
At the beginning of 2016, one of our savviest of peeps opened her email from Starwood Preferred Guest to find that she had been awarded Gold Status for this calendar year. Most people would be ecstatic. But for a person who is on a first name basis with front desk managers at Starwood hotels up and down the eastern seaboard, and counts SPG points in her sleep – Gold Status was not an option. Our girl carefully crafted every vacation and business trip to make every single one of her 25 stays and 50 nights count in 2015. But they only counted 24 stays and 47 nights.