May and June were ROUGH travel months for me. Not only were my weeks packed with business trips, but my weekends were littered with things like trips to Vegas, a bachelor party, a wedding, and more. Before this last weekend, I had only slept in my bed two nights in the past five weeks. YUCK.
As I was bouncing around the country, I stayed primarily at Starwood properties, and if I was in a place for three nights, I made sure that I stayed at three different properties, in order to maximize earning for SPG’s current promotion. That’s definitely not my style, and it was quite a pain, forcing me to get up a bit ealier every morning, schlep across New York City, and then check in someplace else. My efforts were rewarded, however. For the first time ever, I’m now SPG Platinum (and I’m still Platinum with Marriott too!).
Not only have I nailed SPG Platinum, but I also racked up four free nights for the promotion I mentioned a bit earlier. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the fourth night. I may end up letting it lapse since I’m pretty much tapped out of vacation time for the year, but I have already booked 3 of the nights for a long weekend at the St. Regis Punta Mita in December!
The picture above is courtesy of the SPG site. I’m not the only UPGRDr using this promotion to redeem at this property. Brad will be doing the same thing, and we will both report back and let you know how it is!
So I’ve maxed out the personal usefulness of the current SPG promo, and I’ve already hit Platinum status. Thus, there won’t be any paid stays at SPG properties for a while. Any travel I have will likely be spent at Marriott as I work on requalification for platinum with that chain.
Update: I have since taken this trip to Punta Mita, and the trip report is here!