It's back - Amex SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) Credit Card Offer - 30k Bonus Points - Personal & Business

Thanks OP. Time for another round.

RhizzleBop said:   This is an interesting card offer guys.
I'm concerned about meeting the 5K spend requirement.
I'm usually fine on the ones asking for 1000 or 1500 in 3 months time. This one seems like a good bit more.

In regards to the rewards. Is aw where someone said 60K pts was good for 14 nights of a 2 star hotel? or 2 rating?
What about flights? Most airlines want 25k pts for a single round trip ticket.
Do these go for less making this 30K more valuable than those 50k cards?

Your'e thinking Category 2 - which is Starwoods arbitrary categorization of hotels. Speaks nothing of the quality. a cat 2 room is free @ 4,000 SPG points (3,000 on weekend nights). so 60k points would get you a minimum of 15 nights at cat 2. If you only use SPG points at SPG Category 2 on weekends you could get 20 nights out of it.

60k SPG points can be converted to 75k airline miles.

SPG point value varies widely depending on how you'd use it. See my original post for various valuations. 30k points could be worth $321, it could be worth $1500. If you redeem for $321 it's not worth as much as a 50k card. If you redeem for $1500, it is worth more than a 50k card.

imbatman said:
SPG point value varies widely depending on how you'd use it. See my original post for various valuations. 30k points could be worth $321, it could be worth $1500. If you redeem for $321 it's not worth as much as a 50k card. If you redeem for $1500, it is worth more than a 50k card.

To expand on that, I recently stayed at an aloft hotel for 4000 points/night (weekday). Cheapest rate on any online travel site was about $160/night. It's considered a 3-star hotel by most sites. So if you use your points where they get the most value, you can easily get 3-5 cents of value per point.

Certainly really high point value redemptions are possible, I'd imagine it would involve transferring to airline points, then using those airline points for some ridiculously priced international first class seat. FlyerTalkers seem to be really into those kind of redemptions. Personally, I don't think anyone paying with their own money would ever pay anywhere near $10,000 for an international first class seat, so saying you got 20 cents per point when you used 50,000 points for such a ticket is a bit disingenuous. But the fact stands that you can get pretty good redemption values out of the SPG program.

I just applied for both cards.

I am still playing catch-up this year regarding credit card sign-up bonuses - had to get my credit score up in preparation of buying a house. Now that is settled, and I have received lots of cash and miles in the past month, from Southwest, United, Priceline, and now SPG. Last couple of years American Airlines gave me lots of free miles, but their bonus isn't that good right now.

yOyOYoo said:   yOyOYoo said:   I applied for both the Personal and Business card the same day.

Instantly approved for the Personal card. Business card app shows pending. When I called in to ask why, I was told by 2 separate CSRs that it's because I tried to apply for the same card twice in the same day, the system needs to approve me in 4 days. Guess I have to wait...

Just to update, was approved for the business card 7 days later.

My only other AMEX card is the blue cash card, with a credit limit of $21,500.
AMEX gave me an SPG personal limit of $5000 and an SPG business card limit of $3000, wonder why so low.

Now time to spend $10,000 in 6 months.

I have found that AMEX typically limits the available credit given to an individual across all accounts. 3 cards with a total of just under 30k in available credit sounds reasonable without knowing anything else about you. If you apply later on for another card, you might get a letter from AMEX saying "we have moved $XXX of your credit limit from your BC card and assigned it to your new card".

delete

thx Op, does anyone have screenshots handy, in case promo is not honored.

Did anyone keep a screen shot of the business application.

I applied for it and was turned down as having too many AMEX cards. I canceled one and got a reconsideration and approval, but it took a while and I was past the deadline when I got the card.

Customer service can find only a 15,000 point promotion on the card, but the mailer can with a prominent statement about 10,000 points on activation (and fine print limiting it to those who had not received a welcome bonus previously.

The above link currently goes to an offer which provides for 10,000 points on first use and then 15,000 after spending $5,000. This is actually a better offer (miles quicker, and more miles if you are not a heavy spender) than the one in effect when I applied. This assumes they don't enforce the small print language about only one welcome bonus per card member (which would exclude both those who previous had the card and those who just got a personal card).

The way they handled the limit issue was rather odd, and unwise. I was told at was at the limit, and she would request a reconsideration if I canceled one card, but she was unable to handle that. I had to be transferred to customer service, cancel the card, and then be transferred back to applications for the reconsideration request to be made, which required a later phone call to find out the decision (which was to give me the Starwood card with the same limit as a business card I had canceled).

I view this as stupid because they could lose a customer if the new card is not approved (although I suspected it would be, since it did not increase their exposure). Also, even when the customer gets a new card (as in my case) there was a period when he lacked a business card, and AMEX could earn no revenue.

Much more sensible would be to have a representative offer to consider the new card if an older one would be surrendered. It should not be too hard to set it up so that the customer is never without an American Express card.

I have applied and approved for the SPG biz card on 8/21. I just got a reply from CSR that he can't find any offer attached to my account. I will be sending my response with a screenshot. You can always confirm it via secure message.

Similar reply came for my spouse personal SPG app (She applied on 9/4 but approved on 9/6) which might be tricky.

Anyone get both pers and biz first puchase bonus yet?

My 30k points for the biz card have posted. It was 10k/20k for the personal card and 10k/15k/5k for the biz card. This does not include the 5k spend points (points for actually spending $5000). The spend points took longer to post and are clearly identified as spend points.

JuNooNi said:   69ragtop said:   My 30k points for the biz card have posted. It was 10k/20k for the personal card and 10k/15k/5k for the biz card. This does not include the 5k spend points (points for actually spending $5000). The spend points took longer to post and are clearly identified as spend points.
Any chance you have the Biz app screenshot?

I do not. I was posting as a data point since I had not seen any biz cardholders claiming success. Are they saying it is 25k for you biz card or something else?

looking for business SPG screenshot. Please send to yoyo6713@live.com

The business link is still active. Does that mean the offer is still valid for business?

BrlDsguise said:   Just booked the Sheraton Maui for three nights @ 12k points per night ($379/night cash rate). Very surprised to see how much these points were worth

SPG points are top notch if you can make worthwhile redemptions like that. FYI, you could have gotten two more nights for 12k more points (because of "buy 4 get one free"), which makes their value even better.

So I just cancelled my Platinum, Gold, and SPG card because of the annual fees about to hit, plus I don't have any plans on traveling this year or next year.
I've already cashed out the MR points in the form of Home Depot GCs. Is there a way to cash out 40k in SPG points?

Wow, did anyone else get extra bonus points after spend was met? I ended up with 45k bonus points somehow after signing up for personal 30k offer. I bet my wife's card is the same since I applied for both on same day.

Earn +20000 01/23/2013 SPG AX 1ST PURCHASE CNSMR (SW)
Earn +1317 01/15/2013 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +507 01/14/2013 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +751 12/18/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +1941 12/13/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +648 11/14/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +566 11/12/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +877 10/15/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +1319 10/12/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +659 09/14/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +295 09/13/2012 SPG AX BASE SPEND - CONSUMER
Earn +10000 08/29/2012 SPG AX 1ST PURCHASE CNSMR (SW)
Earn +10000 08/27/2012 SPG AX DEFAULT
Earn +5000 08/20/2012 SPG AX MGM - CONSUMER

I see what happened - somehow they linked my wife's card to my account even though I'm pretty sure I used her old account number at signup. Not sure how that happened but after she meets spend this month I'll have to make sure she gets the 20k bonus too, then we'll end up with 5k extra somehow.

Hate to jump on the bandwagon begging for business app screenshots but does anyone have one saved?