Starwood Hotels in my opinion has one of the best hotel loyalty programs out there. From time to time they offer bonus awards for free nights and such, but a common gripe has been that to see how many or what bonuses you have qualified for, you have to give Starwood Preferred Guest a call. That is no longer the case!

An option now exists on your "My Account" page which lets you verify the awards you have earned, and the details about the award.

One current promo which is currently ongoing is the ability to earn a free weekend night after every two stays. These free nights are now listed on the "My Earned Awards" page. Now you might think that this would be easy to keep track of, but for a frequent traveler who has a membership in multiple programs, it can be very easy to forget about the awards you accumulate, or when they expire etcetera.

As an SPG member, I was also given a free weekend night award this spring, to use by the end of the year. That too is listed on my awards page, along with the pertinent info about the award, and when it will expire.

There are still a couple of minor downsides about these free nights, they still cannot be booked online, so you still have to call Starwood to make a reservation, but it is nice to talk to a human from time to time, so in all that isn't a bad thing. The other thing that would be nice, is to list how many stays you have for the promo, so you could in essence keep track of your half awards.

For instance I currently have 3 stays during the free weekend night promo. I have earned one free night for the first two stays, and only need one more stay to earn another free night. It would be nice if this were somehow reflected in the info available on the website.

Other than that, this is a great improvement for the SPG website, and I think that it show that Starwood is always looking for ways to improve the program, and the customer experience for all of their customers.

Which reminds me, I have a couple of free nights to book in Paris this September!

• Darren Mak's blog