Tag: Starwood Preferred Guest

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Starwood Unveils New Loyalty Program Perks for Dedicated SPGers

February 1, 2012 at 2:22 PM | by | Comments (0)

Remember two years ago when we first got wind of this super-secret Starwood Ambassadors program? Well, it turns out the program is now going public.

Today Starwood unveiled a couple of big changes to their Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program starting on March 1st which includes personal ambassadors for SPG members who have spent 100 nights annually in Starwood hotels.

Starwood’s ambassadors work one-on-one with guests to understand their preferences and what matters to them on each trip to deliver a customized experience on property. Ambassadors also provide services beyond the hotel and are even empowered to assist guests when they’re not traveling

SPG also introduced a new loyalty tier for the devoted SPGers--SPG Lifetime which gives guests who stay 250 total nights and who have maintained their elite status for five years (consecutive or not), a lifetime of SPG Gold status. Members who tally up 500 stays and who have maintained their elite status for ten years (consecutive or not), will become SPG Platinum for life.

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Gavin DeGraw Was Teaching Piano for SPG Just Days Before Bizarro Beatdown

August 9, 2011 at 8:50 AM | by | Comments (0)

No good deed goes unpunished? Singer Gavin DeGraw was maliciously beaten by some "thugs" and then bizarrely struck by a taxi, although not seriously, after he left a bar on the Lower East Side the other night with some friends.

The NY Post reports that he was taken to Bellevue Hospital where he has been hospitalized with a broken nose and cuts on his face. Whoa. Talk about a rough night.

Just days before on Friday, he was giving private piano lessons to two young girls as part of Starwood Preferred Guest's partnership with Live Nation where SPG members can trade in their points for once-in-a-lifetime music experiences.

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Good News, SPG's Foursquare Promotion is Legit

June 7, 2011 at 12:33 PM | by | Comments (0)

So remember the other week when we told you that Starwood Preferred Guest was linking up with Foursquare for a new Starpoints promotion? We've been down on Foursquare for a while since the benefits weren't outweighing the annoying sign-in/find places/check-in hassle. But this new promotion is totes legit. And it kinda made us like Foursquare again.

We had a confirmed reservation at the Element Las Vegas over the weekend and once we got there, we signed into Foursquare and sure enough, we got 250 Starpoints just for checking in. (We also got a message from one of our Foursquare friends saying, "You're baaaack!") Sadly, we didn't unlock the Free Resort Night Award but 250 Starpoints is good enough.

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Aloft's Smart Check-In Program is Now in Place at Five More Hotels

May 11, 2011 at 10:50 AM | by | Comments (0)

A year later, it looks like Aloft Hotels Smart Check-in Program is doing well enough to roll out to more Aloft Hotels around the world.

Starwood Hotels announced today that the speedy heck-in program for Starwood Preferred Guests will soon be in place in Aloft Harlem, Aloft Brooklyn, Aloft Dallas Downtown, Aloft Jacksonville Tapestry Park, and Aloft London by the end of 2011. Previously, the program was only in place at Aloft Lexington in Massachusetts.

If you aren't quite familiar with Smart Check-in, here's how it works. SPG guests first have to let SPG know that they want to participate in this program. Then they are given a special SPG/Aloft-branded RFID keycard. When guests arrive at the hotel, they will already have received a text message from Aloft Smart Check-in telling them their room number. So they can just blow through check-in and head straight to their room.

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Here's a Reason to Start Using Foursquare Again, SPG Points

May 10, 2011 at 1:02 PM | by | Comments (2)

We admit, we were fully under the Foursquare influence back in 2010 but as the rewards for checking into places dwindled and the process of checking in became annoying (not to mention the cheats and scams of mayors and the spam "friends"), we pretty much abandoned Foursquare altogether.

But Starwood's SPG program is making us reconsider again with a pretty cool loyalty program incentive. Right now, you can earn 250 Starpoints when you check in for a confirmed reservation through July at over a 1,000 participating Starwood hotels worldwide.

And every day this month, one very lucky Foursquare user will also unlock a Free Resort Night Award which will be hidden at one of the 1,000 hotels. Plus, anyone who does check in to a Starwood Foursquare hotel will automatically enter themselves into a contest to win a resort getaway including five Free Resort Nights AND airfare.

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Westin Times Square and Jersey City Promise US Open Packages For Tennis Fans

August 6, 2010 at 9:26 AM | by | Comments (0)

The first round of the US Open kicks off on August 30 and Westin Hotels wants you to be there to catch of all the back and forth action.

The Starwood brand is the official sponsor of both the men's and women's tournament and where there is a sponsorship, there is a hotel package. However, the Westin only has two major properties in the NYC Metro area--Westin Times Square and Westin Jersey City. So your choices are a bit limited if you want your US Open experience to be Westinized.

Nevertheless, at the Westin Times Square they are offering a "Stay and Watch the Pros Play" package that includes a great rate at the hotel plus two metrocards so you can take the subway out to Arthur Ashe stadium in Queens. We couldn't get the package code SSPORT to work today but we noticed that room rates were about the same for the start of the tournament and for the finals--around $365 a night.

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Book a Hotel, Flight and Car Rental on Starwood's New Travel Site

July 7, 2010 at 9:11 AM | by | Comments (0)

You can use Starwood Hotels Plus to book a room at Le Meridien New Delhi.

Lindsay Lohan starts serving her 90-day jail sentence on July 20, which means she has less than two weeks to live it up. Before she goes to the slammer, LiLo should plan a quickie getaway on a site like Starwood Hotels Plus. The website is Starwood's version of Travelocity and Expedia, a one-stop travel site that allows you to book your flight, hotel, car rental and trip activities.

The twist, of course, is that you only can book rooms at Starwood brands, such as Aloft, W, St. Regis and Westin. Members of the company's loyalty program, Starwood Preferred Guest, have an added incentive to book through this site: They get 500 points for each night.

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Aloft Hotels to Start Smart Check-In Program on June 1

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 727 Marrett Rd [map], Lexington, MA, United States, 02421
May 17, 2010 at 8:45 AM | by | Comments (0)

Back in February, Aloft Hotels announced that they would begin a Smart Check-In program in which guests would get a special Aloft SPG member card that would in effect, act as their room key every time they stayed at an Aloft.

Now HotelChatter has gotten a sneak peek at what this smart check-in program, starting on June 1, will entail. Here's how it works:

· You'll be sent a special Aloft SPG® Member Card that will double as a room key, allowing you to bypass the front desk and go straight to your room whenever you stay at Aloft hotels participating in Smart Check-In.

· On the day of your next stay, we'll send a message containing your room number to your mobile device.

· When you arrive at your participating Aloft hotel, skip the front desk and go directly to your room. Touch your Aloft SPG card to the door lock to unlock it — you'll be checked in automatically and have full access to the Aloft Aloha desk throughout your stay.

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Want a Free Weekend at Starwood? You Have to Scavenge for It

May 11, 2010 at 10:38 AM | by | Comments (0)

Are these people lounging or scavenging?

Loyalty programs sure don't make it easy for you to win those free weekend nights, do they? Last week Starwood Hotels' SPG Program announced their "Free Weekend Night" promotion which would give SPG Members a free weekend night for every three stays completed between May 1 and July 31.

We took issue with the promotion because we don't think staying three different Starwood stays is as easy as they made it sound. Well, Starwood has just announced a new way to win a free weekend night with their Global Media Scavenger Hunt.

The SPG "Passport to Free Weekends" contest kicks off May 12 and will award a total of 200 Free Weekend Nights to 100 winners over the course of 10 business days. The scavenger hunt will leverage SPG's presence on Facebook and Twitter, where members will find clues leading them to the Starwood property that holds the daily Free Weekends prize. Each day, Starwood will award the first 10 winners with two Free Weekend Night Awards to be used at over 920 properties across the globe -- from Dallas to Dublin to Doha.

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Starwood and Hyatt Get Tricky with New Loyalty Program Offers

May 3, 2010 at 9:00 AM | by | Comments (2)

W Hollywood

Starwood Hotels is offering a new promotion that allows loyalty program members to earn a free weekend-night award for every three stays at one of its properties.

But you can't earn the award by staying in a Starwood hotel for three nights during a trip. The catch is that the "three stays" means you'd have to stay at one of its properties on three separate visits. Three consecutive nights at a hotel would equal one stay.

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What's Inside Starwood's Secret Loyalty Program (Hint: It Involves Suites)

March 12, 2010 at 8:20 AM | by | Comments (2)

Now we're really hoping Starwood's new loyalty program gets cool W kaleidoscopes to carry around with them.

Yesterday, USA Today had the scoop on the new super secret loyalty program from Starwood Hotels.

This secret program is different from the existing SPG program and much of it is still under wraps. All that Starwood would say yesterday was that the members of this top-secret program (who are only invited by Starwood to join) would have access to Starwood Ambassadors. These ambassadors act more like concierges who can custom-tailor hotel experiences for the guests. But of course, we wanted to know more.

So we called out for folks to tell us more about this VIP program--in short, we wanted our own Deepthroat. We asked and we received. A reader wrote in last night:

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Starwood Launches Super-Secret Loyalty Program

March 11, 2010 at 2:04 PM | by | Comments (0)

Do members of the secret loyalty program get a W spyglass too?

Barb DeLollis over at USA Today's Hotel Check-in is reporting that Starwood Hotels has launched a super-secret new loyalty program, separate from the SPG program.

Apparently, Starwood is trying to identify new levels of important guests aside from their frequency of hotel stays. Here's what Mark Vondrasek, Starwood's senior vice president of interactive and loyalty marketing, told Barb today:

Starwood invited "several thousand" travelers to test the program. "We looked at factors beyond just frequency, which is the key measure in traditional hotel loyalty programs," he said. "For instance, we evaluated factors including guest's profitability, their lifetime growth potential and their ability to influence travel by others. We even targeted some travelers who were loyal not to Starwood, but to our competitors. " (Emphasis mine.)

There's no real scoop on what incentives the program gives its members but it looks as if they will have access to someone called a Starwood Ambassador in order to create "compelling and individually tailored experiences" for the guest.

The program is also so top secret that Vondrasek would not release its name or the way it contacted new members to join.

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