Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express Review
|
Editor's Rating:
|
Intro Purchase APR | Regular APR | Intro Balance Transfer | Annual Fee | Credit Needed |
N.A. | $0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $65 | Excellent |
Summary - The Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Business Credit Card from American Express is a great credit card not just for Starwood Preferred Guest members, but also to those who would like to earn frequent flyer miles with this card. Find out more about this card.
How You Earn StarPoints - For every dollar that you spend at Starwood Hotels, you will earn double points from Amex. Starwood will also give you double points. If you are a preferred elite member, you will earn triple points from Starwood. That means you could earn up to 5 points for every dollar that you spend on the card with your card. For other regular purchases, you get 1 Starpoint® for every dollar of eligible purchases
Sign Up Bonus - New cardholders will earn up to 25,000 Starpoints®: Receive 10K after your first purchase, and another 15K when you spend $5,000 in 6 months-enough for up to 6 free nights at a Category 1 or 2 hotel
Key Features of Starwood Preferred Guest Program - The Starwood Preferred Guest program has the least restrictive award redemption policy. There are no blackout dates, unlike most other hotel reward programs. Starwood Preferred Guest also allow members to exchange points for air miles (see chart below that was taken from Starwood's site). You even get an additional 5,000 points if you transfer 20,000 points into air miles. Hence, many Starwood credit cardholders simply use this card for air miles. If all you do is spend $20,000 on your card (without spending a single cent at starwood hotels), you can convert your 20,000 points into frequent flyer points. With Starwood topping it up with 5,000 points, that means you you can get a free airline ticket for a economy class roundtrip within the continental US with most airlines.
If you do not want to exchange points for air miles, you can use your starwood points for for flights if you book with Starwood. This program is called starflights. With starflights, you need a fixed amount of points to redeem for an airline ticket with value within a certain range. As most credit card reward program do not offer this feature, it becomes even more valuable.
Open Savings - As part of the OPEN Savings network, cardholders can get discounts from OPEN merchant partners. If you look carefully, you will realize that Marriott Hotels is one of OPEN's partners. That means you will get 5% discounts when you use the Starwood Card to pay for a Marriott Hotel stay!
Verdict - We recommend the Starwood Preferred Guest(R) Business Credit Card from American Express to the business owner who stays frequently at Starwood Hotels or who wants to earn frequent flyer points with a credit card.