One of the perks of earning Starwood Platinum status by staying 50 nights a year is that you earn 10 Suite Night Awards which can be applied to most reservations and should clear into a suite about 5 days before arrival.

Luckily, I just completed my 50th night this year with Starwood and received the following email from Starwood:

It looks like you’ve been spending a lot of time with us lately — 50 nights, to be exact. As part of our new SPG Nights Benefits, we’ve deposited 10 Suite Night Awards into your SPG account. Each Award is good for a one-night room upgrade to a suite. Plus, you can apply your Awards to eligible paid stays, Free Night Award stays and Cash & Points stays — until December 31, 2014.

Here’s how Suite Night Awards work:

• Click here to redeem Award(s) directly on spg.com at your convenience. Or, call the Customer Contact Center to request Award(s) for an upcoming stay.
• We’ll start looking for available upgrades five days before your stay. If we find one, it’s yours, and we’ll let you know as soon as possible.
• If we can’t find an available upgrade five days before you arrive, we’ll send you an update and keep checking.
• If your Suite Night Award(s) can’t be confirmed by 2 p.m. local hotel time the day before you arrive, we’ll notify you via email and credit the Award(s) back to your account.

Suite Night Award requests may be cancelled until 2 p.m. local hotel time the day before you arrive, as long as the Awards have not already been confirmed for use on a reservation. Once your Awards have been confirmed, you must cancel the entire reservation to be credited back all the Awards; however, after 3 p.m. local hotel time the day before you arrive, a reservation cancellation will result in the forfeiture of all Suite Night Awards applied to the entire reservation. This is in addition to any other cancellation penalties applicable to the reservation itself.

Bottom Line

Suite Night Awards can be great if traveling with family, but unlike Hyatt’s Suite Nights these are not confirmed at booking but only 5 days prior.

One plus is that these can be applied to both Free Night reservations using Starpoints as well as Cash and Points award, so they offer more flexibilty than Hyatt’s.

Did you start 50 nights with Starwood this year? Where do you plan on using your suite night awards for?

If you are find yourself on night credits, consider the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from Amex which gives 5 elite qualifying nights, and 2 stay credits just for having the card.

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