SPG means Starwood Preferred Guests and to many thousands of men and women who travel around the world transacting business, it also means gold or platinum, let me explain.
My friend Abir is an excellent web designer, he is so good he has clients ranging from Rap Artists to fortune 1000 companies requesting his skills. He travels to various cities to meet his clients and always stay at a Starwood Hotel. These include the W hotels, Westin, Sheraton, FourPoints by Sheraton, Loft, Element, Le Meridien and the St. Regis.
Abir intentionally does this because of his plan to bank his reward points which by year end turns into the thousands.
Last week he went home to the United Arab Emirates with his wife and stayed on points at the Sheraton in Abu Dhabi. In addition, Abir has followed my romance planning advice by periodically using points to add a day-or-two to his work trips, in order to spend time with Ruhkahana. I call this Business+ trips. It’s DRIPPING – adding little pieces of romance to the routine of your regularly scheduled life.
The SPG program is well recognized as the best hotel rewards program available, Inc. magazine recently called the union between American Express and the SPG program, the Best of the old-school rewards cards. They pointed out that the points are good at more than 825 Starwood Hotels across the globe and in addition can be transferred to more than 30 frequent flier programs.
If that wasn’t enough, the SPG program also just won the Freddie Awards (represents excellence in frequent travel programs) for Frequent Guest Program of the Year in the Japan/Pacific/Asia/Australia for the fifth consecutive year as well as in the Europe/Middle East/Africa regions for the third consecutive year; that’s just about everywhere!
I just became a member of the SPG program, some of the features I like are:
- The unrestricted (no black outs) use of the points and free nights when accumulated.
- A Starwood Hotel is everywhere I want to be or I’d like to go!
- The choices of properties range from the simple elegant to the flamboyantly fabulous.
- Amazing consistency in service (Abir who is a Platinum Member) tells it this way; “I need to be on the SPG floor or better every-time I check in and they better know about me, kind-a feel like I own a piece of the hotel”.
In choosing, I always go with recommendation, isn’t it advantageous to learn from someone more versed in the subject matter?
The one thing I can pass on about selecting a travel rewards program is, if you’re gonna travel you might as well get the rewards. Considering cancelled flights, freeze ins, and rude customer service reps, that might be the only upside!
