Credit Card Details

The Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express is not only for preferred guest members, but anyone that likes to travel will have access to reward opportunities around the world. Starwood consists of over 1000 hotels worldwide, which range from mid-level hotels to luxurious 5-star resorts. That means you can get a free night for as little as 3,000 points, or choose to pamper yourself at the most fantastic hotels for 30,000 points a night.

This card is much more than your regular hotel credit card. Besides the redemption option for free nights with no blackout dates, there is also a spectacular miles program. Your earned Starpoints can be converted to miles on 1:1 basis at most major airlines. The best part is that exchanging 20,000 Starpoints to miles will get you an additional 5,000 bonus miles. This is equal to an award ticket for a domestic round trip with most airlines. Only requirement for the bonus is that all the points are transferred in the same transaction. If you hold an airline credit card, there are few reasons why the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card could not function as a worthy replacement.

You can also mix the rewards, by choosing the nights and flights option. This is a complete vacations package, where you get a sizeable points discount on the hotel by booking the flight using earned Starpoints as well.

There are so many opportunities to use Starpoints, so for someone that wants to stretch their points it can be done with the Cash and Point Award Night. You simply pay a small amount in cash and a reduced amount of points is deducted from your Starwood account. For travel during peak season this is a valuable option.

You are off to a good start when signing up for the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express. After the first purchase you will receive 10,000 Starpoints as a bonus, which is enough for up to 3 free nights. When staying at any participating Starwood hotel you will earn at least 4 points for every dollar spent, and 1 point is earned per dollar spent on all other purchases.

A common problem for a rewards program is that the points may expire before you get to use them. Starpoints will never expire for active accounts, which is defined as any activity in the past 12 months. There are so many ways to use points, for instance a donation to select charities can be executed in a matter of a few clicks through their website.

This card has received several awards for being the best travel card in the industry. For someone that wants to only carry one rewards card, the Starwood card is definitely the one to have. The annual fee is waived for the first year and $65 thereafter. This is actually a great deal when compared to airline credit cards.