Starwood

I have never really understood why anyone would buy points in a loyalty program, as they are always very, very expensive. But I guess if you needed just a few more points for an award, it might make sense if you want to redeem that reward right away, or if you don't plan on earning points in that program the traditional way for a while.

So for those of you needing a few more SPG points to top-up your Starwood, SPG is currently offering Starpoints at a 20% discount for a limited time.

500 Starpoints is the minimum you can buy, at a cost of $14 USD instead of the usual $17.50, with a maximum of 20,000 for $560. You can theoretically redeem 7000 points at a Category 3 hotel for $196, or 12000 points at a Category 5 hotel for $336. This could possibly be a decent price for points at hotels which are chronically priced high, but likely you will be able to get a better rate just paying cash.

You can also take care of this offer to gift points to someone else, which I guess makes this an OK promotion if you were going to provide the points to someone as an incentive or something of the sort, but I am not sure how useful gifting perhaps 1000 points would be... but then again, that might be why I am not in charge of marketing for a hotel loyalty program.

• Darren Mak's blog

Today, Starwood has updated their SPG website to include the number of stays and nights you have accumulated since joining the SPG Program on your Account Summary Page. Trivial information to keep track of is now available to you, however on my page anyway, there is a glitch showing the wrong number of stays to maintain status for this year, while the nights needed is correct.

To earn or maintain Platinum Status in the Preferred Guest program you need 25 stays or 50 nights in a calendar year. In my case, I have 18 stays year to date spanning 20 nights. Up until this new information was made available on my account page, those numbers were referenced properly, but now it is saying I need another 30 stays or 30 nights to maintain status. Rather than 25, it says that 48 stays are required.

Hopefully this is just a small programming glitch that will be rectified shortly.

Listing this lifetime stay and night information is also fueling speculation on flyertalk that perhaps they are going to implement a lifetime status program. Even if they do, I am sure I am many nights and stays away from achieving this, especially when they keep raising the bar on me ;-)

UPDATE

• Darren Mak's blog