I’ve written about the SPG Personal and SPG Business card in the past.  I have recently switched to collecting SPG points exclusively due to their extreme flexibility but the difficulty in my strategy is the inability to very quickly accumulate an SPG balance.
Well, that’s changed … at least until Oct0ber 18th, 2017.
For a limited time, both the SPG Personal and SPG Business card are offering increased sign-up bonuses of 25,000 SPG rather than the typical 20,000 SPG. Â This is exciting because, in the last 10 years, I have NEVER seen anything except a 20,000 sign up bonus.
This is SIGNIFICANT.
If you’ve been on the fence about these cards, now is the time to sign up!
Annual Fee
Unfortunately, the annual fees are not waived so you will still pay $120/yr for the SPG Personal Card and $150/yr for the SPG Business Card. Â In my opinion, the annual fee is easy to justify.
If we look at the CPM for these points, we can see the valuation is well under the 1¢/point for both the personal and business card:
SPG Personal Card CPM
CPM = Annual Fee / Points * 100
CPM = $120 / 25,000 * 100
CPM = 0.48¢/point
SPG Business Card CPM
CPM = Annual Fee / Points * 100
CPM = $150 / 25,000 * 100
CPM = 0.6¢/point
Minimum Spend Requirements
The Minimum Spend Requirements are the same for both the Personal and Business card at $1,500 spend in the first 3 months. Â I would prefer not to have a minimum spend but $1,500 is fairly easy to achieve in 3 months.
Why Get the Business Card?
People get the SPG Business Card mostly because they already have the Personal Card. Â If you don’t have either, I would apply for both so that you can get 50,000 SPG points for $270 out of pocket ($120 Annual Fee + $150 Annual Fee).
SPG Transfer Bonuses
Remember that when you transfer SPG points to an airline program, you receive a 5,000 point bonus for every tranche of 20.000 points transferred.
For example, if you transferred 20,000 SPG to Aeroplan, you would receive 25,000. Â Transferring 40,00 SPG? Â Expect to get 50,000 Aeroplan.
There are no limits to how often you can get that transfer bonus.
Apply Now
I’ll be honest.  You can find this offer on the American Express page but if you apply through my referral, it really helps keep the blog going.  You’ll notice that there are no ads on this site so my only source for paying for upkeep on the site is your use of my referral links.  So if you plan on applying, I would very much appreciate if you could help support the blog 🙂
Hi Jayce,
I just wanted to let you know that when I click on the link on this page it takes me to what looks like the regular AMEX card info page (non referral) but if I click on the link from your SPG business AMEX (credit card review series) it specifies that it’s a referral. I’m not sure if that’s correct or if it needs to be changed. I plan on applying for one via your link. Thanks!
Thanks Danny!
I fixed the link. The proper URL for the referral is https://bit.ly/PointsNerdSPG25K. Thanks for your support! It means a lot!
Cheers
Jayce
Hey Jayce,
Been enjoying your site and am also going to apply using your link. A lot of great info, especially from fellow Calgarian point of view ;-). Please keep it up!!
Thanks very much Jay! Much appreciated
Cheers
Jayce
Hi Jayce! I read on Flyertalk that it can be challenging to get applications approved for both SPG and Marriott cards if you have applied for other cards in the last three months. (This is despite having excellent credit scores above 750.) Any insights or thoughts on this?
Hi Sam,
I have not heard of this being an issue. Scotiabank (purchased Chase’s Canadian Credit portfolio in 2015) offers the Marriott card and AMEX offers the SPG card. The two are unrelated and would not share information as they are competitors.
You may be confused with being approved for both cards if you are an American. This is because Chase has much more stringent rules for card approvals and have the 5/24 rule, meaning you can’t get a Chase card (with exception) if you have had 5 or more cards opened in the past 24 months.
Long story short, there is no problem with having both cards in Canada. Apply away! Cheers
Jayce
With the SPG points category 1 and 2 there are not many hotels in that range. They start at 3 which is 7000 points. Agent says they are far and few to find. Is this your experience.
Hi Gladys,
I would have to say that the agent you spoke to is very much uninformed. SPG boasts 111 Category 1 and 208 Category 2 hotels, which makes up 20% of their total hotel inventory. Now, it will completely depend on where you are going and the level of luxury you want but there are definite gems in Category 1 and 2 hotels.
For example, Le Meridien in Cairo is an amazing value being a Category 1 hotel – https://www.starwoodhotels.com/lemeridien/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1807&language=en_US
Now most people don’t base their travel on finding the best value redemption in hotels but if you wanted to, you could certainly do so and find that you could stay for 8 nights at a Category 1 hotel for what amounts to one credit card sign-up (SPG Personal is currently offering a 25,000 SPG sign-up bonus). That’s unreal value!
Same goes for Category 2. If you’re visiting the unbelievable ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, why not stay at a Le Meridien for 4,000 SPG points? Again, unreal value in a beautiful hotel – https://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/property/overview/index.html?language=en_US&propertyID=1825
Also remember that SPG offers the 5th night free if you book 4 award nights in a row. So in my example for a Category 1 hotel, you actually stay for 10 nights total AND still have 1,000 SPG left over … all for a single credit card sign up! Crazy right?
If you want to see what hotels are in each category, go to SPG’s site at https://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/directory/hotels/all/list.html?display=hotels&language=en_US&pageType=list®ionName=all