Review of Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
Summary - We recommend the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express not just to the Starwood Preferred Guest members, but also to those who would like to earn frequent flyer miles with this card. Starwood has been voted the best hotel program for many years and this card has won more "best affinity card" awards than any other card. Find out how this works.
How You Earn StarPoints? - This card allows you to earn up to 5 ponts for every dollar that you spend at Starwood Hotels. What do we mean by "up to 5 points"? It means that for every dollar that you spend at Starwood Hotels, you get double points from Amex and double points as well from Starwood. If you are a Starwood elite member, you get triple points from Starwood, making it a total of 5 points for every dollar you spend at Starwood Hotels.
For other regular purchases, you get the standard one point (ie for every buck you spend).
Sign Up Bonuses - After your first purchase, you get 10,000 points. After spending $5,000 on the card within 6 months, you get another 15,000 miles. That means that you can get 25,000 bonus miles within 6 months of getting your card if you meet their spending criteria.
Free Third Night At Sheraton Hotels - If you use your Starwood card to book two consecutive nights at Sheraton Hotels, you will get the third night free. (this offer is valid until 31st Decemeber 2011).
Fees - The annual fee for this card is waived for the first year. Thereafter, it is $65.
Key Features of Starwood Preferred Guest Program - The Starwood Preferred Guest program has the least restrictive award redemption policy. There are no blackout dates, unlike most other hotel reward programs. Starwood Preferred Guest also allow members to exchange points for air miles (see chart below that was taken from Starwood's site). You even get an additional 5,000 points if you transfer 20,000 points into air miles. Hence, many Starwood credit cardholders simply use this card for air miles. If all you do is spend $20,000 on your card (without spending a single cent at starwood hotels), you can convert your 20,000 points into frequent flyer points. With Starwood topping it up with 5,000 points, that means you you can get a free airline ticket for a economy class roundtrip within the continental US with most airlines.
If you do not want to exchange points for air miles, you can use your starwood points for for flights if you book with Starwood. This program is called starflights. With starflights, you need a fixed amount of points to redeem for an airline ticket with value within a certain range. As most credit card reward program do not offer this feature, it becomes even more valuable.
Starwood Card and Program Peer Comparison
It is really tough to compare different affinity cards of different programs because it is like comparing apples and oranges. But as far as the program goes, the Starwood is unique among all other hotel frequent guest programs because you can transfer points into frequent flyer miles for a one to one ratio (for most airlines anyway). Most other hotel reward programs have ridiculous transfer rates which makes it uneconomical to do so. In this respect, Starwood comes out ahead and is often voted the best affinity card because of this reason alone. Many frequent travelers combine this card with the Amex Platinum card so they can earn miles with this card but get the other coveted perks with the Platinum Card.
The annual fee is what you would expect of a hotel affinity card (Hyatt - $75, Hilton Surpass - $75, Marriott Premier - $75). The only gripe I have with this card is that you cannot earn automatic elite status if you reach certain annual spend targets. For example, spending $20,000 annual on a Hilton HHonors SurPass Card gets you Gold Elite Status. But this is a really minor quibble given how good the program itself is.
Starwood Credit Card - Often Voted the Best Affinity Card
Verdict - The Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express will help the Starwood Preferred Guest program member earn faster reward points. For the savvy frequent traveler, this is a great card for accumulating air miles as well. In fact, this card has almost always been voted the best affinity card in the Freddie Awards.
Positives
- Best hotel reward program
