Has Starwood Preferred Guest given up its O2 suite?

Regular readers will know that there have been some great points opportunities over the past three years to see top musical acts at the O2 Arena in London via SPG Moments.

Starwood Preferred Guest took a VIP suite in the arena and made tickets available as a points redemption, usually around 15,000 points for two people.  The suite was fully catered with a hot and cold buffet and a free, unlimited bar.

Anika reviewed a Muse concert here and I have been numerous times, generally to see acts too uncool to publicly name.

The game might be up, unfortunately.  The O2 suite was a three year deal and the three years is now over.  There have not been any concerts listed on the SPG Moments site for a while.

Other venues controlled by AEG (Mercedes Arena, Staples Center) also seem to have disappeared from SPG Moments.

If the suite has gone, this may be a sign of things to come with the Marriott-isation of Starwood.  SPG will have lost a lot of money on these events – the value of the points redeemed won’t even have covered the cost of the food and drink, yet alone the cost of the box itself – but it didn’t care because it was all about relationship building with its core guests.  I have never seen any signs that Marriott thinks the same way.

I wish Virgin Atlantic would do more with its suite at the O2.  I have no idea who gets the seats – once a year we get an invite, this year we get ’30 Seconds To Mars’, last year it was world darts – but there would be real value in Virgin Atlantic offering up seats for miles.

Virgin Flying Club is desperately in need of valuable low value redemptions as it doesn’t have any short-haul flights to offer.  With the credit card due for a major relaunch soon it would be a good way of driving sign-ups.

(Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Promos’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)