Starwood Increases Online Security Protection on Customer Hotel Confirmation Numbers

There was a recent rash of threads on the Starwood Preferred Guest forum on Flyertalk concerning how Starwood handles customer privacy. One thread on Flyertalk talks about how a guest received his folio outside the door of his room with no envelope. In all my years of staying in Starwood Hotels, I have never seen a folio placed outside the door. Usually, the folio is slipped underneath the door in the middle of the night.

Another thread on Flyertalk has one Flyertalker concerned about notifying guests that Starwood posted their details online. When you book a hotel with Starwood, your confirmation details will look like this on a web browser:

https://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/reservations/review/
details.html?confirmationCancellationNumber=xxxxxxxx&requested
LastName=xxxxx&propertyID=1918

Your confirmation number will be shown and last name as well. Right now, Google is indexing those URL’s and the previously mentioned Flyertalker has been accessing customer details. He wants to notify the guests that Starwood has breached their privacy.

Today, Starwood’s IT team has responded and has shielded the confirmation number on the confirmation details page.

This is one step further in the right direction as it will make it harder for Google search engine to index these pages and reveal customer information.