Guy Betsy

To cut a long story short, there was some mixup with my airline reservations and evidently I had had to stay over in BKK an extra night. Due to my limited budget then I refused to fork out $ for a hotel room, and managed to get an award room at the Royal Orchid Sheraton for 4000 Starwood points.

I will be making a complaint to the airline FFP concerned about their mistake but I need to be able to (hopefully) claim the equivalent of what I had spent in points... The hotel said that at rack rates, it would have cost me US$210 a night.

I just want to all my facts straight before I write my letter to the airline concerned.

I have to add that the hotel exceeded my expectations and will be staying there as a paying guest in the future! :-:

el_tigre

I value Starpoints at 2.5 cents each. Therefore, I would say 4000 Starpoints are the equivalent of $100.

AdrianVanzulli

You'll read around that typically a good redemption value is $0.05+ per point. Personally, I don't even consider anything less when using my points, regardless of the situation. The higher the better. Your rate seems to be a rather acceptable use of points IMHO.

Cheers,

Adrian

CPRich

Historically 2.5 cents/point, which would be about $100. But with the recent, uh, adjustments, I'd say 2 cents, so $80.

It looks like typical lowest room rates there are $150-ish. It's hard to ask for RACK rates when rooms are available for lower to the public.

Colin

Lunacy. $0.05 per SPG point minimum. Nonsense.

KVS

In retrospect, you really should have [temporarily] invested the required amount of money and paid for that night. This would have provided you with a folio, clearly showing your expenses (for reimbursement purposes), and, as a bonus, you would have earned starpoints.

I am afraid that it is unlikely that an airline will accept your valuation of the starpoints spent. Perhaps you could try asking the hotel to send you some kind of a document (a-la-invoice), showing the prevailing rate (in a tangible currency) for the night in question -- "the hotel said" line is extremely unlikely to work.

AdrianVanzulli

Regardless of our varying opinions, you just need to be comfortable with the value received for your points. Some people are fine with $0.02 per point, others with $0.05. It all depends on how you value your points.

Some people consider a good value of an airline mile to be $0.02 a mile, I personally use them wherever and whenever I can because I have too many to begin with.

Cheers,

Adrian

KittyCat

First of all, the below happened on what I considered as great value for money : 5 nights at 7000pts each at LM Munich, booked before category increase, hotel room going rate close to 400 EUR for a standard room ... not that it would still have been possible to secure 5 consecutive nights anymore since Jan or Feb (Oktoberfest opening weekend just now). On a normal, low-season weekend, rates would range from 170 to 250 EUR.

My initial room bill showed an internal SPG calculation, valuing each night at 55 USD, or about 37 EUR.

Can this be right ?

If the hotel really only gets such a fraction of the room value in what must be their full-occupancy peak period in the year ... I would be one VERY unhappy hotel manager ! Didn't particularly spend a lot of time at the hotel () to ask around, but from the number of non-Germans in the hotel corridors I would think that I wasn't the only one staying on points

sjefenole

hedoman

My initial room bill showed an internal SPG calculation, valuing each night at 55 USD, or about 37 EUR.

Can this be right ?

Yes.

Currently, I'm thinking

SPG .03/.05
Hyatt .03
Hilton .0025

CCFlyer17

I think about 0.03 cents per point - anything more is simply a great deal, and probably not a fair way to value the points...

gfowler-ord-1k

I use $.03 when considering if using points or cash. Be sure to factor in the $.03 value of the points you receive as part of the cash stay as that reduces your true cost.

Seattlenerd

It's considered customary -- and even polite -- to restart old threads on FT if the title is general and of general, ongoing interest. ^ All anyone has to do is start by looking for the gap between the older posts and the most recent ones, and the most recent ones do have current cost information (and are less than a week old, to boot).

The .03 calculation is interesting, as my wife and I were recently at the SVO property in Maui and they were offering new owners to option to purchase an additional 80,000 StarPoints at $1,675.

That would value them at roughly .02 cents -- for purchase, not for redemption. So any redemption value higher than that makes it a good deal. I generally consider any redemption at .03 - .05 cents worthwhile. With the current weak dollar, a US resident can do very well with StarPoints redemption values in Europe.

Recreation

I was given the same "opportunity." I think that if you plan to book a trip right away, forking out $1700 for 80k points could be a nice savings off retail.
80k points buys 5-7 nights in a Cat. 5, 3-5 night in a Cat. 6, or 2 nights in a Cat. 7 hotel.

Taking the first Cat 5 listed (Westin Aruba), and using travel dates of 3/14-3/21/08, the cheapest room (pre-paid) I could find was $335/night or $2860 after taxes for 7 nights. StarPoints required for 7 nights (with 5th night free) at this resort is 72k.

If I've done my math correctly, the value of each StarPoint in this scenario was 5 cents and the cost was 2 cents. Total savings off retail: $1185.

Caveat: The longer you wait to book your stay, the more you risk another point devaluation.

SchmutzigMSP

Just as a general survey question, how much is SPG Plat worth to those of you who are/have been SPG Plat? Taking into account upgrade types and consistency (or lack thereof), bonus miles, concierge line, and all the other benefits.

I've been an SPG Gold for the past few years and now it looks like I could possibly reach Plat for the first time ever, so I'm debating whether or not it's worth it (since I'd have to do a bit of mattress running to get it).

So is it worth an extra $500 to you? $1000? $2000 (or more)? How would you quantify its worth?

Thanks!

(And as a side note, I'm curious about the "upgrade to best available room" feature of Plat status. If I booked a cheaper room (award or $) at one of the resorts in French Polynesia -- you know, the ones with the sweet overwater bungalows -- would my Plat status be enough to get into one of those bungalows even if I booked the cheapest rooms?)