What you need to know about Starwood’s ‘Hot Escapes’ weekly deals

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• Sergeant Major says:

  15 Mar15 March 05:04

  I would disagree that they represent good value. Last year while trying to Starwood platinum I booked quite a lot of stays through this. Generally hotels put their prices up by 20-30% just before being included in this and then show as discounted but the price is around the same as what it was. It is a marketing gimmick!

• Sergeant Major says:

  15 Mar15 March 05:07

  Much better deals can be found by going to the individual hotel website itself and searching under offers before you make a booking

• Anon says:

  15 Mar15 March 06:39

  Whilst we are SPG, slightly OT, also would appreciate any updates to this article about the 7 night Marriot Packages with Avios, and where in sunny Europe you get the best value…

  https://headforpoints.com/2016/09/25/marriott-travel-packages/

  • Anon says:

    15 Mar15 March 07:57

    There’s not that many options and you can easily spend a little time yourself on what suits by type of hotel etc and points category

    • Wayne Phillips says:

      15 Mar15 March 22:17

      http://travelisfree.com/resources/#resources

      This site has maps where you can toggle on/off category levels for several different hotel chains

• Anon says:

  15 Mar15 March 06:48

  Another slight OT, do SPG/Marriott status match Hilton Gold?

  • ankomonkey says:

    15 Mar15 March 09:19

    I think Marriott don’t status match from other programmes in general. I don’t know about SPG in the past, but now Marriott own them they may follow the ‘no status matching’ policy.

  • North says:

    15 Mar15 March 12:12

    They will probably offer you a Road to Gold which means you need to do a number of stays or nights to get Gold. Can’t remember how many but think it might be 6 stays or 12 nights.

  • Genghis says:

    15 Mar15 March 12:15

    Other routes are obviously the Amex Plat and spending £15k on the SPG Amex.

  • Mark Spivey says:

    15 Mar15 March 13:13

    No. You can apply to do a status challenge for Gold/Plat though.

• Roger says:

  15 Mar15 March 07:04

  OT- but SPG related.

  Just to give everyone data point on SPG points transfer to family member.
  I tried to initiate points transfer exactly on 30 days and on hitting submit button got a message saying “account must be at the same address for 30days”
  Will try again in a day or two and once it has crossed 31 days, just in case it works on US west coast time.

• Gareth says:

  15 Mar15 March 07:42

  Hotel related. Members should have an email with link, club Carlson doing a 30% off sale

  • Crow says:

    15 Mar15 March 08:17

    On the SPG Hot Escapes page it is possible to adjust the currency (top right) all hotels are displayed in. It’s then my experience that the actual payment is in the hotel’s own local currency, as the Hot Escapes rate is just one of the ‘special rates’ offered on the standard booking engine page. And whilst some aren’t too much of a discount, I have seen many others that genuinely do seem like decent discount.

• bsuije says:

  15 Mar15 March 09:47

  My experience of looking at SPG Hot Escapes is that the hotel list can change throughout the booking window.

• George says:

  15 Mar15 March 10:33

  I’ve used HE extensively over the past two years. A couple of points

  1) The list can change throughout the week. More hotels decide to jump on the bandwagon and they get added as and when. I don’t remember seeing hotels jump off the list, but if a rate is too good, it can get essentially sold out.
  2) There are hotels that decide to offer a HE rate, but are not on the list. I was eyeballing a resort that was originally on a weekly HE rate, and when the Saturday deadline passed, it kept its HE rate for two more weeks (but wouldn’t appear on the actual spghotescapes.com site). The HE rate will display under a normal search of a property too
  3) Rates are in USD yes, but, local hotels won’t incur FX fees if paid in your home currency. You can change the currency from the drop down menu and that gives an accurate total of what the charge will be.
  4) There are genuine savings to be made, but it’s important to familiarise yourself with the average price of the hotel first, pre-HE discount, and then see whether its worth it. For me, it’s a weekly ritual to check European properties, so now I’ve got a good institutional memory of what price is a genuine discount, and which one isn’t.

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