February 20, 2014

Overview of SPG Category Changes

As they do every year around this time, Starwood announced their list of award chart category changes.  It's important to note that this doesn't impact the number of points required in each category, just the category in which these specific hotels reside.  Here are the highlights:
  • 20% of hotels are changing categories
  • 56% are moving down (getting cheaper)
  • 44% are moving up (getting more expensive)
The current categories (for hotels moving up) are good until March 4th so if you are sitting on SPG points, you have a couple of weeks to burn them at the lower price point.  Obviously, if the hotel you'd like to stay at is going down, you're better off waiting until March 5th to make your booking.

There are a few hotels going up that will impact my travels.  We have stayed many times at the Westin Riverfront Resort & Spa in Beaver Creek.  The hotel is moving from a category 5 (12,000 - 16,000 points per night) to a category 6 (20,000 - 25,000 points per night).  So we likely won't be staying there after the category change.  20,000 - 25,000 points is just too steep for a hotel that's nice but not that nice if that makes any sense.  Same for the W San Francisco which is moving from a category 5 to a category 6.

Parker Palm Springs is going from a Category 6 to a Category 5 hotel effective 3/4

On the flip side, both the Le Meridien and Westin in Panama are going from category 5 to category 4 hotels.  Panama City is high on our list of places to visit and relatively easy to get there from Denver.  Also, the Parker in Palm Springs is also going down from a category 6 to a category 5 which is a big drop for a high end property.

Starwood points are tough to acquire (see this post on how to get some) but very flexible once you've amasses a critical mass.  Starwood is a great company (I'm a shareholder, former employee, and overall fanboy) and it's really nice to see that they are lowering more hotels than they are raising.  This definitely could have been worse and in many ways, it's a positive development.

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