This is perfect for the wanderluster. Whether you’ve already applied for the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express, or you’re still considering it, here’s a way to get started daydreaming. Starwood has an excellent browsing tool that allows you to filter their hotels by your interests.
Because it’s my nature, I like to see what kind of bang I can get for my buck, so my first test run was to see which were my favorite category 1 hotels. (Hotels I can book with as little as 2,000 points on the weekends, – 3,000 on weekdays).
Easily my favorite is the Le Meridien – Dead Sea, Israel. You don’t expect this kind of lush paradise in the desert of Israel, and you certainly don’t expect it for 2,000 points a night. One could launch an extraordinary adventure to some of the richest world heritage sites with this hotel as a home base.
Second on my list is the Chambersburg Four Points by Sheraton. It’s a very nice hotel, but what I like most is the area that it’s in. At 25 miles from Gettysburg, with Amish farms all around and Caledonia State park nearby, this would make for a great fall vacation.
Last, but not least is the new Aloft property in Zhengzhou, China. It’s opening on August 5th, so as you can imagine, it is extremely new and clean. Furthermore, it’s within reaching distance of Shaolin temple – one of the many sights in my long list of must-sees.
I can hardly believe that applying for a single card can get you 10-15 nights in these hotels, but it is blissfully, wanderlustfully true.
