Starwood released a promotion earlier this month targeting couples who are getting married, offering them 3 points per US$ spent up to 150,000 SPG points for booking their wedding celebrations at a participating Starwood property by July 1, 2014 and getting hitched before March 31, 2015. Promotion is valid across the Asia Pacific, with few hotels as exceptions. In India, all Starwood properties apart from ITC Mughal, ITC Kakatiya, Le Meredien New Delhi, The Westin Gurgaon and The Westin Sohna Resort & Spa are excluded.

There are two ways of getting SPG points in this promotion:

• Wedding banquet (food, beverage and function room rental) contract must be signed with the hotel between 1 March and 1 July 2014, and wedding must be conducted between 1 March 2014, and 31 March 2015. The member is eligible to earn three (3) Starpoints for every eligible one dollar (US$1) of contracted wedding banquet charges up to a maximum of 150,000 Starpoints, with no minimum spend requirement to qualify. Eligible charges exclude taxes, gratuities and service charges. Eligible wedding banquet charges include, but are not limited to, food and beverage service and function room rental fees. Guest room charges are not eligible to earn the bonus Starpoints as part of the wedding offer. Starpoints cannot be earned on purchases made or charges incurred via outside or contracted suppliers.
• Referral bonus of 20,000 Starpoints can only be earned by one person who is an active member of and in a good standing with the SPG programme or the Starwood Preferred Planner® (SPP) programme. Travel agents, tour operators and other third parties who receive a commission on the wedding booking are not eligible for the Starpoints referral bonus. If multiple people have referred the wedding couple to the hotel, the wedding couple must select one referring entity for the Starpoints bonus. The entity must be identified by the wedding couple by the time the wedding banquet contract is signed. The bonus Starpoints for the referring entity will be posted to the member’s SPG account within 4-6 weeks after the final payment (if multiple payments are required) or full payment for the wedding is made to the hotel.

Of course, when you go and scour for properties, each Starwood property may be able to offer you more or less on top of this promotion. One salient feature I find missing is the ability to earn some points for guest rooms booked, for which there are other ways around as well.

I find this a handsome promotion for those of you who may choose to partake (and get married in the process) for two reasons:

• It gives you the opportunity to earn Starpoints, which is one of the best hotel loyalty currency around, and if you’re spending a lot of money here hosting a big fat Indian wedding, you’re going to earn a lot of points.
• For once, the stimulation is better than the American market, which gets 1 point per $3 spent on weddings at a Starwood property.

If you have questions, or need a referral from a Starwood Preferred Planner, please leave me a comment, and I will be happy to help further. And this might just be the reason for you single people to get hitched!! Do it for the points!

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