

FYI: The paid rate for the cheapest room at the Mamilla for 2 guests is $293/night so 5,000 Starpoints a night would be a return of 5.86 cents per Starpoint and 10,000 Starpoints a night would be a return of 2.93 cents per Starpoint.

I do still need a place for that weekend, but is it worth 30,000 more Starpoints for the 2 extra nights? Vote what you would do now!

Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, and 30,000 more Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases) The US Mint should be able to help you there in no time!

AMEX Platinum Charge Card-”The Grandaddy of credit cards” (Earn 25,000 AMEX MR Bonus Points after you spend $1,000.) AMEX MR points transfer to Flying Blue miles at 1:1.

20,000 Starwood Starpoints transfer into 25,000 Flying Blue (Air France and KLM’s joint loyalty program) miles.

Updates/Notes:
-This recurring promotion is now valid for travel on Air France as well as KLM!
-New valid US and Canadian cities have been added.
-Currently, booking must be completed by 09/28 and travel completed by 09/30, besides for departures from Calgary which must be completed by 10/30
-Be sure to check on current availability before transferring points to Flying Blue.
-Bear in mind when comparing mileage requiremnts between foreign and domestic mileage programs that nearly all foreign carriers besides for LAN (Starwood transfers at 20,000 to 50,000 LAN) charge a fuel surcharge on award tickets.

Originally posted on 01/01/09:

S.B.S. previously made an excellent 8 page PDF examining every way of getting to Israel via Starpoints.

In that article he pointed ways of getting to Israel for 40,000 Starpoints or less (Via transferring Starpoints to JAL, British Airways, LAN, or Flying Blue)

The promo award cost between North America and “Europe” in flying blue miles is:
Coach: 12,500 miles one way, 25,000 miles round trip.
Business: 25,000 miles one-way, 50,000 miles round trip.
Business class is only available on KLM.

Valid North American cities for origin or destination on Air France:
-Atlanta
-Houston
-Montreal

Valid North American cities for origin or destination on KLM:
-Atlanta
-Calgary
-Dallas
-NYC/JFK

This is how Flying Blue defines Europe:
Europe 1: Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, and Switzerland
Europe 2: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden
Europe 3: Albania, Algeria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Libya, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Western Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia

As Flying Blue considers Israel to be part of Europe (zone 3), it qualifies as a valid origin or destination.

The promo awards can only be flown with KLM via Amsterdam or with Air France via Paris, they are not valid on Skyteam partners such as Continental or Delta (although nonstop travel to Israel on those carriers is allowed on the regular 40,000 Starpoints/50,000 Flying Blue miles award to Europe zone 3 in coach or 80,000 flying blue miles in business.)

Flying Blue Promo Awards Linky (Select Air France/United States/English/Enter Website and then return here and click on this link again)

Unfortunately, you cannot search online for mileage availability on Flying Blue unless you have the required miles in your account.

A stopover in Amsterdam or Paris is allowed and will make finding mileage availability easier.

The best bet for checking availability will be by calling Flying Blue at 1-800-375-8723

HT: SBS

Update 2: Last day to transfer! USAirways makes it clear in the terms and conditions that as long as the hotel records your request to transfer by 07/31 that you will get the bonus miles as long as the transfer is complete by 09/30.

Update: Chaim reports that his bonus miles have posted! The promo runs through 07/31.

Originally posted on 05/23:

Related: Starwood AMEX Linky

This deal was sent to all of our dansdeals.com facebook group members. Join the 1,098 people already registered on the Dansdeals.com facebook group to automatically receive similar alerts! If you are not receiving alerts then check your spam folder for the alert and be sure to mark it “not spam”

Every deal is sent to followers of the dansdeals twitter page!

USAirways Promo Registration Linky

USAirways is giving a 50% bonus on hotel points being transferred into USAirways miles through 07/31.

Normally 20,000 Starpoints transfers into 25,000 USAirways miles. With the promo 20,000 Starpoints will net 37,500 miles.

The 50% bonus miles post weekly.

USAirways begins flying nonstop from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv on July 1st.  They charge 80,000 miles in coach and 120,000 miles in business class for the round-trip.

USAirways also has a very competitive Star Alliance award chart which is far stronger than United’s due to lower rates and the lack of United’s evil Starnet alliance award flight blocking.

In addition you will be able to use USAirways miles on Continental when Continental joins the Star Alliance later this year.

So here’s the real question, what’s worth more to you, 1 Starpoint or 1.875 USAirways miles?
Vote now!

Update 2: The current signup and spending threshold bonus for the Canadian Starwood Mastercard is slated to expire on 08/31! Be sure to sign up before then to take advantage of the current offer!

Update: Some interesting things to point out from tipster up North:

-You only need to spend $40CAD in a Starwood hotel to qualify for the first stay bonus.  So if you have a cash and points stay where the cash portion is at least $40 and charge it to your Starwood MBNA card you will get a 5,000 Starpoint bonus.  You can also qualify by adding other incidentals to your hotel bill even on an award stay as long as they hit $40CAD.

-You are able to have more than one Starwood MBNA card and they can credit all to the same Starwood account, so that if you reach $30,000CAD in annual spending you can switch to the 2nd card, as the 5,000 Starpoint threshold bonuses for hitting 10K in spending ends once you hit $30,000 in a year on a card.

Originally posted on 03/09/09:

Starwood Canada MBNA Credit Card Linky

Canadians rejoice-You too can collect Starwood points via credit card spending, plus there is no annual fee for the Canadian Starwood credit card.

The Canadian version of the Starwood credit card is a Mastercard and offers 5,000 Starpoints after your first purchase.

You earn 1 Starpoint for every 2 Canadian dollars spent, and there are threshold spend bonuses. You get a bonus 5,000 Starpoints for every $10,000 CAD in spending, up to 15,000 Starpoints for threshold spending annually.

You will also get a bonus 5,000 Starpoints after your first stay in a Starwood hotel. (Would be interesting to know if a purchase from the hotel bar would qualify as well…)

Besides for the obvious appeal of being able to transfer Starpoints into miles of dozens of airlines at favorable ratios, there are also some great values at Canadian hotels.

Take the Westin Harbour Castle in downtown Toronto.  (Side note: I have the best memories of this hotel as a 10 year old getting the autographs of the ‘95 World Series bound Indians that I described a couple years ago in a post titled “Manny being Manny.” I believe that most visiting teams still stay at this hotel)  A random date check (06/07) on spg.com shows a rate of $279. Using points, which have no capacity controls, it is available for 7,000 Starpoints, or a value of about 4 cents per Starpoint.  Better yet, it is also available using Cash & Points for just 2,800 Starpoints and $45, or a value of a whopping 8.4 cents per Starpoint!  It would take a solid Nights & Flights Starpoint redemption to beat that kind of valuation!

Offer Registration Linky

For every stay from 07/15 until 08/31 you get a code for a free concert ticket.

Limit of 4 free tickets per member.

Here is a list of shows for which you can get a free ticket.

This offer is fully combinable with the Stay twice, get a night free offer.

Update 2: This offer ends on 07/31!


Update: Starwood has sweetened the pot for this promo! At over 300 participating Starwood properties you will get 1,000 Delta or Northwest miles for each stay in addition to the free nights promo and the regular Starpoints that every stay earns.
Registration is required for the new offer.
List of Starwood hotels participating in the bonus miles offer.


Originally posted on 04/20:

Related: Starwood AMEX Linky


Promo Registration Linky

Promo FAQ Linky

For every 2 stays at any Starwood hotel between 05/01/09 and 07/31/09 you will get a free weekend night good at any of the more than 875 Starwood hotels that are in categories 1-6. The only Starwood hotels that you can’t stay in with the promo award are the 15 super-exclusive category 7 properties and 4 all-suite hotels.

The free weekend night can be used on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights between 05/01/09 and 09/27/09.

There is no limit to the number of free nights that can be earned and you are able to use multiple free nights during a single stay.

See the promo for full terms.

Have any plans for a “mattress run” where you book a cheap hotel room just for the sake of earning the reward for staying there? Let’s hear about it!

HT: Levidess

Update: Round 2 starts at 11am eastern today (07/08)! You must be a Starwood AMEX cardholder or a Starwood Platinum member to book tickets!

Originally posted on 06/29:

Related: Starwood AMEX Linky

www.spg.com/hotshows

Offer Details Linky

Redeem 5,000 or 10,000 Starpoints for a pair of premium concert seats.

The sale starts at noon 11am eastern.

Why do I get the feeling that ebay is going to see a whole bunch of new concert listings later today?

Update 2: The NYTimes recently had a blurb on the new luxury class Mamilla hotel. Here’s hoping that this is the start of a new SPG hotel in Jerusalem!

Update: Starwood stays classy!
Here is their offer to me that came without any prompting of my own for my upcoming Cash and Points stays (4,000 points + $60) at the Sheraton Jerusalem:

We are following up our email dated June 19th regarding your award booking at the Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza. Thank you for your patience.

We see that you are currently holding multiple upcoming reservations, the next one being confirmation number xxxxxxxx on xx/xx/2009 for 4 nights. As you are already aware, this hotel will cease its association with the Sheraton brand and so will no longer honor free night award reservations. We are sorry for any inconvenience this development may have caused and are pleased that we can now offer a new option to our members:

a) The Mamilla Hotel in Jerusalem (www.mamillahotel.com) has agreed that it will accept the transfer of award reservations and guarantee Studio rooms (two persons) only, subject to availability. Please be aware that the hotel will not provide suites to members whose awards were previously redeemed for a suite. The Mamilla Hotel is not a Starwood property and therefore you will not earn Starpoints for any charges at this hotel and will not receive your regular amenities or benefits. The good news is that if we are able to move your reservations, you will not need to increase the number of Starpoints that were used for your booking at the Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza. If you would like to transfer your reservation to the Mamilla Hotel, please respond immediately to this email to customercare@starwoodhotels.com. We will attempt to move as many bookings as the Mamilla Hotel can accommodate; however if there is insufficient space to accommodate your reservations, you would either have to remain at the former Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza at a paid rate or else look for other alternatives. We will handle the moves in chronological order, starting with July reservations. Please note that the Mamilla Hotel will only accept the transfer of award bookings; any paid bookings at the Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza will remain there.

b) If we cannot move your reservation or you decide to stay at the former Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza, then you will need to cancel your award reservations and re-book directly with the hotel the prevailing rate by June 30, 2009. You may contact the hotel by calling 97226298666 or email at sheraton.jerusalem@sheraton.com. Starwood will not pay for your reservations but we will return the Starpoints used for your award to your account and we will deposit 10,000 Starpoints as a gesture of goodwill. Please remember that you will not earn Starpoints for any charges at this hotel and that you will not be given your usual Starwood Preferred Guest amenities or benefits.

c) If you decide to cancel your reservation altogether, please respond to this email at customercare@starwoodhotels.com with that decision and we will assist you with the cancellation and return of your Starpoints. We will also deposit 10,000 points into your account as a gesture of goodwill.

We appreciate your continued patronage of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. We have made all reasonable attempts to take care of you and we are very pleased that the Mamilla Hotel has offered to take on reservations that can be moved.

We look forward to hearing from you so we may understand your decision and take care of any new arrangements as quickly as possible. Please keep in mind that we will start with members holding bookings for July.

Sincerely,
Helen Horsham-Bertels
Senior Director, Consumer Affairs”


Originally posted on 05/28:

According to this article (hebrew only) Starwood is giving the boot to the:

-Sheraton Eilat
-Sheraton Jerusalem.
-Sheraton Moriah Tel Aviv
-Sheraton Tiberias

as of 06/30 for “failing to maintain the global standards of the Sheraton brand.”

This leaves only 4 Starwood hotels in Israel, the
-Le Meridian Dead Sea
-Le Meridian Eilat
-Sheraton City Towers Ramat Gan.
-Sheraton Tel Aviv

Hopefully we’ll see better hotels come under the Starwood brand in Israel…”Starwood is actively looking for new opportunities for all nine Starwood brands in Israel.”

As of now you are still able to book all of the above hotels on spg.com for dates after 06/30 but there’s no telling how much longer that will last.

I’m guessing this may have a good demographic of people start using their Starpoints for mileage transfers instead of hotel redemptions…

HT: Moish, via dansdeals.com/forums

Related: Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, and 30,000 more Starpoints after your first $15,000 in purchases).


US Mint Direct Ship Coins Linky


I received a shipment yesterday of $10,000 worth of coins from the US Mint!

When I first posted about the Mint deal last June there was a limit of $500 per President.  I wrote about my somewhat difficult experience depositing the coins in that post as well.

For those of you not familiar with the mint deal, you can buy coins at face value with free shipping and charge them to any credit card.

Since then I’ve switched to Chase bank where the tellers don’t even bat an eye at my typical $5,000 coin deposit. I’m in and out within 3 minutes.

More recently I noticed that the quantity limits for the Native American dollar coins were no longer listed on the site.

So I placed a $10,000 order and I got them less than a week later!

Sure I need to shlep 4 boxes each weighing 40 pounds to the bank, but hey, 10,000 Starwood points is 10,000 Starwood points!  (Using a past Starpoint redemption of mine that netted a return of 52 cents per Starpoint that’s worth $5,200, although more conventional wisdom would place a value of about $300 on them…)

Related: Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, and 30,000 more Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases) The US Mint should be able to help you there…


Before getting to the promo, I’ll just cover some background info on LAN.

As I’m sure you know already, 20,000 Starpoints transfers into a whopping 50,000 LANPASS kms. (I’ve done this transfer many times and can confirm that you will indeed receive 50K LAN kms. regardless of whatever any CS rep may tell you)

LAN has a pretty nice reward table. (you need to set the country to USA/English on the LAN page, and then return and click this link again to get to the table) There is a separate reward table for LAN flights and for One World flights.

Best part? LAN is one of the few international carriers that doesn’t charge any fuel surcharges on mileage tickets.

The LAN reward table is based on destination.  For example a ticket from the US to Brazil is 48,000 kilometers.  You are also allowed to add on AA or Alaska flights to get you to a LAN gateway city (JFK, LAX, MIA), and a stopover is allowed.

The One World chart is kilometer based and is valid for travel on any One World airline. You can check the distance in kilometers on the great circle mapper.

For example a round-trip flight from JFK to Tel Aviv via London on British Airways is 18,296 Kilometers. That trip would fall into a zone 4 One World award which costs 95,000 kms in economy, 140,000 kms in business, or 190,000 kms. in first.  With the 20,000 Starpoints to 50,000 kms. transfer and no fuel surcharges those all make for excellent values.


———————————————————————————————————
At any rate here is the link for the current South America promo. In LAN coach the discount is up to half off the normal mileage rates.  In LAN Premium Business (which has some great reviews) you need to book 2 tickets to get up to 50% off.

Here are some sample sale rates:

Coach:
Miami – Caracas: 24,000 kms.
New York – Lima: 35,000 kms.
Los Angeles – Santiago: 49,000 kms.
New York – Buenos Aires: 49,000 kms.

Premium Business:
Miami – Caracas: 110,000 kms. for 2 RT tickets.
New York – Lima: 150,000 kms. for 2 RT tickets.
Los Angeles – Santiago: 200,000 kms. for 2 RT tickets.
New York – Buenos Aires: 200,000 kms. for 2 RT tickets.

I checked a random date (from 07/08-07/15) for 2 tickets from NYC to Buenos Aires in Premium Business and found availability for 100,000 kms. per ticket with taxes of $66.

With the exchange rate for Argentine Pesos at historically favorable rates (currently about 3.8 per dollar) you’ll get some great bang for buck down in Buenos Aires.

For the up to 50% off promo:
-Tickets must be booked by 07/08.
-Travel must be complete by 12/23.
-Departure date blackouts are from 07/16-08/12.
-Travel is only valid on LAN, not on partners.
-As with all LAN award tickets, date changes are free. However if you are changing dates you must travel within the valid dates of the promo.
-As with all LAN award tickets, you can hold the reservation for 3 days on Lan.com.

Update: The auctions all ended in the low 80’s!

SPG Moments Final Four Auction Linky

There are 8 total packages, the current winning bids are just 80,000 Starpoints!
The auctions end between 10 and 11am edt.

Package includes:
-Four (4) nights at The Westin Detroit Metropolitan Airport (April 3–7, 2009)
-Two (2) Starwood Luxury Suite tickets to both NCAA(R) Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Semifinal games at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday, April 4, 2009
-Two (2) Starwood Luxury Suite tickets to the National Championship game at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, on Monday, April 6, 2009
-Two tickets to official pregame hospitality area (April 4 and April 6, 2009)
-Access to numerous other weekend events including Hershey’s College All-Star Game (April 3, 2009), NCAA(R) Hoop City(R) Refreshed by Coca-Cola(R) and much more

Related:
Starwood AMEX Signup Linky
Starpoints Rewards Page Linky

Yes, I’m sure many of you have used many different SPG awards, but which award is your favorite or most frequent that you use? Vote, and then hit the comments to justify your choice!

Offer Linky

Book by 03/23 for stays through 09/07.

The 50% off is not necessarily 50% off the lowest available rate, so be sure to compare it to the lowest available rate on spg.com

Update: Today is the last day to lock in rates at hotels that are climbing in category!

Originally posted on 02/24:


Related:

Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, 1 Starpoint for evey dollar spent, and 15,000 bonus Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases for a total of 40,000 Starpoints after $15,000 in charging!) The US Mint should be able to help you there…

Starwood Eliminates All Peak Season Award Upcharges!


There are 7 Starwood hotel categories. Hotels are categorized by the average rates that they charged over the past year.

82 hotels will go up and will now cost more Starpoints, 156 will go down and will now cost fewer Starpoints.

Important: You can lock in the old rates for hotels going up in category by booking before March 2nd even if you don’t currently have enough Starpoints! Starpoint reservations are generally fully refundable until a day or so before check-in.  Again, the old rate is valid for stays anytime until the end of scheduling at all Starwood hotels as long as they are booked before March 2nd!

If you have Starpoint reservations at a hotel that is going down in category just wait until March 2nd and then get it readjusted downward. Also don’t forget to get Starpoint reservations for peak dates booked at category 5-7 hotels readjusted as well!

Hotels that went up in category: 82
From 1->2: 9 hotels.
From 2->3: 27 hotels.
From 2->4: 1 hotels.
From 3->4: 22 hotels.
From 4->6: 1 hotels.
From 4->5: 14 hotels.
From 5->6: 6 hotels.
From 6->7: 2 hotels.

Hotels that went down in category: 156
From 2->1: 11 hotels.
From 3->2: 37 hotels.
From 4->3: 46 hotels.
From 4->2: 4 hotels.
From 5->4: 41 hotels.
From 6->5: 11 hotels.
From 6->4: 1 hotels.
From 7->6: 5 hotels.

Overall there are now:
Category 1: +2 hotels.
Category 2: +11 hotels.
Category 3: +14 hotels.
Category 4: Unchanged
Category 5: -22 hotels.
Category 6: -2 hotels.
Category 7: -3 hotels.

-A number of NYC hotels have gone down, there is now even a category 4 option in Manhattan and some great category 5 options in the W NYC, the Westin Times Square, and the Le Parker Méridien (which can cost over $800/night at times!)

Here are some sample hotels that stood out among the changes:

Sample hotels that went down:
-Sheraton Kansas City Sports Complex Hotel went from 2->1
-Sheraton Newark Airport Hotel went from 3->2
-Westin LAX went from 3->2
-Four Points by Sheraton Los Angeles Westside went from 3->2
-Sheraton London Heathrow Hotel went from 4->2
-Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel & Conference Center went from 4->3
-Westin Harbour Castle Toronto went from 4->3
-W Silicon Valley went from 4->3
-Four Points by Sheraton Manhattan SoHo Village went from 5->4
-W Montreal went from 5->4
-Westin Dawn Beach Resort & Spa, St. Maarten went from 5->4
-THE US GRANT, a Luxury Collection Hotel, San Diego went from 5->4
-W San Diego went from 5->4
-Sheraton Kauai Resort went from 5->4
-The Park Lane Hotel London went from 5->4
-The Westin Kierland Arizona Resort & Spa went from 5->4
-Le Parker Méridien New York went from 6->5
-Westin New York Times Square went from 6->5
-W New York went from 6->5
-Hotel President Wilson, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Geneva went from 7->6
-Hotel Danieli, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Venice went from 7->6

Sample hotels that went up:
-Sheraton Tiberias went from 2->3
-Sheraton Jerusalem Plaza went from 3->4
-Sheraton Moriah Tel Aviv went from 3->4
-Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Honolulu went from 3->4
-Sheraton Iguazu Falls, Argentina went from 4->5

Standout countries:
-Argentina: 0 went down, 3 went up.
-Australia: 5 went down, 0 went up.
-Fiji: 2 went down, 0 went up.
-India: 15 went down, 0 went up.
-Israel: 0 went down, 3 went up.
-Italy: 10 went down, 1 went up.
-Japan: 0 went down, 5 went up.
-South Korea: 4 went down, 0 went up.
-Spain: 5 went down, 1 went up.
-UK: 6 went down, 0 went up.

Here are the complete lists of Starwood hotels. Hotels that are changing on March 2nd are still listed in their old categories.
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.  Peak prices for 2009 have been eliminated and are not shown.

Finally, here is a spreadsheet of the hotels undergoing changes in category courtesy of “sc flier”

Thanks to help from numerous Flyertalkers!

Related:

Coming next: Starwood’s 2009 hotel category shuffle.

Starwood AMEX Linky (Free for first year, Earn 10,000 Starpoints With First Purchase, 1 Starpoint for evey dollar spent, and 15,000 bonus Starpoints with your first $15,000 in purchases for a total of 40,000 Starpoints after $15,000 in charging!) The US Mint should be able to help you there…


Many people use their Starpoints just to transfer into miles, which is a fine usage considering that 20,000 Starpoints will transfer into 25,000-100,000 miles.

Those that use their Starpoints for hotel stays (which is great because they have no blackout dates or capacity restrictions) will be thrilled to know that Starwood has done away with peak season award “upcharges” that applied to their best hotels in categories 5-7.  All days, even peak days, will be able to be booked at the regular non-peak rates!

The chart below summarizes the uses of Starpoints for hotel stays. The points that I have bolded below are the ones being reduced to the regular, non-peak rates.  For example a peak stay at an upscale category 5 hotel will only cost 12,000 Starpoints, or 48,000 Starpoints for 5 nights using the 5th night free award.

Update 4-02/15: Delta came through in the end-The full mileage bonus has posted! Congrats to those who went out on a limb and cashed in on this promo, a friend of mine got nearly 1.5 million Skymiles from his Starpoint balance! Please post in the comments how many Skymiles you got!

Update 3-12/25: Ending soon! This promo runs through 12/31!

This deal was originally posted on 11/20 at 12:15am:

Update 2: According to the following internal Delta memo this promotion has been cancelled but customers who are already registered will get the bonus points!
Even those who are registered may want to wait it out a little longer to make any further transfers until Delta makes this memo public knowledge.
The memo also make a few clarifications regarding the promo:
-The Delta bonus miles will post in February or March of 2009.
-AMEX membership rewards is specifically excluded from the promo.

Internal Delta Memo:
09706-SM MILEAGE BUILDING PG 21 PAGE 21
24 *PUBLIC* ———————————————-
25 PROMO NAME – MULTI-PARTNER BONUS (CANCELLED)
26 VALIDITY – THIS PROMO WAS CANCELLED EFF 21NOV08.
27 ORIGINAL DATES FOR PARTICIPATION WERE
28 13NOV-31DEC 2008. CUSTOMERS WHO ENROLLED
29 PRIOR TO CANCELLATION MAY STILL EARN
30 BONUS AS NOTED
31 DESCRIPTION – RECEIVE A 50..100..OR 150 PERCENT BONUS
32 ON MILES EARNED BY QUALIFYING NON-AIRLINE
33 PARTNER ACTIVITY
34 ELIGIBILITY – SKYMILES MEMBERS WORLDWIDE ;
35 .
36 HOW TO EARN – ENROLL ONLINE
37 – PARTICIPATE IN ANY NON-AIRLINE PARTNER
38 ACTIVITY ELIGIBLE FOR MILEAGE CREDIT
39 – MORE –
40 – EARN 1000-4999 PARTNER MILES* AND RECEIVE
41 A 50 PERCENT BONUS
42 – EARN 5000-9999 PARTNER MILES* AND RECEIVE
43 A 100 PERCENT BONUS
44 – EARN 10000 OR MORE PARTNER MILES* AND
45 RECEIVE A 150 PERCENT BONUS
46 *EXCLUDES ANY BONUSES FROM OTHER PROMOS ;
47 .
48 *EXCLUDES AMEX MEMBERSHIP REWARDS (AX)
49 NOTE – QUALIFYING PARTNER ACTIVITY BEFORE
50 ENROLLING IN PROMO WILL BE INCLUDED
51 TRACKING – 1K – 4999 THRESHOLD – 8P MULTPNR 50
52 5K – 9999 THRESHOLD – 8P MULTPNR 100
53 10K – MORE THRESHOLD – 8P MULTPNR 150
54 – BONUS MILES POSTED 8-10 WEEKS AFTER PROMO
55 ENDS
56 ACCNT RMKS – 1K – 4999 THRESHOLD – QUALIFIED 08
57 MULTI-PARTNER 50PCT BNS 97062124
58 5K – 9999 THRESHOLD – QUALIFIED 08 ;
59 MULTI-PARTNER 100PCT BNS 97062124
60 10K – MORE THRESHOLD -QUALIFIED 08
61 MULTI-PARTNER 150PCT BNS 97062124
62 ADVERTISED – E-MAIL
63 .
64 .
65 .
66 .
67 .
68 .
69 .
70 ——————————————————-;
71 REVISED/24NOV08/ATLHGDL/CE

UPDATE: Delta has taken this promotion down from their website today! Luckily I saved a copy of it!

Delta Promotion Part 1

Delta Promotion Part 2

Delta Promotion Part 3

Nobody knows what is going on right now with the promotion but its possible that they will change the terms of it. However anyone that already registered under the old terms should be OK. For anyone that wants to contact Delta about the promotion it says to refer Delta representatives to promotion 97062124.

Answers to people’s questions from the comments:
General: This promotion is valid for transfers into Delta until 12/31. There are many partners besides for Starwood that qualify for the promo, read the fine print on the bottom of the offer for the whole listing.

You can transfer a maximum of 27,000 Starpoints into Delta per day, so you will want to just do one 20,000 Starpoint transfer per today in order to maximize both the Starwood 25% and Delta 150% bonus.

The 150% bonus points will likely not post to your Delta account until sometime after the promotion end date of 12/31/08! So you will first get the 25,000 Skymiles for the 20,000 Starpoint transfer, and then after the Delta promotion ends you will get the 150% bonus of 37,500 Skymiles.

Here is Delta’s Mileage chart for all award redemptions.

Q: How many miles does Delta charge to go to Israel?
A: Delta is the only airline that has 3-tier mileage pricing. When few seats on the plane are sold there is low availability, normally when the plane is filling up there is medium availability, and there is always high availability.

Delta coach to Israel, each way:
Low=40,000
Medium=65,000
High=95,000

Delta BusinessElite to Israel, each way:
Low=60,000
Medium=115,000
High=185,000

Q: Is it worth changing all starwood points to delta miles???
A: Good question! Starwood points are extremely valuable, but getting over 3 Delta miles for each Starpoint is quite tempting! Ultimately it boils down to how you personally value your Starpoints and Skymiles, and that will be different for everyone.

Q: Can i transfer the points now without booking a ticket?
A: Of course! The Delta Skymiles will be waiting for you when you are ready!

Q: Can I transfer my Northwest miles to Delta now that they are merged, or does that happen automatically? If I can, I wonder if I can get this bonus?
A: They can’t be transferred, it will be merged automatically, most likely at some point over the next year.

Q: Do you know if you can then transfer Delta miles to any other airline?
A: I don’t know of any method of transferring out Delta miles-you’ll have to use them for flights on Delta or their partners!

Q: Do delta skymiles expire if i transfer to them?
A: Yes, you must have earning or spending activity in the account every 2 years to keep them from expiring.

Q: Do you actually have to use the skymiles before December 31, or just transfer them by then?
A: Transfer by then, the miles are then valid forever as long as you have activity in your Skymiles account every 2 years.

Q: If I open a starwoods card now, will I get the 10k bonus points in time to use for this promotion?
A: Under normal conditions you should be able to apply today, use the card once, and get the points before 12/31. However sometimes AMEX doesn’t give the points on the first statement, in which case you would have to call them up and try to convince them to push the points over before waiting for the next statement.

Q: How do i transfer now after i signed up with delta???
A: Go to spg.com, login to your Starpoints account and go to redeem Starpoints.

Q: Will I be able to get Delta skymiles and then transfer them to Continental miles?
A: No, but you can use Delta miles to travel on Continental, or any other Delta partner airline.

Q: What about if i only have 15,000 starwood points? would that be worth transferring?
A: You would not get the 25% Starwood bonus, so you would get a total of 37,500 Skymiles. By transferring just 5,000 more Starpoints you get 25,000 more Skymiles! Go apply for another Starwood card today-or go buy money from the mint!

Q: I clicked on the linky and I filled in my name, e-mail and skymiles number in the register box. now it says, “You have successfully registered”. Now what?
A: Now you’re registered! All you have to do now is transfer your Starpoints!

Q: If don’t have any plans to travel in the near future (maybe Florida), is it still worth it to transfer my starwood points to skymiles & let it sit there till I want to travel?
A: Do the math and figure out if you’ll get greater value out of 20,000 Starwood or 62,500 Delta and that will be the answer!

Q: If I remember correctly, didn’t you once post that you can fly to Israel with about 55k starwood points? If so, how?
A: You’re looking for S.B.S.’s famous “Using Starwood Starpoints To Get To Israel PDF Guide”

Q: So i just registered for the promotion, do i need to wait , or can i just go into spg.com and transfer now?
A: Transfer away!

Q: Will the recent merger of NWA/Delta affect Skymiles in any way? Will I regret switching the points to miles?
A: The Skymiles program will have to be realigned with the Worldperks program, but I wouldn’t expect any massive changes.

Related: The Starwood AMEX easily gives the best reward value and bang for each buck of purchases made out of any credit card out there today. It also comes with tons of nice benefits and a sweet (and valuable) 10,000 Starpoint signup bonus for free for each card that you get. Between a myriad of incredible mileage transfer options and unbeatable blackout-free hotel redemption options you should have no problem getting incredible value out of every Starpoint that you have!

Starwood Consumer AMEX
Starwood Business AMEX


This deal was sent to all of our dansdeals.com facebook group members. Join the 756 people already registered on the Dansdeals.com facebook group to automatically receive similar alerts!


Delta is currently running a promotion for a 150% base miles bonus when you transfer 10,000+ partner program points into Skymiles.

20,000 Starwood points thus earns the usual 25,000 Skymiles, plus 37,500 Skymiles for the 150% bonus miles, leaving you with 62,500 Skymiles for you 20,000 Starpoints!  There is no limit on the transfer bonus, so you will earn 62,500 Skymiles for each 20,000 Starpoint incremental transfer!

Offer Linky

HT: Levidess

I don’t believe that this is a targeted promotion, as a reader sent this to me and I qualified without a hitch as a Starwood Gold member!

Starwood Gold elite status can be earned by spending $30,000 in a calendar year on a Starwood AMEX card, or by having the AMEX Platinum charge card.

David Z., who sent me the promo, wanted to know what would be better a $25 Starwood GC or 1,000 Starpoints.  I would say unless you know for sure that you will be staying on a paid rate at a Starwood hotel this year to take the 1,000 Starpoints.

Starwood 2008 Elite Gift Promo Linky

Platinum members:

Choose from:

-Free Friday/Saturday/Sunday night in any category 1-5 Starwood hotel through 12/27/09

Or

-$75 Starwood GC exp 12/31/09.

Gold members:

Choose from:

-1,000 Starpoints

Or

-$25 Starwood GC exp 12/31/09.

Hmm…so what will happen if you book the hotel in your 7 year old’s name???

Starwood Pay Your Birth Year Promotion Linky

“Pay Rates Equal to Your Birth Year! We’re celebrating the year you were born. With this special offer for two or three night stays, you’ll receive rates equal to your birth year!

- First night: rate varies by property
-Second or third night: rates equal to your birth year! (If you were born in 1948, you’ll receive your 2nd and 3rd nights at $48!)
-Rates for second and third night stays will be confirmed at check-in upon presentation of valid ID
-Offer valid for stays through December 30, 2008

Starwood Consumer AMEX
Starwood Business AMEX

Additional Cardmember Offer Linky

There is no fee for adding additional cardmembers.  Although it says that the additional cardmember must make a purchase to get the points, in the past for additional cardmember offers I have gotten the points without even activating the additional card.

There is a limit of 2,000 bonus points per account.  It seems that you should be able to earn the 2,000 points for both the consumer and business cards, but YMMV (your mileage may vary.)

Related: The Starwood AMEX easily gives the best reward value and bang for each buck of purchases made out of any credit card out there today. It also comes with tons of nice benefits and a sweet (and valuable) 10,000 Starpoint signup bonus for free for each card that you get. Between a myriad of incredible mileage transfer options and unbeatable blackout-free hotel redemption options you should have no problem getting over 5 cents value out of every Starpoint that you have!

Starwood Consumer AMEX
Starwood Business AMEX


www.spg.com/youchoose

-Starwood’s Q4 promo is now up and there are a lot of options to choose from,but you can only pick one!
-Registration is required by 11/15. Valid for stays in any Starwood hotel between 10/01/08-12/31/08
-Important: All rewards are retroactive except the double stays toward elite status. So you can wait until 11/15 to decide which reward suits you best before registering and being locked to your decision as long as you dont want to go for the elite status reward.

Available rewards:
-Double stay credits towards Starwood Elite status. (No limit)
-Double Starpoints on all stays. (No limit)
-Every 2 stays=2,000 bonus Starpoints. (Limit 10,000 bonus Starpoints)
-Every 2 stays=$25 Amazon GC. (Limit $125 in free Amazon GC’s)
-Every 4 nights=2,000 bonus Starpoints. (Limit 10,000 bonus Starpoints)
-Every 4 nights=$25 Amazon GC. (Limit $125 in free Amazon GC’s)
-Every 4 stays=free weekend night. (Limit 2 free weekend nights at up to a Category 5 hotel)
-Every 6 stays=9,000 bonus Starpoints. (Limit 36,000 bonus Starpoints)
-Every 8 nights=free weekend night. (Limit 2 free weekend nights at up to a Category 5 hotel)
-Every 10 stays=25,000 bonus Starpoints. (Limit 100,000 bonus Starpoints)
-Every 12 nights=9,000 bonus Starpoints. (Limit 36,000 bonus Starpoints)
-Every 20 nights=25,000 bonus Starpoints. (Limit 100,000 bonus Starpoints)

Curious to see what other people are picking? Just click on the question mark by each reward to find out what percentage of people picked that promo!

Survey Linky

www.spgflights.com

So the big news this week is that Starwood has added a 7th primary method of using Starpoints: SPG flights.

The problem is that Starpoints are already so valuable due to the other 6 methods that SPG flights is simply unattractive.

The premise of SPG flights is that you can search for any flight directly from spgflights.com and book it with Starpoints. Starwood then pays the airline for the flight and therefore you will earn miles for the flight.

Sample award prices:

Fatal flaw? SPG flights values starpoints between 1.2-1.5 cents.
Using the other primary Starpoint redemption methods (Unrestricted Hotel Stays, Restricted Cash And Points Hotel Stays, Hotel Room Upgrades, Nights and Flights, 5th Night Free, and of course transferring Starpoints into miles on dozens of airlines with a with an unbeatable 25%-250% bonus) you should be able to do far better than that.

Normally you earn 2 Starpoints per dollar spent in a Starwood hotel (plus an additional 2 Starpoints if you pay with a Starwood AMEX and another additional point if you are Starwood Gold/Platinum)

For the month of September you can earn a substantial 500 Starpoints per night bonus on top of all that.  Promo registration is required prior to the stay and promo registration must be completed by 09/15.  Valid for stays from 09/01-09/30.

Promo Registration Linky

In the promo Starwood also hints to a “SPG You-Choose” year end promo coming on 09/16-and it sounds like it should be pretty good!

Offer Linky

Fund an Ameritrade account with:

$2,000 and get 3,000 Starpoints

$10,000 and get 10,000 Starpoints

$25,000 and get 20,000 Starpoints.

With an Ameritrade account you can play it safe with a CD (according to their website a sample 1 year is paying 3.815% APY, a sample 9 month CD is paying 3.465% APY) or try to strike it rich in the stock market.

Rules (See offer for full rules):

-Open and fund account by 09/30/08

-Half of the Starpoints will be awarded after 6 weeks.

-The remaining half will be awarded if minimum funding is met after 6 months.

-Account must remain open with minimum funding for 9 months.

-Accounts that go under minimum funding levels due to poor investments still qualify for Starpoints.

Related:
Starwood Consumer AMEX Linky (Earn up to 25K Starpoints!)
Starwood Business AMEX Linky (Opening/Closing business cards won’t affect your personal credit score!)

You will get 1,000 bonus starpoints for adding 1 additional cardmember, and 2,000 if you add 2.  In my experience (admittedly contrary to the fine print quoted below) I have not had to actually activate and use the additional cards in order to get the bonus points, but your mileage may vary.

With the new Fico ‘08 algorithm, being an additional cardholder supposedly no longer benefits your credit score in any way. It will show up on your credit report, but it is no longer calculated in the score.

Offer Linky

Be sure to print out a copy of this offer just in case AMEX does not credit you the bonus points automatically…

“1,000 bonus Starpoints will be awarded to your Starwood Preferred Guest Account 8-12 weeks after the first purchase on an approved Additional Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card submitted with this application. The Additional Cardmember must make their first purchase with the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card within one year of Card approval. Bonus offer applies to first 2 Additional Card added on this application only.”

Starwood Consumer AMEX Linky
Starwood Business AMEX Linky

Aloft is Starwood’s second brand that they have created themselves (W is the only other brand created by Starwood, the rest were all purchased.) The first aloft will open later today in Montreal. It has been designated as a Category 3 award. With 500 Alofts planned for the next 5 years, there should be lots of new opportunities to use Starwood points (as if you needed more ways to use ‘em!)

From Wikipedia:

“Aloft; a vision of W Hotels

Announced on September 28, 2005, the aloft brand will serve as a ‘little sister’ brand to the ultra-chic W Hotel brand, similar to Sheraton and Four Points by Sheraton.

The concept for aloft is a build-only brand of mid-scale hotels, 3 to 5 stories in height located in urban areas with up to 500 properties scheduled for completion before 2012. Rooms will feature 10-12 feet high ceilings, emphasizing space and comfort with modern amenities and, like other Starwood brands, a trademarked bed (yet to be announced). Suites are likely to be of a typical loft style design.

Aloft’s focus is on encouraging guests out of their guest rooms to socialize in the Living Room (lobby) for a game of pool or to enjoy a dip in Splash (the pool). Another concept is a complimentary car wash, courtesy of the commissionaire department upon arrival.

Some of its first hotels will open in Chicago, ?stanbul, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland and Charleston in mid 2008, and the first internationally will open in Beijing and Montreal. Starwood has announced plans to have 500 Aloft hotels by 2012; as of late 2007 more than 50 were in development.”

Update: The 1,000 Starpoints bonus has just posted to my SPG account, has yours?

Originally posted on 03/26:

Amazon Linky

My whole family got this email and many readers forwarded it to me, so I assume that it is widely targeted. If you didn’t get it you may want to check your spam filter or contact AMEX regarding “Bonus ID 3425.”

You do need to opt into email communications in order to receive these kinds of promos. You can do this by logging into your AMEX online account and clicking on “update email settings” under account services.

You must spend the $50 in one transaction at Amazon by this coming Monday to qualify!

Here are the promo details:

“Just use your Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express at checkout, and you can earn 1,000 bonus Starpoints for a purchase of $50 or more at Amazon.com now through March 31st.[1] That’s in addition to the points you can normally earn for purchases.[2]

No matter which of the millions of items available at Amazon.com you choose, use your Card at checkout to take advantage of the protection, benefits and rewards American Express provides.

(1) To be eligible purchase must be made at Amazon.com between March 18, 2008 and March 31, 2008. A minimum single transaction of $50 with your Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express is required to earn the 1,000 bonus points. Credit will be awarded to your account 6-8 weeks after promotion ends. Offer valid for a single purchase only. Offer is good for solicited Cardmembers only. Charges for payments made via PayPal and other online payment intermediaries do not qualify. Purchases made at IMDb and ShopBop do not apply. Credits for purchase returns will result in a corresponding reversal of the 1,000 bonus points. POID K569:0005. Bonus ID 3425.

Update: Ends Today! 

Originally posted on 01/02/08: 

Related: Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About Getting To Israel With Starpoints!


Promo Linky (Exp: 03/31)

With this promo you can transfer 20,000 Starpoints into 32,500 British Airways Miles!

BA’s RT rates from North America to Israel:

Coach-65,000 (40,000 Starpoints)

Business-130,000 (80,000 Starpoints)

First-195,000 (120,000 Starpoints)

Amazon Gift Card Center Linky

Can’t find anything $50 or more that you need from Amazon before the promo deadline of 03/31? Buy an Amazon Gift Card and buy what you want from Amazon whenever you feel like it.

AMEX confirmed to me today that a Gift Card purchase of at least $50 from Amazon will qualify for the 1,000 bonus Starpoints promo!

You can buy an Amazon gift card and have it emailed to yourself immediately. You can then enter the gift certificate code into your Amazon account (via the “my account” page) and the credit will be there the next time that you want to make any Amazon purchase.

Amazon gift cards are valid on nearly everything sold on Amazon.com, including items from 3rd party sellers.

Amazon gift cards no longer have any expiration date, in fact Amazon has retroactively reinstated all expired gift cards that were purchased after 10/01/05!!!

Why wait on hold and try to find your way around a phone tree maze when you can have companies call your phone or talk to you over the web for free?

I used the Starwood callback link extensively while traveling in Israel in order to make and change award reservations (which was especially nice because incoming calls are free on Israeli cell phones!)

It’s just too bad that more companies don’t utilize this great technology…

Have Amazon call you

Have Continental call you

Have Starwood call you

Know any other popular companies that use click-to-talk technology? Please post a comment!

20,000 Starwood Starpoints transfer into 25,000 Flying Blue (Air France and KLM’s joint loyalty program) miles.

That is all you will need to have to get to Israel or any other “European” destination in March or April!

S.B.S. previously made an excellent 8 page PDF examining every way of getting to Israel via Starpoints.

In that article he pointed ways of getting to Israel for 40,000 Starpoints or less (Via transferring Starpoints to JAL, British Airways, LAN, or Flying Blue)

Now S.B.S. points out (via fellow Clevelander “Beaubo”) that the Flying Blue program has special reduced mileage awards released every 2 months called “Web@wards.” These awards are 50% off the regular rate.

For March/April there is a Web@ward to/from Chicago or Toronto and Europe Zones 1, 2, or 3.

This is how Flying Blue defines Europe:
Europe 1: Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, and Switzerland
Europe 2: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden
Europe 3: Albania, Algeria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Libya, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Western Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia

The cost for the round-trip ticket is just 25,000 Flying Blue miles!!!

That’s right, open 2 free Starwood AMEX credit cards and you’ve got a mileage ticket to Israel!

As Flying Blue considers Israel to be part of Europe (zone 3), it qualifies as a valid origin or destination.

Even better, unlike with most carriers, you can book one way award tickets with Flying Blue, so if you want to go one-way it will be just 12,500 Flying Blue miles!

The Web@wards to/from Chicago and Toronto can only be flown with KLM via Amsterdam. Web@wards are not valid on Skyteam partners such as Continental or Delta (although nonstop travel to Israel on those carriers is allowed on the regular 40,000 Starpoints/50,000 Flying Blue miles award to Europe zone 3.)

There is also a March/April Web@ward for Los Angeles to/from London nonstop on Air France for just 12,500 miles OW/25,000 miles RT.

Taxes and fuel surcharges, which can be hefty on international carriers, are extra.

Flying Blue Wab@wards: March/April 2008

Unfortunately, you cannot search online for mileage availability on Flying Blue unless you have the required miles in your account.

The best bet for checking availability will be by calling Flying Blue at 1-800-375-8723

Coming soon: How you can check for mileage ticket availability on dozens of airlines.

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:

Award chart is courtesy of spg.com

I’m not a fan of contests, honest!

I am a sucker for all things Starwood though…

Passage To Paradise Contest Linky (Open to US and Canadian residents only.  Not valid for residents of Puerto Rico or Quebec.)

Wondering about the picture of that bungalow hotel room on the water?

It’s the incredible (Starwood Category 6) Le Meridian Bora Bora in French Polynesia. The hotel is going to be recategorized to a Starwood category 7 in this year’s upcoming RevPAR adjustments…

You can get there for just 30,000 AA miles (instead of the regular 75,000 miles) until 05/31.

Ever wonder how Starwood decides which hotels fall into which categories? There are some incredible hotels that I have stayed in that are considered Category 1 properties, costing 2,000-3,000 starpoints, while I have been to dumps that are Category 3 properties costing 7,000 points/night (although those do have the 5th reward night free, nights and flights options, and are only 2,800+$45 with Starwood Cash and Points…)

The answer is RevPAR, which is a hotel’s average daily rate multiplied by the hotel’s average occupancy rate=Revenue Per Available Room, aka RevPAR.

Each of the 7 Starwood hotel categories are divided up into RevPAR brackets.
This formula is what causes there to be true bargains and incredible rip-offs in the Starwood program.

I have seen $400 hotel rooms placed in Category 2 (3,000-4,000 starponts). Presumably this hotel has a low occupancy rate, which drops their RevPAR down to Category 2 levels. On the other hand a hotel charging just $100 per night may find itself ranked at a Category 3 if they have consistently high occupancy.

So why does Starwood use RevPAR to categorize hotels?

Because the Starwood program has no blackout dates for hotel rewards (if a Starwood hotel has a room available for sale, you can get it with points. Don’t you wish airlines did that as well!) RevPAR is a decent indicator of what your free stay will cost Starwood.

You see, Starwood doesn’t own most of the Starwood branded hotels, individual owners simply license the Starwood brand name, and pick an appropriate Starwood brand (Sheraton, Westin, W, Four Points, S. Regis, Le Meridien, Aloft, The Luxury Collection, etc.) When you use Starpoints at a hotel the Starwood Preferred Guest program compensates the hotel based on its ranked category and the occupancy rate for the night of your stay. If the occupancy rate is over 90% then the program winds up paying top dollar to the hotel, if it is under that rate it pays a much lower rate.

Coming soon: Part 2; The Annual RevPAR adjustment.

Related:

Starwood Program Refresher

Get To Israel For Less Than 35K Starpoints; Nonstop for 40K

Transfer 20K Starpoints Into 32.5K British Airways miles (Exp:03/31)

Transfer 20K Starpoints Into 50K LAN-More than enough to fly to Brazil

Starwood Consumer AMEX Linky

Starwood Business AMEX Linky


William Sanders, Starwood’s “online guest feedback coordinator”, has confirmed that there have been issues with AMEX not properly crediting people the 10,000 starpoints for opening up a Starwood AMEX card.

AMEX is currently working on a resolution, and he says that there is no reason to call up AMEX or Starwood.

Personally, I called up AMEX about my not receiving the bonus points on my most recent Starwood AMEX card that I opened and got nowhere with the first rep (”you have to wait 12 to 16 weeks to receive the points”) but the supervisor I spoke with was aplogetic and credited the 10,000 Starpoints on the spot-they showed up in my Starwood account the next day!          (Hint: Things move faster when you threaten to close the account!)