Adjustment to Starwood categories?

[azhoopsfan]

Doesn't Starwood typically adjust the categories of their properties this time of year?  Last year, more went down than up.  Any news as to whether there are changes coming this year and whether there will be advance warning? 

[Mikeoracle]

So far the official word from Starwood is that they will not be changing any categories this year.

[Dan]

Correct, there won't be any adjustments this year and there will be no peak-season award pricing at Cat 5+ either.

[ChaimB]

 Basically they raised the amount of pts needed, how so since when the rates were going up they kept increasing the Cat the Hotels were = needing more pts for the same Hotel and that was understandable. Now that the rates have come down almost across the board they should have lowered the Cats but they didnt so in affect we have to use more pts then we would have a few yrs ago when the rates were as low as they are now.

 I read elsewhere that SPG decided to use a different formula to decide what the Cat should be, all of a sudden when they know they need to lower almost every Hotel they decide that the formula that worked so Great till now and allowed them to raise the Cats like crazy when the rates were going thru the roof is no longer a good one to use any longer. give me a brake. A very nice way to hide and cover up that you are really raising the rates by leaving the Hotels at a Cat that is higher then it should be according to the way for yrs they decided on what cat each Hotel should be

[ChaimB]

 I understand that Gritti Palace in Venice went from a 7 to a 6, and even better the Westin in Rome went from a 6 to a 5

 So maybe little by little here and there , there will be some nice savings to be had. For the Westin that means 12k instead of 20k and if you can score C&P then youd save some pts and $$ as well = $90 instead of $150

 Saw both of these mentioned on FlyerTalk