Do this now: Starwood's fall promotion

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Registration for Starwood Preferred Guest's Fall promotion is now open.  You'll earn double Starpoints on paid stays between September 1 and December 15, 2013, and 2,500 Starpoints for every 5 paid nights during the same period, up to 10,000 Starpoints after staying 20 paid nights (award nights and Cash & Point nights do not count). Unfortunately, once again there's a long list of non-participating properties.

Register now, before you forget. 

Should you care about the 30,000 Starpoint signup bonus?

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 It's no surprise that the travel-hacking blogosphere has lit up this week with links to the Starwood American Express personal and business cards, which through September 3, 2013 offer 10,000 Starpoints after first purchase and 20,000 additional Starpoints after spending $5,000 within 6 months. The card usually has a signup bonus of 25,000 Starpoints, so this is a 20% increase over the standard signup bonus.

I've never had a Starwood American Express, so I'm eligible for both signup bonuses, but I'll probably take a pass this year (the increased signup bonus is typically offered once a year). Since this promotion is getting so much play on other blogs, this is a good time to breakdown who this card might be right for. For more detail on all the information below, check out all the Starwood redemption options I explain here.

Hotel Stays

There's no question that Starwood, along with Hyatt and Club Carlson, has devalued their award chart least among the major chains, although the changes to Cash & Points rates did not win them any new fans.

Category 4 properties can cost many hundreds of dollars per night, but cost just 10,000 Starpoints, which could make this signup bonus worth well over $1,000 if used solely for Starwood reservations you were going to make anyway.

Elite Status

Indeed, if you regularly book paid stays with your own money at Starwood properties, then this card is a no brainer, because you probably value elite status highly. Starwood is exceptional among major hotel programs for awarding elite stay and night credit for award stays, so with the 35,000 Starpoints you'll have after meeting the minimum spending requirement, you could make 8 one-night reservations at Category 1 or Category 2 hotels. Those 8 stays, plus the 2 elite stay and 5 elite night credits you are credited with just for having the card, would already get you to Gold elite status (10 stays or 25 nights).

If you direct a majority of your paid stays towards Starwood properties, then elite status could make these cards worth carrying, thanks to the 50% earning bonus elites earn: 3 Starpoints per dollar spent on paid stays, instead of 2 Starpoints per dollar. Plus you'll earn 2 Starpoints per dollar spent on the card at Starwood properties, bringing your haul to around 5 Starpoints per dollar (slightly less, since you won't earn base Starpoints on taxes charged by the hotel), plus any promotions.

Airline Transfers

Like flexible Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards points, Starpoints can be transferred to many airlines at a 1 : 1 ratio, with a 5,000 Starpoint bonus at the 20,000, 40,000, and 60,000 Starpoint levels. This naturally creates the temptation to use this card to manufacture spend in order to secure award tickets. Even better, the Starwood American Express has an annual fee of just $65, compared to the $95 annual fee of Chase's flexible Ultimate Rewards cards, or $175 annual fee of the flexible American Express Membership Rewards cards.

You can find Starwood's airline transfer partners here.  The most important programs to note are Alaska MileagePlan, American AAdvantage, Delta Skymiles, and US Airways Dividend Miles. That gives you coverage in all four major alliances and partnerships, at least until US Airways leaves the Star Alliance for oneworld.

Flight Redemptions

Many Starwood loyalists prefer to transfer their Starpoints to frequent flyer programs to redeem for premium cabin tickets. However, Starpoints do have value beyond Starwood stays and airline transfers, so I always try to mention Starwood Flight Redemptions awards, which allow you to redeem Starpoints for paid airline tickets. 35,000 Starpoints can translate into one paid ticket costing up to $215 (15,000 Starpoints) and another ticket up to $280 (20,000 Starpoints), making this signup bonus worth up to $495 in paid tickets, plus the value of the frequent flyer miles you'll earn for those flights.

That's why even if you don't ever intend to stay at a Starwood hotel or book a premium international flight using frequent flyer miles, you may still want to consider this card since the points are between $315 and $495 in paid airfare. 

Drawbacks and Alternatives

Unfortunately, there's a drawback to this card: the Starwood American Express doesn't have any category bonuses except Starwood hotels, which would also be bonused by the Chase Sapphire Preferred (travel bonus) and Chase Ink (hotel bonus) cards. That makes it difficult to justify abandoning a flexible Chase card in favor of a Starwood American Express purely for the sake of manufacturing spend, since the bonus categories of those Chase cards (especially when combined with a Chase Freedom) can be so much more lucrative.

For example, if you have access to PayPal Cash or Vanilla Reload Network cards at a 7-11 that is coded as a "gas station," a Chase Ink card would allow you to purchase Ultimate Rewards points at a cost of 0.39 cents each, compared to 0.78 cents each with the Starwood American Express. That difference means you can pay for the $30 difference in annual fees after just $3,000 in manufactured gas station spending annually.

I consider Alaska MileagePlan miles to be wildly lucrative, since they can be used for Delta or American award tickets (among many other partners). But if you're interested primarily in earning Alaska miles, you can do so with the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature credit card (with its annual companion ticket) or with a Bank of America debit card which gives you virtually unlimited free miles earning potential.

Conclusion

Of the three flexible awards currencies, Starpoints are probably the most valuable – each – because of the redemption options outlined above. However, that doesn't mean that the Starwood American Express is the most valuable credit credit to manufacture spend on: depending on your spend pattern, that distinction probably belongs to the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Bold/Plus. Still, "second most valuable" is a strong endorsement, and this is the right card for a lot of people, especially with the current, higher signup bonus.

Right now I'm happily manufacturing spend at 5% cash back with the now-expired Citi ThankYou Preferred offer; 2.22% cash back with the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, during my first, fee-free year; up to 4% cash back with my US Bank Flexperks Travel card; and 1.4 Skymiles and 0.4 Medallion Qualification Miles per dollar with the Delta Platinum Business American Express card. And frankly, that's about all I can fit into my current schedule. In January and April, respectively, I'll lose the first two opportunities and move that manufactured spending onto other cards. At that point I'll definitely consider making the Starwood American Express one of my workhorse cards for manufactured spend.

Know your hotel promotions

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For those travelers who are truly loyal to just one airline or hotel chain, and those whose booking decisions are made by a corporate travel department, there's not much that can be done to squeeze out the maximum value from paid travel: register for promotions, always give your membership number with your bookings, and if possible, use a co-branded credit card or one which bonuses travel purchases.

For the broad swathe of leisure and business travelers, however, who do have the ability to control or influence which travel providers they use, maximizing the rebate value of the points earned during paid stays is an essential part of the travel hacking lifestyle. And if you don't know your hotel promotions, you will miss out on opportunities for big savings.

Here's an example I ran into just yesterday. Taking advantage of my new Level 3 status with Pointshound , I was searching for an upcoming one-night stay in Pittsburgh.

The cheapest room on Pointshound was a $64.11 Travelodge.  I naturally scrolled down to the first "Double Up" eligible room, which was a $92.75 Four Points by Sheraton, which would earn 158 Starwood Preferred Guest points (2 points per dollar on the $79 base rate, since I don't have elite status with Starwood) and 250 United MileagePlus miles through Pointshound. It's unclear to me whether I'd also earn 79 Delta Skymiles through their "Crossover Rewards" benefit with Starwood, but I wouldn't count on it, since I find that benefit rarely posts correctly.

The point is, this isn't a very tough call: 158 Starwood points are worth maybe $3, 250 United miles are worth maybe $5. But I would be paying $28.64 more in order to earn them! If I were on my honeymoon, I'd splurge for the nicer hotel, but I'm just staying the night in Pittsburgh on a road trip west.

However, before I made the booking, I checked out my Hotel Promotions page to see if there were any Starwood promotions that would change the value proposition. And sure enough, I found that I had written:

Earn double Starpoints on all eligible stays from May 1 through July 31, 2013, at more than 1,000 participating Starwood hotels and resorts worldwide.
Plus, get 500 additional bonus Starpoints for each eligible booking made through our spg.com mobile site, the SPG App for iPhone, or the SPG App for Android — and that's at all our more than 1,100 hotels and resorts in the SPG program.
Register here, and find the (long) list of non-participating properties here.

So instead of earning 158 Starpoints on my base rate, I'd earn 316, plus a 500 Starpoint booking bonus. Suddenly I'm looking at about $16 worth of Starpoint earning, plus the Delta Skymiles I'll earn by booking through Starwood. And I was even able to reserve a AAA rate through Starwood that saved me a couple bucks on the reservation (sometimes these rates are also available through Pointshound). If I were on the hunt for elite status with Starwood, I'd also value the elite night and stay credits I'll earn.

In short: hotel promotions can radically shift the value proposition when comparing hotel prices. 

I'll give just one more example. Marriott is currently running one of their regular promotions whereby you can earn a free night after 2 paid stays, and another free night after another 2 paid stays. Those free nights can be redeemed at any Category 1-5 property (details may vary slightly depending on which version of the promotion you are targeted for).  That means that for your first 4 paid stays with Marriott, you have to consider any "premium" you're paying over a non-chain hotel the cost of 50% of a free night. If a stay with Marriott were $40 more expensive than my next hotel choice, I would book that Marriott stay in a heartbeat: $80 all-in for a night at a Category 5 Marriott is an absolute steal (unfortunately the cheapest Marriott in Pittsburgh was $126: only $39 more than the Starwood property I booked, but I'd be forgoing 816 Starpoints and a handful of Skymiles – too high a price for 50% of a Marriott free night certificate.

Know your hotel promotions: it might just save your money. 

 

Do this now: Marriott summer promotion

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Throughout the year, Marriott Rewards runs promotions whereby you can earn free night certificates after completing a specified number of paid stays. Marriott's previous Megabonus promotion ends today, which means it's time to register for the summer free night promotion.  

This summer you can earn up to 2 free night certificates, good for any Category 1-5 Marriott property.  You'll earn one free night certificate after 2 paid stays between May 15 and September 2, then another free night certificate after another 2 paid stays in the same period.

Sign into your Marriott Rewards account, then click here to register for the promotion​.

Meanwhile, make sure you're registered for these other hotel promotions:

Do this now: Starwood's spring promotion

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Back in March I reported on Hilton's Quarter 2 promotion, which offers 2,000 bonus HHonors points for weekend nights during paid stays and 1,000 bonus points for weekday nights during paid stays (register for that promotion here, in case you forgot).  Also be sure to check out my post on two unrelated Hilton promotions offering bonus airline miles for stays of 2 or more nights.

​Registration is now open for Starwood's Spring promotion, which offers double Starpoints on paid stays between May 1 and July 31 at participating properties.  Additionally, you get 500 bonus Starpoints on all bookings made using the Starwood Apple or Android apps, or using Starwood's mobile site.

The long list of non-participating properties includes the Westin Portland, where I was actually considering making a paid reservation this summer.  That's too bad, since the property looks really nice, but I don't support excluding properties from quarterly promotions, which have gotten stingier as it is.  The lesson is, always check whether a property you're considering is on the list of non-participating properties to avoid an unpleasant surprise when your points post (or don't!), since there might be a suitable property nearby which is participating.

At any rate, even if you don't have any paid Starwood stays planned, you should register now, before you forget.​

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Hilton HHonors devaluation now in effect

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​As I reported last month, the Hilton HHonors program underwent a serious devaluation on March 28.  I've updated the website with an updated award redemption chart and point density analysis.  In summary, redemptions for top-tier hotels have become about twice as difficult to earn through spending on paid Hilton hotel stays.  While still easier to earn than Starwood top-tier redemptions, the difference in point density between the two programs' top-tier points redemptions has definitely narrowed, to Hilton's disadvantage.

One side benefit of the Hilton devaluation is that their introduction of seasonal pricing at some properties has caused them to develop an extremely useful tool for viewing year-round pricing at their properties ​worldwide.  The Points Pricing tool allows to you search by city and view all the Hilton properties in that city, and each properties standard room award price by month.  This makes it easy to see how the award pricing at different properties varies throughout the year.  Here a search for Portland, Oregon, shows how some properties jump in price between June and July:

Amtrak Double Days and AGR award redemptions

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Registration is now available for Amtrak’s Double Days Spring promotion.  Between March 18 and May 18, 2013, you can earn double Amtrak Guest Rewards points for up to two one-way trips per day.

This is a great opportunity to discuss some of the valuable redemptions offered by the Amtrak Guest Rewards program.

Earning AGR Points

On most Amtrak travel you’ll earn 2 Amtrak Guest Rewards points per dollar spent, with a minimum of 100 points per one-way trip.  You’ll earn 500 points per Business Class ticket and 750 points per First Class ticket on Amtrak’s Acela high-speed service between “select city pairs” (see Amtrak’s website for details).

Buying AGR Points

Additionally, you can purchase between 500 and 10,000 points per year for 2.75 cents per point.  As we’ll see, there are lots of redemption opportunities which can make buying points an excellent value, even speculatively.

Transfer Partners

Amtrak Guest Rewards is a transfer partner of both Chase Ultimate Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest.  Points transfer from both programs to Amtrak Guest Rewards at a rate of 1 : 1 (Starwood 20,000 point increment bonuses don't apply to Amtrak transfers).

Co-branded Credit Card

Chase offers a co-branded Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card, which earns 1 point per dollar spent and an additional point per dollar on Amtrak purchases, and has a number of valuable benefits:

  • ​The card has no annual fee.
  • 12,000 point signup bonus after spending $500 within 3 months.​
  • Whenever you redeem for Amtrak travel, you'll receive a 5% ​rebate on the points used (you must have enough points to make the redemption before the rebate is applied).
  • ​Finally, one valuable benefits of the co-branded card is available to customers who spend more than $200 per calendar year on Amtrak travel using the credit card.  Cardholders who qualify can transfer up to 25,000 Amtrak points per year into Hilton HHonors points at a rate of 1 Amtrak Guest Rewards point to 2 Hilton points.

Redeeming AGR Points

Some of the most valuable Amtrak redemptions are for travel on Amtrak's high speed Acela service and for long-haul passenger sleeper accommodations.

Acela Travel Redemptions

There are three ways to redeem Amtrak Guest Rewards points for travel on Acela (however, see blackout dates below):

  • You can redeem 8,000 points for an Acela Business Class ticket.  Looking at sample dates between Boston and Washington, DC, tickets can cost between $195 and $279, meaning you’ll receive between 2.43 and 3.49 cents per point for Business Class redemptions.  On the higher end of this range, purchased Amtrak points are already worth redeeming for a small profit.
  • You can redeem 12,000 points for a First Class ticket, which costs between $321 and $405 on the same Boston to Washington route, giving 2.68 to 3.38 cents per point in value.
  • Finally, you can redeem 10,000 points for 5 coupons that can be used for space-available upgrades from paid Business Class reservations to First Class.  Since a First Class ticket costs $126 more than Business Class, this redemption offers an incredible 6.3 cents per point.

Long Haul Redemptions

Some of the most valuable Amtrak Guest Rewards redemptions are for sleeper accommodations on Amtrak’s long-haul passenger routes.

For the purpose of these redemptions, Amtrak divides the country into three zones.  The important thing to keep in mind is that the cost of the redemption is the same for any valid routing between two cities, based only on the zone in which the origin and destination cities are located.  For example, a two-zone bedroom redemption between Chicago and Portland, OR, costs a flat 40,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points.  For this price you can take the direct route between the two cities on the Empire Builder, a $1778 value on a sample date in May, or 4.44 cents per point.  However, for the same number of points you can first take the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles, then the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Portland, a $2562 value, or 6.4 cents per point.  You can check what routings are available between two cities by making a simple one-way reservation search at amtrak.com.  Since Amtrak offers last-seat award availability, any seats or sleeper accommodations which are available on amtrak.com are available for award redemption, subject to the blackout dates below.

Blackout Dates

All Amtrak Guest Rewards redemptions are subject to the following strictly-enforced blackout dates:

On Acela service, weekday travel origination may not occur from any boarding point between start-of-service and 8:59 a.m. inclusive, or between 2:00 p.m. and 5:59 p.m. inclusive (weekend Acela travel is permitted at any time except on any weekend dates defined below). Select Plus and Select Executive members may redeem for travel during blackout dates by using our "rule buster" awards, but Acela blackout times still apply.

Upcoming blackout dates are as follows:

  • December 20–23, 2012
  • December 26–30, 2012
  • January 2, 2013
  • February 15, 2013
  • February 18, 2013
  • March 28–29, 2013
  • April 1, 2013
  • May 24, 2013
  • August 30, 2013
  • September 2, 2013
  • October 11, 2013
  • November 26–27, 2013
  • November 30, 2013
  • December 1, 2013
  • December 20–22, 2013
  • December 28–29, 2013
  • January 3–5, 2014
  • February 14, 2014
  • February 17, 2014
  • April 17–18, 2014
  • April 21, 2014
  • May 23, 2014
  • July 3, 2014
  • July 6, 2014
  • August 29, 2014
  • September 1, 2014
  • October 10, 2014
  • November 25–26, 2014
  • November 29–December 1, 2014
  • December 20–24, 2014
  • December 26–31, 2014

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Starwood hotel category and cash and points changes now in effect

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As mentioned in my hotel devaluation roundup last week and in Chapter 6 of the book​, the changes to Starwood Preferred Guest's hotel categories and the devaluation of the cash and points award chart went into effect today.  I'll be updating the webpage shortly with my analysis of the new chart [edit 3/6/2013: updated].  In the meantime, you can check out the new award chart on Starwood's website, and use Starwood's tool to view Starwood hotels by award category.