Earning Stories: 7,280 Starpoints on a 4 Night Stay at the Westin Desert Willow Villas

We continue the newest feature here on the Frequent Flyer Bonuses blog, Earning Stories.
For years we have provided you with the details on earning points and
miles (both regular earning and bonus opportunities) but we haven’t
really shown those actual offers in action. That is where Earning
Stories comes in. We are showing you the actual earning process and how
valuable these bonus opportunities can be.

This post
continues with everything we earned and redeemed with my family’s
recent trip to Palm Springs. Here are the posts already up on our blogs
for the earn and burn on this trip:

• Earning Stories: 5,200 Aeroplan Miles & 250 Gold Plus Rewards Points on a 4 day Hertz Car Rental
• Redemption Stories: Using Diners Club Club Rewards Points for WestJet flights to get them absolutely free (on Rewards Canada)
• Hotel Review: Westin Desert Willow Villas, Palm Desert (on Rewards Canada)

Our stay was at the Westin Desert Willow Villas in Palm Desert on a AAA with resort credit rate.  I booked it using this
promotion we had listed on FFB’s SPG Bonus Starpoints page:

The
Earn Away Get Away promotion was Starwood Preferred Guest’s recent
systemwide promotion and since our stay included a Sunday night we
earned the Triple Starpoints on the entire stay.

Even
more points were earned as I hold Starwood Gold Elite Status, a 50%
bonus on the base points plus I choose the 250 Starpoints SPG Gold
amenity over the free drink at the bar.

We
also chose to use the Go Green option of not receiving housekeeping
and in return we got 500 Starpoints per day (excluding check out day)

Overall the stay earned 7,280 Starpoints which are enough points for a standard room free night award at a Category 3 Hotel or for a cash+points redemption at a Category 5 Hotel.
Since I don’t have any SPG award nights planned at this time these
points are going to be held in my account for the time being.

Here is my screen shot of Starpoints that posted with this stay:

As
you can see by registering and taking advantage of this bonus offer
along with the Go Green option, we earned quite a few Starpoints on a
stay that we were going to do no matter what! Everyday people have stays
like this that are not earning any bonus points or even in some cases
no points at all since the people aren’t part of the hotel’s program! We
cannot reiterate enough that not only should you join a hotel program
to earn points (or airline miles) but always register for bonus point
promotions even if you think that you may not use it.

Tips for Hotel Stays
–
Watch the rates that include bonus miles – If there is a bonus most of
my stays do earn those extra points but a lot of hotel offers for bonus
points also come with higher rates so be sure to check other rates like
AAA, Senior Rates, etc. as those could be a better deal than the paying
for the extra points. For a complete list of hotel bonus offers
see this page on the main FFB site.
– Read the fine print – When a bonus offer is available be sure that
your stay meets the criteria. Those criteria can include certain rates, select days of the week or multiple night stays.
–
If you are staying at a hotel/hotel chain that isn’t your primary
program chain you may be better off posting that stay to a preferred
airline rather than earning the hotel points. You’ll still have to join
that hotel chains program but set your earning preference to your
preferred airline.

Have your earning story featured!
Not only are FFB Earning Stories going to be featured but we
want to feature your stories as well! Have you earned a lot of points or
miles by utilizing offers posted on Frequent Flyer Bonuses? We would love to
hear about them and potentially feature them here on our blog.
Tell us your earning story by emailing us the details of what you
earned, screenshots if possible of those points/miles posting and what
offer on FFB you took advantage of. Email it to us info@frequentflyerbonuses.com