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Option to purchase extra Starpoints?

srjth

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I am considering buying a SVO. I am most interested in the conversion of StarOptions to StarPoints to use at the hotels. I was told by someone at one of the hotels that SVO owners have the opportunity to buy 80,000 extra Starpoints per year and that this is an offer only given to SVO owners. Non-owners can only buy 20,000 per year. My questions to the SVO owners her is is it true that you are offered the option to buy 80,000 Starpoints per year if want to?
 

LisaRex

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Some were sent the email. Others (including me) were not. Some called and Starwood said that they were eligible for it even though they didn't get the email.
 

VacationForever

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I would be very careful and not assume that it is open to all SVO owners. I believe only SVO owners with recent developer purchase were given the extra offer to buy 80,000 starpoints at a discounted rate.
 

srjth

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I would be very careful and not assume that it is open to all SVO owners. I believe only SVO owners with recent developer purchase were given the extra offer to buy 80,000 starpoints at a discounted rate.

Thanks. So maybe that's just a one-time offer when first purchasing. They made it seem like it was something offered every year to owners.
 

alohakevin

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I would be very careful and not assume that it is open to all SVO owners. I believe only SVO owners with recent developer purchase were given the extra offer to buy 80,000 starpoints at a discounted rate.

How long ago was that? What was the discounted rate? Just curious thanks
 

jarta

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alohakevin, ... The email I received said I had an option to purchase a block of 80K Starpoints for $1,550. If I exercised it, Starwood would add another 4K Starpoints for a total of 84K Starpoints. I figured my cost per Starpoint would be $0.0185. So, I called to purchase.

When I called, the agent said that the offer was a renewal of an offer included in a developer purchase I made 2 years earlier (without the extra 4K Starpoints). And, I was told I had not exercised 6 options to buy 80K Starpoints at that price. So I exercised the 6 options and realized 504K Starpoints for $9,300.

Later, I was making a StarOption reservation during the offer period and I mentioned that I had just purchased the Starpoints and thought it was a good deal because I like using Starpoints and needed some. The agent checked and said that I had another 6 options that I could exercise from another earlier developer purchase. So, I exercised those 6 options, too.

My experience leads me to believe that the offers were tied to previous developer purchases where options to purchase Starpoints had expired - but were resurrected. I believe the email went out around 6 months ago. IIRR, the renewed offers expired on December 31, 2011.

Making good use of Starpoints is like using II. You have to work at it. It's not for everyone. But, there can be valuable rewards.

Last month I transferred out 360K Starpoints to my air miles program. Starwood added 20% because I am 5 Star Elite and the airline added a 50% bonus. For $6,660 (360K x $0.0185) I ended up with 675K air miles or the equivalent of about 6 round trip business class tickets from Chicago to Europe or South America (or a price of $1,110 each). Salty
 

Sea Six

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Refresh my memory - the points you buy like this, do they expire in 6 years or not?
 

srjth

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alohakevin, ... The email I received said I had an option to purchase a block of 80K Starpoints for $1,550. If I exercised it, Starwood would add another 4K Starpoints for a total of 84K Starpoints. I figured my cost per Starpoint would be $0.0185. So, I called to purchase.

When I called, the agent said that the offer was a renewal of an offer included in a developer purchase I made 2 years earlier (without the extra 4K Starpoints). And, I was told I had not exercised 6 options to buy 80K Starpoints at that price. So I exercised the 6 options and realized 504K Starpoints for $9,300.

Later, I was making a StarOption reservation during the offer period and I mentioned that I had just purchased the Starpoints and thought it was a good deal because I like using Starpoints and needed some. The agent checked and said that I had another 6 options that I could exercise from another earlier developer purchase. So, I exercised those 6 options, too.

My experience leads me to believe that the offers were tied to previous developer purchases where options to purchase Starpoints had expired - but were resurrected. I believe the email went out around 6 months ago. IIRR, the renewed offers expired on December 31, 2011.

Making good use of Starpoints is like using II. You have to work at it. It's not for everyone. But, there can be valuable rewards.

Last month I transferred out 360K Starpoints to my air miles program. Starwood added 20% because I am 5 Star Elite and the airline added a 50% bonus. For $6,660 (360K x $0.0185) I ended up with 675K air miles or the equivalent of about 6 round trip business class tickets from Chicago to Europe or South America (or a price of $1,110 each). Salty

Thank you so much. This is what I was told by the salesperson, except I was under the impression that the starpoints were offered every year.

Refresh my memory - the points you buy like this, do they expire in 6 years or not?

I don't know the answer to this but the starpoints expiring in 6 years kind of sucks, especially considering that non-owners who buy starpoints from the hotels directly don't have an expiration date.
 

jarta

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Refresh my memory - the points you buy like this, do they expire in 6 years or not?

Can't refresh because I don't know. Don't care to look. I plan to spend or transfer my Starpoints long before 6 years elapse.

My best guess is that any Starpoints that come through timeshare ownership (including conversion from StarOptions and buying discounted blocks of 80K Starpoints) would expire in 6 years. I do know that all Starpoints in the SPG account operate on a variation of FIFO - with the oldest Starpoints with expiration dates being taken out first to cover new expenditures of Starpoints. Salty
 

YYJMSP

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Refresh my memory - the points you buy like this, do they expire in 6 years or not?

Yes, any StarPoints that originate from SVO expire in 6 years...
 

YYJMSP

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My experience leads me to believe that the offers were tied to previous developer purchases where options to purchase Starpoints had expired - but were resurrected. I believe the email went out around 6 months ago. IIRR, the renewed offers expired on December 31, 2011.

The last 2 sets of emails that we received actually mentioned the SVO property that the offer was associated with.

One batch was a "new" offer, saying it was a "limited-time promotion", but no expiry date.

The other batch was an "extension" of an expired offer, and it specifically gave a new expiry date of 3 days later.
 

capjak

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You can get the Starwood amx and get star points for everyday purchases
 
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