I Love Declining Housekeeping for 500 Starwood Points

As you may know, I’m a huge die hard Starwood fan and almost all of my stays this year has been in Starwood hotels. I’m a 50 night SPG Platinum member and I’m only a few nights away from re-qualifying for SPG Platinum 50 again so I could obtain 10 Suite Night Awards next year. Almost all of my stays are for a single night which means I like to hotel hop whenever I get the chance so I can try out different properties within the Starwood portfolio.

Last week, I stayed at the Sheraton Presidente San Salvador hotel for three nights and four days on a cash and points rate. It was one of those rare stays where I had consecutive nights at the same hotel. Life is so much simpler when you’re at the same hotel. Whenever I enter a hotel room, I immediately hang the ‘Do Not Disturb” sign on the door knob. I don’t want anyone entering my room for any reason unless I am expecting something such as room service, welcome amenity, or items requested by telephone.

Whenever it comes to housekeeping, I never let them in to service my room because I am afraid of my belongings being shifted and personal items going ‘missing’. It may just be me, but I don’t trust anyone whenever I’m traveling. I love that Sheraton and Westin hotels have the option to “Make a Green Choice” and decline housekeeping. The incentive for making a green choice and declining housekeeping is 500 bonus Starpoints or a $5 voucher per occurrence.

Obviously, you can’t decline housekeeping for one night stays, but I always hang it up anyway just in case I get a $5 voucher accidentally slipped under my door 😉 . The catch is that you must hang the “decline housekeeping’ sign on your door knob before 2am, but I always hang it in conjunction with the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign right as I enter my room for the first time. When you wake up in the morning, you should see a $5 hotel voucher that looks something like this:

makeagreenchoice

The $5 voucher has a lot of exclusions and can’t be applied to the room rate, but 500 Starpoints is worth much more. I value 500 Starpoints to be worth at least $10 at 2 cents per point (cpp) and I often redeem Starpoints for more than 3cpp. The hotel wants you to use the $5 voucher so you can spend it at the restaurant and pay the difference, but don’t let them fool you. Instead, turn in all your $5 vouchers at the end of your stay during check out for 500 Starpoints each.

During my three night stay, I declined housekeeping twice which earned me a total of 1,000 Starpoints which I value at a minimum of $20.

makegreenchoice

I love declining housekeeping for 500 Starpoints each and every time. Do you?

 

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Points Summary
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2 Comments on "I Love Declining Housekeeping for 500 Starwood Points"

  1. I totally do that too. It feels like if you stayed at Category 1 hotels that you could ALMOST combine this with some of the other benefits to get “free” nights… 🙂

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