Staying for Free

It's time to learn the other piece to the puzzle. Each one of us has a favorite hotel chain that we prefer to stay at. Whether it is Choice, Marriott, Hilton, Priority Club, or my favorite Starwood, there are many ways to earn hotel points.

My favorite credit card is the Starwood American Express. The first year there is no fee and after that it is $45. We pay all our monthly bills (cable, cell phone, storage units) with this card. I used this card to pay for my children's college education.

Except at restaurants, movies, theater tickets this is our card of choice. We use it for all our everyday living expenses (gas,supermarkets, drug stores).

In the past when we stayed in the city for a weekend we would pay for the room using our Starwood card. When we were looking at colleges or had to stay overnight for a bowling match, or a concert, we would pay. I decided that we would use the FREE nights to go on a real vacation, 5 nights at a beautiful resort. I could have used it for a FREE night stay but my logic was that if we had to stay somewhere overnight and there was no Starwood Hotel ( for a wedding,or a funeral, a match, a concert,parents weekend,etc.)we would be paying for it so I just implemented this for Starwood hotels as well.

I wanted to build up our Starwood accounts so we could use the starpoints for vacations we would only have dreamed of.

I wanted our FREE nights to be vacations not a trip. I hope you all understand the difference.

Our first free vacation was to Las Vegas, 2 free first class tickets and 5 nights at Caesar's Palace(which was then a Starwood resort).

We have had many other wonderful 5 night vacations all over the country.

There is a great promotion right now www.starwood.com to get the AMEX card. This card is great if you spend more than $15000 in a 6 month period. So if you can add up all your expenses I bet you spend $15000 in a 6 month period. The first time you use the card you will get 10000 starpoints then after you spend $15000 within a 6 month period you will get an additional 15000 starpoints so that will get you to over 40000 starpoints which is enough for a FREE trip somewhere.

There is a great resort in Puerto Rico that only requires 28000 starpoints for a 5 night stay. It is a category 3 hotel. There is a list of hotel categories on the Starwood web site.

Any time you use the Starwood card at a Starwood property or restaurant you will get double starpoints on your Amex card as well as double points because you will be a Starwood Preferred Guest.

Another great perk is the ability to transfer starpoints to airline miles. It is best to do this in increments of 20000 starpoints because Starwood will transfer 25000 strpoints (they give you 5000 for nothing) into your frequent flier account so you then have 25000 miles.

Starwood is having a great promotion now, pay for 2 stays(can be one night, 2 different times) and receive a FREE weekend night in any hotel category 1-6. That is one night in any major city worth $400-$600, or a beach resort. The room must be used by 9/27/09.

We booked a room in Orlando for $78 and a room in NYC for $152 so I will have a FREE night so we just might head down to Washington DC and stay in the St. Regis for a weekend. There is no way that I can afford to stay at a St. Regis if I had to pay for it. That's what makes this so much fun. We have stayed in resorts for FREE that I could never or would ever pay cash for.

When we got the Starwood Amex card with the above promotion I had to time it right, I knew I had 2 tuitions to pay in August and December so I got the card for the August tuition and then my husband got his to pay for the December tuition so we got the 40000 starpoints twice.

Those starpoints are being used for my 12 FREE nights in Italy.

I received an e-mail from a friend a few weeks ago, thanking me for telling her about the Starwood Amex card, she was e-mailing me while she was on her FREE vacation.

I prefer Starwood hotels and resorts but in future blogs I will discuss the other hotel chains.