This post continues with everything we earned and redeemed with my family's recent trip to Palm Springs. Here are the posts already up on the blog for our earn and burn:
- Earning Stories: 5,200 Aeroplan Miles & 250 Gold Plus Rewards Points on a 4 day Hertz Car Rental
- Redemption Stories: Using Diners Club Club Rewards Points for WestJet flights to get them absolutely free
- Hotel Review: Westin Desert Willow Villas, Palm Desert
The Earn Away Get Away promotion was Starwood Preferred Guest's recent systemwide promotion and since our stay included a Sunday night we earned the Triple Starpoints on the entire stay.
Even more points were earned as I hold Starwood Gold Elite Status, a 50% bonus on the base points plus I choose the 250 Starpoints SPG Gold amenity over the free drink at the bar. If you don't stay frequently enough at Starwood Hotels to earn Elite Status you can also get it with the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card (when you spend $30,000 in a year) or automatically with The Platinum Card from American Express to get the elite bonuses.
We also chose to use the Go Green option of not receiving housekeeping and in return we got 500 Starpoints per day (excluding check out day)
Overall the stay earned 7,280 Starpoints which are enough points for a standard room free night award at a Category 3 Hotel or for a cash+points redemption at a Category 5 Hotel. Since I don't have any SPG award nights planned at this time these points are going to be held in my account for the time being.
Here is my screen shot of Starpoints that posted with this stay:
As you can see by registering and taking advantage of this bonus offer along with the Go Green option, we earned quite a few Starpoints on a stay that we were going to do no matter what! Everyday people have stays like this that are not earning any bonus points or even in some cases no points at all since the people aren't part of the hotel's program! We cannot reiterate enough that not only should you join a hotel program to earn points (or airline miles) but always register for bonus point promotions even if you think that you may not use it.
Tips for Hotel Stays
- Watch the rates that include bonus miles - If there is a bonus most of my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying for the extra points. For a complete list of hotel bonus offers see this page on the main Rewards Canada site.
- Read the fine print - When a bonus offer is available be sure that your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
- If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn't your primary program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred airline rather than earning the hotel points. You'll still have to join that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your preferred airline.
Have your earning story featured!
Not only are Rewards Canada Earning Stories going to be featured but we want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or miles by utilizing offers posted on Rewards Canada? We would love to hear about them and potentially feature them here on Rewards Canada. Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what offer on Rewards Canada you took advantage of. Email it to us info@rewardscanada.ca
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