Lesser Known Starwood Platinum Perks

As you LCD readers know, my father is a big fan of Starwood Hotel's loyalty program called Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG). Over the past few years, he's been qualifying for Platinum status by staying over 25 stays (or 50 nights) each year at a Starwood hotel.

Thanks to his Starwood American Express cards and the fact that free night awards count towards status qualification, we should be on track to maintain Platinum again this year for 2016 status.

Aside from the obvious benefits, such as (a) complimentary upgrades to suites, (b) free breakfasts and/or Club Lounge access and (c) Priority status on Delta Airlines, my father can also keep many of his airline mileage accounts active quickly and cheaply.

SPG Points Transfer to Airline Miles

As you may know, SPG is one of the few hotel programs where it makes sense to transfer your hotel points to airline miles.

Normal SPG members can transfer their SPG points into many airline programs, including American Airlines, Delta and United (though I wouldn't recommend United transfers because it's at a 0.50 ratio of United miles for every SPG point transferred).

In addition, SPG will give you a 5,000 mile bonus for every 20,000 SPG points you transfer. Meaning, you'll receive 25,000 American Airline miles if you transferred 20,000 SPG points (1.25 ratio).

Transferring miles into your frequent flyer account can extend the expiration date of those airline miles by another 12-18 months (depending on the program). So if you had miles in danger of expiring soon without a near term redemption in mind, this could save you a lot of hassle.

Transfer Limits
However, normal SPG members have to transfer in increments of 1,000 SPG points. As people know, earning SPG points is quite difficult with the only methods being actually staying at Starwood hotels or spending on a co-branded Starwood American Express card. So 1,000 SPG points just to keep an account active is a big price - especially when you have as many as my family does.

Fortunately, my father's Starwood Platinum status allows him to transfer a single (1) SPG point into 1 frequent flyer mile. That benefit has allowed us to extend the accounts of several frequent flyer programs, including:

1. My father's Hawaiian Airlines account (2,000 miles stranded)
2. My grandmother's American Airliens account (1,000 miles stranded)
3. Our friend Ben's Air Canada account (58,000 miles stranded)
4. My father's ANA account (100 miles stranded)

As you saw above, you can even transfer SPG points to other people's frequent flyer accounts as we did here for our friend, Ben.

Ben:  I've got 58,000 Aeroplan Miles that are set to expire at the end of August. I need to book a trip to LA in a few weeks and the only direct flight using miles is first class for 50,000 miles. I need to rent a car but that costs like 30,000 miles while I can easily get a rental online for about $150. Should I just treat myself to a first class flight and blow away my miles? Or is there a better use for them that I'm not thinking of before they expire?

My father: I think I can add 1 mile to your account (thereby extending it for you). Just give me your Aeroplan account #.

So now Ben keeps his Aeroplan miles for another year and has time to find a better redemption.

Why Save ANA?
You may have noticed that #4 ANA (Air Nippon Airways) above only had 100 miles in the account. That's worth about $2 in value. Why go through the hassle to save $2 bucks?

The reason to keep our ANA account active wasn't to save the 100 miles, but to maintain our access to ANA's website to search for award flight bookings. If you don't have miles in your account, you cannot search for flight awards on ANA's website.

As a Star Alliance partner, we've found ANA's website (though clunky and not aesthetically appealing) to show more flight options from various Star Alliance partners than United.com's website.

This little trick allows us to book awards that "regular" United frequent flyers won't see.

OK, enough spilling secrets. I have some important pre-school work to get back to.

2013 Travel Year In Review

Well, it's the last day of 2013, and wow, I've had an amazing year. Since my father's an Asian math nerd, according to his excel spreadsheet, I have:

1. Flown approximately 84,860 miles this year.
2. Taken 48 flight segments (14 of which were 5-13 hours long).
3. Flown out of 32 airports.
4. On 12 different airlines.
5. Traveled to 10 foreign countries.
6. Earned 0 frequent flyer miles!

Of course, our #1 airline this year was United Airlines (14 flight segments), and we flew through Newark and JFK Airports most often (9 times each). My father earned United Gold Status and Aegean Airlines Blue Status for 2014, while my mother earned Aegean Airlines Gold Status and United Silver Status through 2014.

Most of our flights were paid for with out of pocket cash, though we did:

1. Save on my fare since I flew as a lap child for most of 2013;
2. Save $1,721 by using our Citi Thank You points for free flights to LA, Memphis and Phoenix;
3. Save another $1,348 by using British Airways Avios miles for our recent trip to Puerto Rico;
4. Taking advantage of mistake fares, such as the time we flew to Argentina on TAM for just $400/person (vs. $1,200/person normally); and 
5. Capitalize on United MileagePlus Awards for some of our long haul international business class flights (Thailand, Germany/France and Israel).

On the hotel side, we have:

1. Stayed 129 nights in hotels this year
2. Across 34 different cities
3. In 21 unique hotel brands

The hotel brands with the most stays was a tie between #1T Sheraton and #1T Hyatt Place (15 nights each) followed by #3 Westin (14 nights) and the #4T W Hotels (12 nights) and #4T Park Hyatt (12 nights, including the amazing Palacio Duhau Park Hyatt Buenos Aires seen here). This year we earned Starwood Platinum Status (50 nights) for 2014 and benefited from Hyatt Diamond Status (ending Feb 2014), Hilton Gold Status and Marriott Gold Status.

Now, while many of you may just assume we're millionaires, let me be clear - we are not! Because of the crafty use of hotel branded credit cards, sign up bonuses and seasonal promotions, we've been able limit the out of pocket cash expenditures. From the 129 nights spent in hotels this year, 28 of those nights were for work related travel and reimbursed ($5,060 spent for an average of $181/night). The remaining 101 nights were for "leisure" travel and cost us an average of $83/night in out of pocket cash from using free night awards and Cash & Point discounted rates.

A quick recap of some of our favorite photos from 2013.

 

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting through Toronto - 3 Special Steps

Flight #55 – Air Canada 702
Toronto (YYZ) – New York (LGA)
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Depart: 8:15AM / Arrive: 9:46AM
Duration: 1hr 31min 
Aircraft: Embraer 90 
Seat: 21D and 21F (Economy) 
Earned: 357 miles 
Lifetime Miles: 105,262 miles

If you follow my father's obnoxious Facebook status updates, you'd have seen we came back home yesterday morning. Since my mother came along to my father's work trip (at our own cost), he booked the most affordable ticket of the various options flying from Vancouver to New York.

• Option 1: Business class on the non-stop Cathay Pacific flight departing 11PM landing 7AM at JFK
• Option 2: Economy class on the 1 stop Air Canada flight departing 11:15PM arriving 9:46AM at LGA

  vs.

There was Option 3: Economy class on the non-stop Air Canada to Newark, but it departed at 4:10PM so he would have missed an entire afternoon of meetings, so it wasn't an option.

That put us all on the connecting flight that would land in Toronto Pearson Airport (YYZ) at a brisk 6:48AM Toronto time (aka 3:48AM Vancouver time). As you might imagine, the short overnight flight (4.5 hours isn't much time to sleep) and early arrival time made for a painful redeye flight. No REM for this lap child infant.

Then when we landed, we had a relatively tight connection. Landing at 6:48AM didn't give us too much time before the next flight started boarding at 7:40AM. Normally, 50 minutes would have been enough time, but you actually go through U.S. Immigration while you're in the Toronto Airport. So we needed some extra time to walk across the Terminal and then go through that process as well as another security checkpoint. At least we no longer had to claim our bags in Toronto and re-check them like they used to make everyone do.

Thankfully, Toronto's been trying to make it even more connection friendly by implementing a little procedure to the connection process. So as my favorite Secret Agent Bear Oso would say, you just need to follow 3 Special Steps.

"Three special steps, that’s all you need. Three special steps, and you’ll succeed. Your special assignment is starting now, and three special steps will show you how..."

Step 1...

Use one of the dozen kiosks they have and just scan the boarding pass for the next flight. It confirms your identity, flight information as well as the number of checked bags you have in the system. We got to this checkpoint at around 7:09AM.

Step 2...

Walk about 5 feet (aka 1.52 meters) down the hallway and look up at the screens on the left to see your name appear before you can proceed. The right screen in Phase 2 shows the baggage unloading status from the incoming flights you were on so I imagine that has something to do with this as well. This seems a bit unnecessary but I'm sure hopeful there's a rational reason for this Canadian bureaucracy. Our name didn't show up until 7:17AM. And we still had to go through Immigration and Security before our flight started boarding at 7:40AM.

Step 3...

Walk another 5 feet (1.52 meters) and scan your boarding pass again in front of the agents dressed in yellow. Assuming your name showed up in Step 2, you should be cleared to go through and then wait in line for U.S. Immigration.

Going through this process (before you even get to wait in line for Immigration) really makes you wonder what it accomplishes. One rumor is that they're prioritizing those passengers with shorter connections. This new process allows those with long layovers to be placed in line after those with tighter schedules even if they show up later.

Another rumor is that they're really trying to make sure your bags make it onto the next flight (which as we found out a few weeks ago, isn't always guaranteed). But as you can see from the photo below, I was not amused with the waiting for my name to show up on a screen at 7AM in the morning (which was really 4AM my time).

I don't know about how the adult passengers would feel about it, but I would have felt better about the whole thing if they had blasted Special Agent Oso music during the process.

"Three special steps, so now you know. Three special steps and you’re ready to go! The checklist has all the steps you need. Just follow them all and you will succeed with three special steps!"

AAA Membership has its Benefits

The new "trick" my father started using was to sign up for a American Automobile Association (AAA) membership.

For $58 fee ($48 base fee + $10 enrollment fee), he gets AAA membership which includes free paper maps whenever you want and emergency road service when you need. Even though we rarely take driving road trips, AAA is exceptionally useful for us because it also allows us to officially access hotel's AAA rates.

Hotel's have a few different cash pay rates. But in general, you can book the (a) Regular Refundable Rate, (b) the cheaper Pre-paid/Non Refundable Rate or (c) Special Rates including AAA and Government. As you can guess, pre-paid rates are cheaper and available to anyone willing to lock in their stay. However, because things change constantly, you will need to strike a balance between committing months out but guaranteeing you'll have a room vs. taking the chance that the hotel will still have availability a few days/week before your arrival.

My father HATES uncertainty (and is frugal with money) so he's generally on the side of locking in the pre-paid rate, but we do run into situations where we want to change our arrival or departure date but can't because we've already pre-paid. But now, with the AAA rate he can book at the lower pre-paid rate BUT ALSO have flexibility with cancellations allowed up to the normal hotel's rules (usually 24-48 hrs before arrival time). Win-win!

But you say, "It costs you $58 just to have that option!"

Well, true, because we like to play this game by the rules, though they haven't asked to see our AAA card at check in yet. But even if we had to show the card, the $58 investment is worth it.

To give you a real example, here's how much a night at the Westin Grande Vancouver costs for next Friday night, May 10 based on the 3 primary rates for a basic room.

• Regular - $299 (cancellations up to 24 hrs before)
• Prepaid - $299 (no cancellations allowed)
• AAA - $239 (cancellations up to 24 hrs before)

But looking at a Friday night on June 7, you get a slightly different dynamic. In this case the AAA rate is not the lowest, but you'll have to decide if saving $40 is worth committing or if you want to take a chance that you can book at a comparable rate as the date gets closer.

• Regular - $403 (cancellations up to 24 hrs before)
• Non Refundable - $351 (no cancellations allowed)
• Prepaid - $390 (no cancellations allowed)
• AAA - $393 (cancellations up to 24 hrs before)

So the takeaway is that the AAA rate offers a very attractive option many times, but it's not always the best rate so check and compare all rates. Personally, though, I just want a hotel that will give me free Kids Club goodies like this Westin Grande Vancouver hat.

Back to Civilization

Flight #49 – Air Canada 8279
Prince Rupert (YPR) – Vancouver (YVR)
Friday, May 3, 2013
Depart: 10:45AM / Arrive: 12:37PM
Duration: 1hr 52min flights
Aircraft: Bombardier Dash 8
Seat: 7D and 7F (Economy)
Earned: 470 miles
Lifetime Miles: 99,744 miles

So Friday morning, we left Prince Rupert and were slowly making our way back to civilization. But that's sometimes easier said than done.

As I mentioned when we arrived, getting to/from Prince Rupert is quite an ordeal. We first got to the airport shuttle bus stop at 8:45AM in the morning. Then the bus took everyone 20 minutes to the dock where the bus boarded the ferry for the 10 minute across the water to Digby Island where the airport is. You can get an idea from this map on the wall at the airport.

Since everyone had a lot of checked luggage, including an older man with two big Styrofoam crates of freeze dried fish, the bus was trailed by a big shipping van that took everyone's bags.

When we arrived at the airport, the van pulled around behind the airport and unloaded everything via the baggage claim as if they were coming off a flight. Then you collect your things and bring them over to the check in counter around the corner.

Then we went to the security check (with our checked bags) and put everything through the x-ray machine. I guess they're trying to make efficient use of the 1 machine they have. But since my parents just went through their Security Check Steps the other day on LCD, they were ready to sail through the screening and get comfortable in the luxurious departure gate lounge on the other side.

I, unfortunately, had other ideas and started to run around and scream as my parents removed me from my stroller. My father was having a tough time keeping me still in his arms as we all waited for our luggage to get through the machines. Yes, I was making a big scene, but that was because I saw something else on the other side of security... a colorful little kids play area. It's like they knew I was coming.