What's the Starwood Corporate Rate Code List?
Starwood Hotels & Resorts is one of many big travel brands that negotiates a discount for a corporation's employees. If a company has a large footprint in the hotel area then the discount is likely to be bigger and the reverse is also true. If you're a corporate traveler, you can frequently benefit from cheaper stays at Starwood properties by booking your stay in advance online using a particular code. These rates are generally stated as strictly
only for corporate use by employees, who may well need relevant ID when checking in.
We recently published a list of Starwood corporate codes and compared those rates with booking on Starwood without a corporate code. Some codes only work with certain properties and on particular dates, so we wanted to try another test booking to see what kind of discount you can get elsewhere.
How do I use the Starwood Corporate Rate Code List?
If your organization has a preferred corporate account with Starwood, it's easy to add the code (also known as a 'SET number' or 'Starwood Preferred Guest Corporate Account number') to your online reservation.
Search the Starwood site for your hotel location and dates as usual and then once you've selected your property, you can enter the corporate code in the box marked 'SET/Corporate Account #' and click 'UPDATE':
You can only select four rates at one time, so if Starwood already selected four for you, you'll need to untick one so that you can add your corporate code.
You can check the rate rules and compare the room cost with the Best Flexible Rate for both Starwood Preferred Guest members and non-members.
For our tests, we chose one night at the
Aloft Beachwood near Ohio's Cleveland on March 21st, 2017. It comes out at $149 plus charges and taxes for the Flexible Rate or $146 plus charges and taxes for the flexible SPG member rate:
The results were very similar to our last test. Like last time, these two codes didn't bring up any corporate rates for our test:
However, these corporate codes all worked to give us a discount off the Flexible Rate for SPG members for our test booking:
- 260247 Cisco $112 - save 23% ($34)
- 17885 Harvard $119 - save 18% ($27)
- 9360 General Electric $122 - save 16% ($24)
- 66272 Macy's $122 - save 16% ($24)
- 57464 Accenture - $122 - save 16% ($24)
- 4313 IBM - $122 - save 16% ($24)
- 18000 IBM - $122 - save 16% ($24)
- 5232 PwC - $127 - save 13% ($19)
- 4899 Pfizer $127 - save 13% ($19)
- 4309 UPenn $127 - save 13% ($19)
- 253511 E&Y $127 - save 13% ($19)
- 10053 JnJ $127 - save 13% ($19)
- 30744 UTC $134 - save 8% ($12)
- 253568 APAC $134 - save 8% ($12)
- 2743 MSDW $134 - save 8% ($12)
- 5298 BMS $134 - save 8% ($12)
- 254797 Goldman $134 - save 8% ($12)
- 5105 HP $134 - save 8% ($12)
- 283335 CVS $134 - save 8% ($12)
- 8122 Ford $134 - save 8% ($12)
When using any of these following codes, this particular booking works out more expensive than the usual Flexible Rate for SPG members (but costs the same as the non-member flexible rate):
- 77377 Oracle $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 259552 ATK $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 7770781 Deloitte $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 2754 Deloitte $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 296011 DTV $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 59009 MSDW $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 281403 CPI $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 253151 MSFT $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 256810 BellSouth $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 5444 ATK $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 290717 IIDA $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
- 294237 Intuitive Surgical $149 - 2% more ($3 more)
Like in our last test, using this code gives us a way more expensive rate:
- 13717 Lufthansa / Hyatt / IBM $399 - a whopping 173% more ($253 more!)
What else do I need to know about the Starwood Corporate Rate Code List?
It's always useful to compare the corporate rate you're using with other rates on the Starwood website, so you can see exactly how much of a discount you're getting.
In our last comparison article, the biggest discount was
18% off the Best Flexible Rate for SPG members for a stay at the
Four Points by Sheraton Manhattan Chelsea on December 6th, 2016. In our new test booking, the biggest discount is slightly higher at
23% off for Cisco employees.
Most corporate codes gave us an 8% or 13% discount.
Don't assume that a corporate code is defunct if it doesn't work for your booking, as with this hotel brand it depends on several factors; your YMMV depending on the property, dates and availability, so if your travel plans are flexible, try another search with your company's corporate code. For instance, Oracle's code gave us a 13% discount in our last test, but in this test, the code gave us a rate that was 2% higher than SPG member rate.
Keep in mind that Starwood can be vigilant about codes being abused and if you try to check in without proof that you are entitled to use a corporate code, you could lose your place to stay or end up having to pay the rack rate instead!
