Rcently, I wrote about the SPG American Express card that gives you 10,000 SPG points after your first purchase and an additional 15,000 points after spending $5,000 in 6 months. Given the fact that most people value these points at a healthy cpp (cent per point) valuation, this is a very good offer.
So, I have begun to collect quite a few points and had a recent opportunity to redeem some in a way that really highlights how good this program is when using SPG points. My wife’s family had not had a chance to see our newest child yet, so since they were going to be somewhat near us soon, we decided to pop down for a couple of days to let them see the baby. Unfortunately, hotels were not coming up very cheap. Since this was going to be an impromptu trip, I was not really going to be able to just pay a couple hundred dollars for two nights at a hotel. When it is just me traveling, I priceline the absolute cheapest hotel without thought of hotel condition, location, or anything else besides price. When I am traveling with my family, I exercise greater care when it comes to doing that since I want my family to be safe and comfortable. Well, nothing was coming up in the area of a reasonable rate, so I thought I would use some SPG points for this stay if I could find a reasonable redemption rate.
A shot of the Rate Selection Page for my upcoming SPG stay
We ended up with a Four Points by Sheraton that was going to cost $180 per night for a prepaid rate. With the points, it was only going to cost me 8,000 points for the two nights. That brought the actual point value to 4.5 cents per point – a very nice redemption rate (this is not what I would have paid, so the actual value to me was a little lower, but that is still a great value). Considering that you can get 10,000 points after your first purchase with the American Express SPG card, this really highlights how well this program can work for you. We are looking forward to our visit there and will let you know how it went after we get back!
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