When you redeem for a Starwood Hotel using Cash & Points, have you noticed that the cash portion is always taxed? Well, now you can see the full tax breakdown on SPG.com. All you need to do is go into your reservation details and you should now see something like this:
As you can see, I redeemed cash & points for a Category 1 Starwood Hotel in Mexico. The Sheraton Monterrey cost me 1,500 Starpoints and $30 in cash. The tax portion is $5.40, so my total is really 1,500 Starpoints and $35.40 in cash. This is a new feature that I absolutely love because there are always hidden taxes. Last year at the Westin Excelsior in Rome, I was charged a whopping 20% in additional taxes to $150 (pre-devaluation) cash portion + 8,000 Starpoints. I thought this was neat of Starwood to display the full breakdown of taxes for the consumer.