Every year around this time Amex launches limited-time better-than-usual signup offers for the consumer and business SPG cards. The usual offer for these cards is 25,000 Starpoints after $3K spend (consumer) or $5K spend (business). I’ve been waiting and expecting to find that the offer has jumped to 30,000 points or even 35,000 points. But no…
Doctor of Credit reported early this morning that the new offers for both cards are not for points, but for 2 free nights. And, these 2 nights are limited to Category 1-5 hotels.
Why this stinks
When using points to book nights, category 5 hotels cost either 12,000 points per night or 16,000 points per night. So, at best, the 2 free nights you get from this offer are worth 32,000 points. But, you’ll only get that much value if you use the 2 nights at a 16,000 point per night property. And, unlike points, you must use the 2 free nights within one year of issue.
SPG’s Starpoints are incredibly valuable in large part because of their flexibility. Here are things that can be done with Starpoints that can’t be done with free night certificates:
Hotel Awards (More Details Found Here)
- Book Cash & Points award stays
- Book 5th Night Free stays
- Book Nights & Flights (Book 5 Nights at Category 3 or 4 properties and get airline miles too)
Other Awards (More Details Found Here)
- Transfer to airline miles at better than 1 to 1 ratio. 20,000 Starpoints = 25,000 miles
- Transfer to Amtrak
- Bid on unique experiences
- Buy tickets to Broadway plays
The old offer is better
For most people, I believe that the good old 25,000 point offer is considerably better than the new 2 Nights Free offer. Fortunately, at the moment, referrals (which earn the referrer 5000 Starpoints) currently link to the 25,000 point offers. If you’d like to grab one of the 25K offers, here are my referral links:
Consumer SPG Offer: 25,000 points after $3K spend in 3 monthsBusiness SPG Offer: 25,000 points after $5K spend in 3 months
The above offers have expired.
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How long does it usually take for the SPG referral bonus to post? Thanks!
I don’t know
[…] the Amex SPG signup bonus into 75,000 Marriott Rewards points. Skip the stinky new 2 free night offer and go for the good old 25K signup bonus offer […]
This is weirdly a relief to me. I don’t have any need for an SPG stay in the next year, but I figured I’d jump on an increased SPG biz card now cause I’ve never had it and I doubt we’ll see another increased bonus before the merger. And 35-40k SPG points (after spend) would be hard to pass up. But, I wasn’t really looking forward to having to spend $8k in the next 3 months b/c I also am going for the Arrival+. $3k is considerably easier for me.
I totally get that
I guess Starwood is already getting it’s members used to Marriott’s favorite thing, category 1-4(5) certificates.
LOL. Yep.
For the vast majority of us who have gotten the SPG bonus before and who would otherwise be blocked out by “once per lifetime,” maybe this is a good thing. Since this is a new bonus structure, perhaps we are not precluded from getting it despite having received the points bonus in the past. Thoughts?
No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that Amex considers the product the same despite different signup bonus structures.
I’m not so sure. As it stands now, if you’ve previously received a 25k bonus but the current bonus is 35k, you’d still get the 10k differential. I think.
How could they measure the “differential” if the bonus structure has completely changed?
That’s not right unfortunately. You won’t get the differential if you’ve had the card before