Starwood Hotels and Resorts have a promotion in conjunction with MasterCard at hotels in Europe, Africa and the Middle East that offers tremendous value.
For a good few years now, if you stay at a participating hotel in those regions and pay with any MasterCard your rate may be eligible for a complimentary third or fourth night. This can become two free nights if you stay for six nights.
DOES IT WORK IN PRACTICE?
As always with promotions such as this one I reserve judgement until I see:
a) How many hotels are actually participating and
b) How easy it is to find dates where this promotion can be used.
So I did a few quick searches and I have to say I was impressed.
One of the participating hotels is the Prince de Galles, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Paris.
I took a look at a 3-night weekend stay in June:
As you can see from the screenshot above, the cheapest regular rate is EUR 827 per night for a total of EUR 2481 for the stay.
By using the Mastercard promo I would be paying a more expensive EUR 923 for the first two nights but paying a total of EUR 1846 – a saving of EUR 635!
I then had a look to see how easy it was to find availability for the ‘two free nights on a six-night stay’ version of this promotion.
I took a look at the Westin, Cape Town for a stay in June:
As you can see, the cheapest rate available at the hotel is ordinarily £190 per night for a total of £1,140.
In this instance using the MasterCard promo would cost me £196 for the first four nights for a total of £784 – a saving of £356!
HOW TO BOOK
You can check and book these rates by visiting this dedicated promotion page on the Starwood website.
There are several key details to note with this promotion:
- The room rate must be paid with a MasterCard
- Valid for bookings and stays until 1 June 2017 – although there is probably a good chance of this being extended as it has been on a rolling extension since 2014.
- Reservations using this promo are pre-paid and non-refundable.
For full T&C’s, see this page here.
VERDICT
In truth I haven’t come across this promotion in a while but while researching this piece I was reminded what excellent value it can offer. If you can make this work for you, it is clear just from the examples I have provided above that you can save £100’s if not £1,000’s.
I have a number of upcoming stays at Starwood properties where I will definitely be looking to use this deal if it is available.