The bad news is the hotels going up are concentrated in the upper tiers while hotels going down are

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Starwood cheap hotels chicago downtown Preferred Guest announced hotel category changes for reward nights effective March 1, 2012. The net effect is something like 138 hotels will drop in category level while 183 hotels rise in category level.
Update March 15, 2012: The tables cheap hotels chicago downtown here were based on the initial February 16 release of SPG category changes in a pdf. I copied those changes into a spreadsheet. Several of the hotels showing category changes in these tables were removed from the final change list. Starwood Lurker cheap hotels chicago downtown on FlyerTalk stated March 2 that the initial pdf was outdated.
The numbers shown in this post may be off by a couple of hotels compared to the Starwood pdf. There are some hotels listed on the Starwood pdf of category changes that are no longer in the system (Syria) or exiting the Starwood family soon (Le Meridien Cancun). cheap hotels chicago downtown Four Points Seattle is shown as a change rising from category 2 to category 3, yet that hotel already is listed as category 3 on the SPG site.
The bad news is the hotels going up are concentrated in the upper tiers while hotels going down are primarily in lower tiers. This means that many resorts and high priced urban hotels will cost more points while many Sheraton and Four Points hotels already in the lower tiers will cost even less as of March 1.
There are currently 27 SPG category 1 hotels cheap hotels chicago downtown worldwide. For several years now I have stated each year that SPG category 1 is being emptied as the proportion of hotels dropped from around 20% of the global chain to less than 3% in the past decade.
The good news is the March 1, 2012 changes are repopulating SPG Category 1 as 17 hotels drop down from category 2 while only 3 hotels rise out of the lowest category 1 to category 2. There will be 41 hotels in SPG category cheap hotels chicago downtown 1 as of March 1, 2012.
The real impact of shifting up to category 5 is the addition of peak season rates. The SPG changes mean about 10% of Starwood hotels globally will be added to category 5 and be subject to peak season rates. Not all Starwood high category hotels have peak season rates, however, many of the category 5 hotels currently have as many as 16 weeks of the calendar year at peak season rates. This can be an increase from 10,000 points per night to 16,000 points per night in the new category.
Sheraton Sofia Bulgaria is a Category 2 Luxury Collection Hotel. 26,000 points for 7 nights. Sounds cheap hotels chicago downtown like a deal to me. I d love to see Sofia. Magnificent cultural history to delve into with time to relax in the big city.
San Francisco hotels all rise to category 5 and this change fits with fact that San Francisco had some of the highest rate hikes of any city in the U.S. for 2011. The increased rates kept me out of the city most of the past year.
Westin Riverfront Mountain Villas Beaver Creek in Avon, Colorado rising to Category 6 is a real drag, especially for summer travel. This Starwood Vacation Ownership property will be a poor redemption value outside of peak ski season. This resort was peak season all summer 2011. The Westin Riverfront hotel resort will remain at category 5.  This area typically has relatively low priced summer rates around $200 or less per night and favors spending cash rather than points.
@rob there may be a limited number of weeks, but it has to be higher than 12 weeks. There are hotels that had more than 12 weeks of peak season in 2011. Looks like a few hotels had at least 15 to 16 weeks of peak season in category 5.
After researching this on FlyerTalk I learned that several hotels listed here as going down a category actually did not drop. Starwood Lurker stated March 2 the initial pdf of SPG category changes was outdated and he requested SPG publish a new list of hotel category changes. There are even mistakes in the new list.
I will create a new set of tables to reflect the current SPG pdf of changes. There are probably a dozen or more hotels that need to be changed in my tables. Here are the hotels mentioned on FlyerTalk that changed from the initial SPG pdf and therefore are incorrect in my tables.
[...] was notified there were category changes inconsistent with my Feb 21 Loyalty Traveler post Analysis of SPG Hotel Category Changes March 1, 2012. Then reading the FlyerTalk cheap hotels chicago downtown thread again pointed out the hotels cheap hotels chicago downtown listed in this [...]
[...] changes for 2012 took effect on March 1, 2011. 183 hotels went up and 138 went down. My LT post "Analysis of SPG Hotel Category Changes March 1, 2012" (Feb 21, 2012) has a list ordered by city, state and country for [...]
I am really surprised no one has commented about the points increases. They are OUTRAGEOUS!. For example, last year the Maui Ocean Villas, a timeshare resort, was 12,000 points per night. Now it is a category 6 hotel which is 20,000 points per night (on par with the St Regis brand). Now the peak season rate is 25,000 points a night compared to 12,000 a year ago. That is over a 50% increase in points for a free night. They are doing this peak season cheap hotels chicago downtown rate with most of the hotels I say in. This once great program, has lost it s value in my mind. I will no longer recommmend it.
[...] changesfor 2012 took effect on March 1, 2012. 183 hotels went up and 138 went down. My LT post "Analysis of SPG Hotel Category Changes March 1, 2012" (Feb 21, 2012) has a list ordered by city, state and country for [...]
[...] changesfor 2012 took effect cheap hotels chicago downtown on March 1, 2012. 183 hotels went up and 138 went down. My LT post "Analysis of SPG Hotel Category Changes March 1, 2012" (Feb 21, 2012) has a list ordered by city, state and country for [...]