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Staying at Starwood’s new Tribute collection property, the Great Northern Hotel, was an awesome way to kick off my London layover. Not only was the hotel located right by St. Pancras Station, where I would catch my Eurostar train to Paris, I was also able to score an elite upgrade from a Couchette room to a Cubitt room, named in honor of the hotel’s architect — elite upgrades are one of the things I’m worried about once the Marriott merger happens, so fingers crossed! Thanks to my Starwood Platinum Elite status, I was also able to snag free breakfast, which normally would have cost $40 per person.
When I stayed there last fall, the property was still a Category 5 hotel and rates were from $325 or 12,000 Starpoints for a one-night stay, a value of 2.7 cents per point. I always try to get at least 2.5 cents per point in value, so this was a pretty good deal at the time. Starwood usually updates and adjusts its hotel categories every year in March, so make sure to lock in this year’s rates before then for next year’s trips if you can. Rates at the now-Category 6 Great Northern Hotel start at about $215 or 20,000 Starpoints per night in May, so depending on your dates it may make more sense to pay cash than redeem points.
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We grabbed some drinks at the Free Range People Café before enjoying a delicious dinner at Duck & Waffle. The food was great and we were able to enjoy amazing views of the city below from our perch on the 40th floor of Heron Tower. I made sure to pay with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card so I’d earn 2x the points on dining — it was nice not having to worry about racking up pesky foreign transactions fees, too.
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Source: thepointsguy.com