Dear Alex,
I want to boost my points for Starwood’s SPG loyalty programme so I have chosen to book the Grosvenor House West Marina Beach hotel in Dubai. This property is linked to the Le Méridien chain, which in turn, is part of the Starwood hotel group.
But according to the Starwood website, this property does not participate in SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest). Almost all the other Le Méridien hotels around the world accept SPG members and give benefits, so I wonder why this particular one does not.
I asked SPG’s office in Cork, Ireland for an explanation but nobody was able to tell me. Can you help?
Andrew Bracewell, London, UK
Alex replies: Dubai is an anomaly. Six out of the eight Le Méridien properties in the city state do not participate in SPG, so members cannot earn or redeem points. According to a spokeswoman for Starwood: “Under the terms of the deal, when Starwood acquired Le Méridien in 2001, it was agreed that the SPG programme would not be enforced and that participation in the programme is at the discretion of the individual hotels.”
So I guess the reason here is that the owner of these particular Le Méridien properties is not prepared to fund the cost of joining SPG. The owner may believe, rightly or wrongly, that the SPG programme doesn’t add value to these hotels.
Hotel owners in the Gulf carry a lot of clout with their management company (most international properties in Dubai are managed and not owned by the hotel chain) and they can do things which, in other areas of the world, they might not get away with. For example, from my own experience, a Dubai hotel owner can even dictate what is served for breakfast.
