Premise
Sometimes you don’t know exactly where you’re going, or where you need to find a hotel. Perhaps you’re driving from one side of the country to another, or driving through several states and only have a rough idea, with a wide range of hotel possibilities all over the map.
What to do? If you’re like me, with SPG points to spare, you can search their Global Starwood Preferred Guest Hotel Map to find destinations along your route!
Likewise, you can search the North American Map by filtering specifically for North America, or clicking here. It is a complete list of every single Starwood Property, of all categories, types, and in all locations. It includes all new and upcoming hotels, and you can view in a list, detail, or map form. Today we will be focusing on the Starwood Map View, which is the most informational and useful (in my opinion).
Map Example
I was planning a trip from Newark, NJ, to Ithaca, NY, and knew that at some intermediate point I would need a hotel for the evening. By plotting a course on Google Maps, I can see which highways, cities, and towns I would be driving through, which allows me to zoom in accordingly on the Starwood map and identify a Starwood hotel to book (a Four Points in Scranton, PA). It’s incredibly efficient and easy to use, especially if you don’t immediately know all the cities or points of interest along the way – so long as you can read a map!, this tool will be useful.
Details
This is very handy and similar to the capabilities of Waze where it can locate points of interest such as specific restaurants or gas stations, with a minimum distance off the planned route. Additionally, you can test the distance in Google Maps by inserting the hotel as an intermediate point between your start and finish, and see by how much does the time or distance increase. This is especially helpful if you have more than one hotel which may lie close to or on your desired route. You can see below my addition of the hotel, adding a few minutes to my travel time.
Filtering
Furthermore, this resource is useful due to its filtering capabilities. The examples above were based on travel within the US, but you can remove the filters to search globally, as well as dive deeper in on specific countries or states and provinces. This is useful if you’re searching for hotels in a general region (ex: something an hour or two west of Destination). By aligning your travel route with google maps, you can quickly identify which hotels would fit the necessary criteria.
Additional filtering options are available:
- Hotel Type & Amenities – Are pets allowed? Is there a pool? Indoor or outdoor pool?
- Hotel Brand – Say you’re chasing their brand promotion of 10,000 SPG points if you stay at all 11 brands. You can filter by which brand you want and the map will update accordingly.
- SPG Category – This one is key for me, if you’re all about the category 1’s and 2’s! If you’re paying with points and only have a certain amount, this can help you accordingly.
- Keyword Search – Search by hotel name. Perhaps you had an excellent time at a specific hotel in that region, and you can search by keyword in this section.
Please note that at this time I was unable to select multiple categories or selections among the hotel type, amenities, or brand. I could only select one at a time (which is ultimately not very useful, if you want to search for say all hotels in a state category five and below (for those valuable Free Night Awards).
I would recommend filtering only by region to the specific country or state that you are targeting, which would give you the widest options available. From there you can select the specific hotels to learn more and book. There are similar systems for the other major hotel chains, but if you’re like me and all about the SPG, this resource will be one you use again and again.
Things to Note
Because of the vast level of detail and number of hotels, the site may freeze, and require a refresh. It is very slow to load at times, and is not for all uses – only for long distance travel, otherwise it would be more efficient to search by state on the main Starwood page, and switch to a map view. There is also a complete list view and detail view, but I find the list (with just the name, location, and booking links) to be not particularly useful. Detail view is useful for a quick search by category (which ones would be best to redeem for points?)
There is also a similar resource for Resorts at Starwood – but since they are a subsection of the Complete hotel list, I prefer that instead.
Take a look at the Starwood Hotel Map, tinker with it, and use it if it suits you! It has come through for me several times.
Featured Image from Starwood Website.
Have a comment or question? Feel free to post below in the comments, or reach me directly at TheHotelion@gmail.com! Like my posts? See more here, on TravelUpdate! Follow me on Facebook (The Hotelion) or on Twitter and Instagram: @TheHotelion
