Starwood just came out with a new promotion where you can purchase SPG points at a 30% discount! While this is a pretty nice discount, it is not as good as the 35% discount they were offering last month – although you had to be an SPG American Express cardholder to take advantage. Fortunately, this offer is available to everyone and is better than the typical 25% off offer. To take advantage of this discount, you can purchase up to 30,000 points through July 1, 2016.
If you go all in it will cost you $735 to purchase 30,000 points. I definitely WOULD NOT suggest buying points speculatively, especially since we have no idea what will become of SPG points in the next 18 months. However, if you have an upcoming stay at a Starwood hotel, I suggest doing the math to see if purchasing points is cheaper then paying for the hotel outright. To receive the discount, you must purchase a minimum for 5,000 points.
Some things to know with this promotion:
- The maximum number of points you can purchase in a calendar year is 30,000 points
- You can purchase points in increments of 500
- Points take up to 24 hours to deposit into your account
- Your Starwood account must be activated for at least 14 days
- Purchase points here
Pros/Cons of Redeeming Points:
- You will still get stay/night credits even when redeeming (pro)
- You will not get the points (con)
- If there is a bonus at the time, you will be ineligible when redeeming points (con)
- If you are using all points, you will not have to pay any taxes (pro)
- If using cash + point, you sometimes need to pay tax on the cash portion, but since this is on such a smaller amount you will not have to pay the full tax on the regular rate and at some resort and city locations this can be extremely high (pro)
- At some hotels, you do not have the pay the resort fee if using points to redeem for your stay (pro)
So unless there is some unbelievable promotion going on, or the cost of purchasing points is close to the cost of actually paying for the stay, definitely use points when it is cheaper.
Thanks to Mommy Points for letting me know about this deal!
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