Triangle Trip

I contacted the Starwood Preferred Guest’s (“SPG”) Platinum reservation line to redeem my Starpoints for a hotel stay. The customer service representative (“CSR”) was friendly as usual but was not able to help me with my reservation and raised a huge security and privacy concern. Before I could complete my Starpoint reservation, the CSR requested for my password to my SPG account. When I told the CSR that I do not recall setting up a password to make Starpoint redemptions or any special types of reservations, she informed she needed my website password to complete my reservation.

After trying for over 10 minutes to explain to the CSR that it would be a security breach if I had given her my password, I decided to ask for a supervisor. All the supervisor  could do was to refer me to Starwood’s corporate policy which required me to provide my personal password to complete the reservation. She also told me that I could make the reservation via spg.com and stop hassling her. The supervisor also didn’t want to provide me a name or number for Starwood to escalate this issue.

I’m also pretty I am not the only SPG member to have raised this security concern to the SPG call center. I am also extremely baffled to have learned how Starwood Corporate has such a lax customer security and privacy policy. SPG needs to learn from Hilton where they only require two pieces of private information (i.e., mailing address and phone number on file) to make a points redemption reservation. SPG also needs to understand that its member’s password may be used on multiple sites. The SPG team should look at the cartoon below and learn more about security and privacy policies (special shout out to Brian Lewis’ blog for providing this cartoon image link).

I’ve been avoiding this sector of social networking for so long… and now I’ll have to sign up for a foursquare account.

Our favorite hotel chain, Starwood (SPG) is offering 250 SPG bonus Starpoints when you check in via foursquare with a confirmed SPG reservation. The offer is from now through July 31, 2011.

Click on the picture below to be linked to the SPG promotion site. You’ll have to sign in using your SPG login then link your SPG account to your foursquare account.

As the year comes to an end, many Starwood Preferred Guest (“SPG”) faithfuls are probably looking for ways to retain their status for next year — including me. Since SPG offers two redemption options for its rooms, you’re probably wondering:

Does using SPG Starpoints (to redeem a free room) or the Cash & Points (a combination of SPG Starpoints and cash to book a room) redemption option to reserve a room before the end of the year count toward one’s “number of stays” or “number of nights”?

The answer to both questions is:  No.

SPG treats Starpoint AND Cash & Points redemptions as “Reward” reservations. Hence both redemption options will not help you with your required “stays” or “nights” required to retain your SPG elite status. However, you can still earn Starpoints on other eligible incidental charges during a Cash & Points stay. Below is a quote from SPG’s Terms and Conditions for Cash & Points redemption:

Guest will not receive Starpoints or airline miles for their reservation; therefore, a Cash & Points stay does not qualify as an eligible stay toward earning elite level or toward any promotions requiring nights or stays.

You can also click on this picture to be linked to SPG’s FAQ site regarding this matter.