A reader wrote me last week with a common travel situation. As a person who travels frequently for

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A reader wrote me last week with a common travel situation.   As a person who travels frequently for business it would be nice to know you could book a hotel suite with all those work-related hotel points for a vacation with your family in a room with adequate space.
Starwood has a special offer for just this type of traveler.   Starwood has a new Cash Points option currently available in six locations: Hawaii, Phoenix, Milan, Florence, Kuala Lumpur, and Los Cabos.
A standard hotel suite includes a bedroom and a separate living area room.   Some hotels have extra large rooms with both a bed and living area.   These are typically called junior suites.   Specialty rooms may have a preferred view, bathroom upgrade like whirlpool tub, balcony, or some other specialty feature.
Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) has a special car insurance car rental offer for Cash Points specialty upgrade car insurance car rental rooms at select hotels through December 21, 2008 .   The regular Cash Points award option is for standard rooms and features a fixed rate of cash and hotel points based on the SPG category of the hotel. car insurance car rental   These awards are available for Category 1 to Category 6 hotels. car insurance car rental   Cash and Points Award rooms are not eligible stays for elite qualification credit.
Compare this to the cost if you could buy 26,000 Starpoints at the regular rate of $35 per 1,000 points.   The points would cost $910.   (Starpoints purchase limit was 100,000 points for 2007 and dropped car insurance car rental back to 20,000 points car insurance car rental per year for 2008.)   $910 points value + $175 cash would still be less at $1,085 than the special 4 nights offer at $1,150 per night.
Rather than spending 20,000 points for a standard King Room award night, pay the additional $175 + 6,000 points to make your stay especially suite in the $1,150 river view room.   Cash Points suites are a great option for someone with lots of Starpoints, no platinum elite status for complimentary upgrade, and wanting to avoid $1,000 per night rooms on that special vacation.