Category: Starwood

[GONE] Amex SPG up to 60,000 points (one personal, one business, 30K each, 1st year free)

6/4/2014

[Update 7/3/14] The offers are gone.

[Original Post] Amex and SPG ran this limited time promotion once every year in the pas several years, and now it is back. We have never seen a better deal, so apply before 6/30/14 if you haven't had one of these cards. Open a new Amex SPG Card (personal or business), one of our favorite credit cards, you will earn 10,000 starpoints after the first use and another 20,000 starpoints after spending $5,000 within 6 months. Starpoints are one of most valuable miles/points currencies out there, and not only can be redeemed for Starwood hotels but also can be transferred to 30+ airline partners' miles programs, including American, US Airways, Alaska, Asiana, Singapore, etc. Please see our featured review SPG vs. MR vs. UR for details. As always the $65 annual fee is waived for the first year. If you apply both, you could have a total 60K points. However, since Amex has been more strict about opening two cards on the same day, you'd better open one card first and then wait at least a week before apply the second one.

Landing page
Application link for personal Amex SPG
Application link for business Amex SPG

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Amex SPG up to 60,000 points back again (30K each) & 1st year free

8/6/2013

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Now for four summers in a row, Amex has been offered the best ever 30K signup bonus points for its SPG credit cards for limited time. Through September 3, you have a chance to rack up 60,000 SPG points, one of the most valuable frequent travel currencies. To do so, you need to open both personal and business versions of this card and you will get 30K for each. For each card, you will earn 10,000 points after the 1st use and an additional 20,000 points after spending $5,000 within 6 months. One thing to note is that you will now need at least 5 business days between applications to be considered - otherwise two applications will be considered as duplicate. If you open both cards on the same day, you need to call Amex to notate your account to make sure they become two separate applications.

Personal 30K application page
Business 30K application page

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The impact of 2013 hotel points devaluation on your credit card strategy

3/1/2013

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To frequent flyers/guests, 2013 is a bad year for hotel loyalty programs since several programs are having some major devaluation. You may have noticed that we seldom talk about how much we value miles and points since it is highly personal and subjective. However, this kind of major devaluation certainly has major negative impact on the hotel credit cards and we feel that we need to give some analysis here. We will go over the several hotel loyalty programs in this post.

Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG): The reason why our Top Lister Amex SPG credit card is considered as one of the best travel credit cards for many years is because the value and flexibility of Starpoints. One Starpoint is generally considered to hold a value of 2~3 cents, no matter if you redeem for SPG hotels or transfer them into miles of 30 airline partners. While the transfer feature remains untouched, starting March 5, 2013, SPG will change one of its best redemption options - Cash & Points, representing an increase of 20-25% in cost. This makes it much less attractive to redeem Starpoints for hotels. For one thing, while SPG does have some gorgeous high-end properties, redeeming Starpoints toward its Category 6 or 7 hotels has been not that attractive to start with due to the fact that the so-call all-suite or all-villa properties charge double points or more. For instance, the St. Regis Bora Bora which is a Category 7 all-villa property has a BAR starting around $1,100 USD and an award night costs a whooping 120,000 to 140,000 points while a standard Category 7 hotel costs 30,000-35,000 points. The current Cash & Points option for Category 1~5 hotels presents great value even with restrictions (capacity control) and that is how most savvy travelers redeem Starpoints if they want to stay at SPG hotels, but this year it will change. On top of that, SPG also did the annual adjust of the hotel categories - less than 50 properties will go down while more than 200 will go up in category. Thus while you may still find some good value in redeeming points for hotels (such as low-end properties in general and some particular hotels), we suggest using Starpoints mainly for airline miles transfer which still presents huge value. For the transfer feature alone, we still regard highly of Amex SPG Card.
Hilton HHonors: One Hilton point is generally considered less than 1 cent and we currently value one point at around 0.7 cent. Some of the most valuable properties for point redemption have been Conrad Maldives, Conrad Koh Samui, Hilton Bora Bora Nui, Hilton Seychelles Northolme, and Hilton Seychelles Labriz. However starting March 28, 2013, Hilton will have a revamped category chart, expanding from 7 categories to 10 categories. These current Category 7 hotels which cost 50,000 points per night will become Category 10 hotels which will cost 95,000 points per night (a 90% increase!). This literally trashes the value of the program. For people who want to build Hilton points toward these aspirational destinations, we used to recommend Amex Hilton/Surpass or Citi Hilton Reserve Visa for general spending since you earn 3 points per dollar spent and you also have great potential to beat our Cashback benchmark Fidelity Amex. Now we need to re-evaluate this strategy. As for signup bonus, if the Amex's offer remains the same as now - 60,000 points, it is not even going to be enough to cover one night at these properties. Ironically, Citi Hilton Reserve Visa's signup bonus, two weekend nights (Friday-Sunday), suddenly becomes very attractive by comparison.
Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards: One Marriott/Ritz-Carlton point is generally considered less than 1 cent and we currently value one point at 0.8 cent. Now Marriott has 8 categories ranging from 7,500 to 40,000 points per night, and Ritz-Carlton has 5 tiers ranging from 30,000 to 70,000 points per night. Starting May 16, 2013, Marriott will add a new Category 9 which requires 45,000 points a night and 36% of its hotels will go up in category/tier while only 1% will go down in category/tier. Even though it is not near as bad as Hilton's destructive change, it still represents major damage. Top-category Marriott hotels are not in the same league as the forward mentioned top-category Hilton properties or Park Hyatt which we will cover later, thus they were never the most valuable in Marriott Rewards. Marriott Rewards' strength lies in those valuable properties throughout all categories, but many of these will cost 5,000 points more after May 16. Top-tier Ritz-Carlton properties have already required a substantial 70,000 points and some lower-tier properties actually represent better value. However, even Marriott does not change Ritz-Carlton Rewards tier structure, 30% (23/77) of Ritz-Carlton properties will cost 10,000 points more after May 16. With this devaluation, the signup bonuses, currently 70,000 for Chase Marriott Premier Visa and 70,000 for Chase JPM Ritz-Carlton Visa ($395 annual fee not waived), will diminish in value. The other thing to note is that the Category-4 and Category-5 free night certificates provided by Marriott Visa will also depreciate since 53% (190/359) of Category-5 hotels will go up to Category 6 and 51% (370/732) of Category-4 hotels will go to Category 5.
InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) Priority Club: In January 2012, Priority Club did tweak its awards chart by adding new redemption levels across the board, resulting many properties going up 5,000 to 10,000 points per night, around 20~40% increase in cost. That was a major devaluation. We adjusted our value for one point from 0.6 cent to 0.5 due to that. In January 2013, Priority Club introduced a completely new awards chart, switching from brand-based to category-based. Now the new chart has 9 categories, ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 points per night. Around 1,200 properties move up in points while 1,300 properties move down, compared to last year. Australia, Paris, London, Amsterdam, New York, San Francisco, and San Diego are among the destinations that were hit hardest, while places like China, Japan, and Southeast Asia actually see a great number of properties going down in cost. The top-of-line InterContinental properties remain 50,000 points a night (they went up from 40,000 points in the 2012 devaluation). While IHG does not have as many aspirational properties as SPG, Hilton or Hyatt, they do have a few such as the fabulous all-villa Bora Bora Resort and Thalasso Spa whose BAR stars around $970 USD. So generally we will say the value of points does not change much from last year. The biggest reason we recommend keeping Chase Priority Club Visa is the annual free night at any non-all-inclusive IHG hotels (with capacity control though), which is not affected by the hotel category changes.
Hyatt Gold Passport: Compared to other major hotel loyalty programs, Hyatt Gold Passport seems the most generous in terms of change for this year. Hyatt did not change its category structure and only 7 properties move up in cost while 10 move down. Category 6 Hyatt properties including several amazing Park Hyatt such as Park Hyatt Maldives, Park Hyatt Milano, Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, Park Hyatt Zurich, Park Hyatt Sydney, Park Hyatt Seoul, and Park Hyatt Tokyo, remain 22,000 points per night, which represents huge value. We continue to conservatively value a Hyatt point at 1.5 cents. With Hilton's destructive devaluation, Hyatt almost becomes the only program that allows you to redeem points cheaply for aspirational properties. Based on what we have seen so far in points devaluation in the hotel industry, we are nearly certain that in a year Hyatt will introduce a new category costing around 30,000 points per night. For now, Chase Hyatt Visa which offers two free nights at any Hyatt as signup bonus and one free night at Category 1-4 hotels upon each anniversary remains great value. Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold/Plus Business whose Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred into Hyatt points, along with United, British, Korean miles, still remain among the best travel credit cards.

Finally, let me share the new value we assign to one point in each program, and like always your value may vary:

SPG - remains 2.25 cents due to the transfer feature
Hilton - decreases to 0.4 cent
Marriott - decreases to 0.7 cent
Priority Club - remains 0.5 cent
Hyatt - remains 1.5 cents

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[GONE] Amex SPG up to 60,000 points (30K each) & 1st year free

8/8/2012

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[Update 9/4/2012] Both offers are gone.

Amex SPG is one of our favorite credit cards and Amex ran the same promotions every summer for several years in a row. It is coming back again - 10,000 points after 1st use and 20,000 additional points after spending $5K within 6 months and the $65 annual fee is waived for the 1st year. You can get both personal and business versions and get a total 60K points. Since we value SPG points more than most airline miles, this is a great deal. If in the past you only received 10K signup points and closed the card, Amex is pretty flexible and will be very likely to give you the 20K difference if you open a new account.

Landing page for both cards
Personal Card application page
Business Card application page

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[DEAD] A new round: SPG Amex 30,000 points offer live again (both personal and business)

11/30/2011

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[Update 12/15/11] The offers have expired.

We saw similar offers last year and again this July. Now it is back again.

Earn 10,000 bonus Starpoints after your first purchase
Earn 20,000 bonus Starpoints when you spend $5,000 in the first 6 months
$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $65.

The personal card application link
The business card application link

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Two new featured reviews: SPG vs. MR vs. UR and All About Airport Lounges

8/7/2011

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Dr. Credit Card presents two new featured reviews: side by side comparison of three most popular programs that allows miles/points transfer: Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) vs. Membership Rewards vs. Ultimate Rewards, and a thorough review on pretty much everything you need to know about airport lounge access.

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[DEAD] Amex SPG Card 30,000 points signup offer is returning!

7/26/2011

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[Update 10/12/11] Both offers have expired.

Last year, Amex offered a similar deal and is bringing it back again this year. You get 10K points after the first use, and then an additional 20K after spending $4,500 within 3 months. The regular offer is only up to 25K and you need to spend $15K within 6 months. Amex SPG is one of our Top Lister and 30K SGP points can worth as much as $1,000, either when redeemed toward SPG hotel stays or transferred into miles of 30+ airlines.

Personal Card Application
Business Card Application

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Forward>>

[GONE] Amex SPG up to 60,000 points (one personal, one business, 30K each, 1st year free)

Amex SPG up to 60,000 points back again (30K each) & 1st year free

The impact of 2013 hotel points devaluation on your credit card strategy

[GONE] Amex SPG up to 60,000 points (30K each) & 1st year free

[DEAD] A new round: SPG Amex 30,000 points offer live again (both personal and business)

Two new featured reviews: SPG vs. MR vs. UR and All About Airport Lounges

[DEAD] Amex SPG Card 30,000 points signup offer is returning!

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