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Starwood Archives - ATX Fun - Austin-San Antonio Fun, Travel & Educational Opportunities

Category: Starwood

Get Easy 100 Starwood Starpoints, Maybe Extend the Life of the Ones You Have

Starwood has a promotion in progress, where you will receive 100 Starpoints if you bid on a Moments VIP Experience. You do not need to be the high bidder to receive the 100 Starwood hotel points.

The addition of these points probably will extend the life of your existing stash of Starpoints, but that is not guaranteed.

Use Starwood Points for free rooms at Sheraton Hotels
Use Starwood Points for free rooms at Sheraton Hotels

How to Get the 100 Free Starwood Starpoints:

  1. Look up your Starwood username and password. You will need them at least twice during the bidding.
  2. Log in at https://www.spgpromos.com/dashboard/site/index
  3. Look for a photo with VIP or Moments in the description. In my case, it was a photo of a baseball game, about halfway down the page. Click the arrow.
  4. Look for an item, probably pretty far into the future, that has a low minimum bid. Note that you can click “Display All Moments” at the bottom of the page.
  5. One of the items in my list was “2016 MLB Regular Season”, which opened up many more opportunities.
  6. The best choice I found was for a VIP experience in July, that I hope some die-hard fans will outbid me on. The current bid was 3500 hotel points, so I bid 4000 (minimum 500 point increments).

Now I just wait until a real Boston Red Sox fan outbids me, and will be expecting the 100 points.

Status Match / Challenge Summary for Numerous Airlines and Hotel Chains

If you have status on one airline or hotel chain, you may be able to have another airline or hotel chain match it. So, for example, if you are Gold on American Airlines and are a nobody on AirBerlin, you can request a status match on AB before your next flight and receive the privileges that your new (temporary) AB status grants.

This post from Dan’s Deals is a very useful summary.

Roundup Of Airline And Hotel Elite Status Match And Challenge Offers

The airlines covered in the blog post are AirBerlin, Alaska, American, Delta, JetBlue, Turkish, United and Virgin America.

The hotel chains covered are Hilton, Hyatt and Starwood.

If you have any airline/hotel status and plan to fly or stay in any of those named brands, you are in luck!

It happened to me in February…I checked into a Hilton Hotel and they would not give me (a Diamond) an upgrade…said they were Full.

I wish I had thought to do this at the time:

http://milesfromblighty.boardingarea.com/2016/03/31/no-upgrade-sorry-sold-out-do-you-believe-hotels-when-they-say-this/

Just accept the crummy room they offer, then go online from it and see what kind of rooms the hotel is selling. Complain to the desk clerk or online.

This should work for any hotel brand.

Hilton Hotel

Automatic Notification When Hotel Price Drops

TripBAM.com is a website that will automatically notify you by email if the daily rate at your selected hotel (or group of hotels) drops.

http://outandout.boardingarea.com/tripbam-monitors-your-paid-hotel-rates-alert-you-if-the-price-drops/

This works even if you prefer to book directly with the hotel chain, in order to get full points-and-stays credit in their frequent-guest program.

TripBAM does this by checking the rates every day on the hotel’s website. Note that it does not work on AARP, AAA, government, etc. rates.

Sheraton Hotel

How to Keep Your Starwood Points “Alive”

It isn’t easy to keep your SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) points from expiring. The standard ways to get some activity in your account is to stay at a Sheraton hotel, or to make a purchase with your SPG credit card.

Another way is to check your Dashboard and see if the Uber promo is available on your account…it gives you one point per dollar spent on Uber. So, a short ride is enough to give some activity in your Starwood account, and presumably extend the life of your Starpoints.

A fourth method to get some points, if your are targeted (I was not), is described in this blog post:

http://heelsfirsttravel.boardingarea.com/2016/02/06/get-50-free-starwood-points

Sheraton is an SPG Brand. Photo by kevin dooley / Flickr