There is a logical explanation for the intermittent success of having your future SVN reservations displaying in your SPG account. I've been told by multiple locations that they don't have my SPG account until checkin, though on more than one occasion they said they do but when they compare it with my SPG card they admit the number they had was incorrect. It turns out someone at Starwood simply guesses which account is yours, or at least mine, since there are more than one person with my name that has a SPG account. You would think they would do the minimal checking to verify address or other easily identifiable information in order to obtain the correct SPG number, but it's fairly clear to me now that they don't. So, you may be lucky in that they really found your account in advance or not. Of course, this contradicts what we were told a year or more ago that they will actually link our SPG account and our SVN account together - well, that hasn't happened. Typical.
Sent from my iPad