A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to book an Spg Moments event which I had been meaning to book for quite a while: Tickets for 2 at a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field at the SPG luxury Suite, foods and drinks included.

If you are not familiar with SPG Moments, it is an auction and awards redemptions site hosted by Starwood Preferred Guest, one of my favorite points currency, where you can redeem your points for high-end, hard-to-get tickets to different sports, musical and other cultural events. Some of the events such as the most recent Major League Baseball All-Star game are run as an auction where the winning bid can sometimes end up being pretty high, while others are fixed price. The Cubs game suite, while it has gone up in price in the past couple of years, was a fixed price of 25,000 points, which I thought was a great value for watching a Cubs game at Wrigley, something I’ve always wanted to do due to the 103-year history of the ballpark. Wrigley Field is a must-do for every baseball fan.

If you’re planning on redeeming for this event, it is advisable to purchase it as soon as the events page is up. Weekend and high demand games such as Cardinals vs. Cubs tend to sell fast. I was able to purchase one of a handful of available packages for their Saturday July 8th 6:15 p.m. game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and flew in the same morning for the game. I took my brother with me as my +1.

We got to the ballpark about an hour before first pitch because we wanted to walk around and check out the ballpark. We wanted to give ourselves plenty of time as the traffic around the ballpark can get crazy. Our tickets were held at the VIP Will Call window, just to the left of the landmark Wrigley Field red banner behind home plate. Just make sure you have an ID to pick up the tickets. Once picked up, the VIP entrance is just to the right of the Will Call window.

I wasn’t sure whether we could use that entrance, so I just went in and asked “Am I a VIP?” Luckily with the suite tickets we did have VIP admission and skipped the lines and saved a few minutes of waiting.

After getting in we walked around a bit and took some pictures.

I love visiting old ballparks, which are a time capsule of sorts as they looked 80-100 years ago, minus renovations, of course.

We then headed for the suites area, which is accessible through several ramps up to a catwalk down the base lines.

It was interesting to walk down the corridor reading the names of the companies that have suites at the ballpark.

The SPG suite is #37, and the location is one of the best ones, right behind home plate. When we arrived we met Josh, an SPG Ambassador whose assignment is to show up before the games, make sure everything is set up and mingle with the guests until the game is over. Really nice guy I hope you have a chance to meet if you ever do this event. I asked whether they were accepting applications for that job. Tough gig I tell ya.

The suite is small, but most of us spent little time in the indoor portion of the suite and instead sat on the three rows of four seats each on the outdoor balcony and just went back and forth getting food and drinks and chatting with Josh about SPG and fantasy baseball.

Food and drinks were included, and they were excellent for ballpark food standards. They had typical fare such as hotdogs, veggies tray, popcorn and pretzels and a fruit tray. They also had catered a tray of pulled pork and buns, which I tried and found to be very good.

For drinks they had a small fridge with a selection of soft drinks, water, beer and wine. We stuck with the local beer, Goose Island 312 and Goose Island IPA.

The bathrooms are just outside and they are shared with other suites. They were kept clean and had no lines.

The view was fantastic, as good as you can get, and given Wrigley Field’s history and the icons who have played there, I was like at kid at a candy store.

It is also a great place to plane spot as the air traffic directs on the direction of left field going in and out of ORD.

There are monitors throughout the ceiling so you can watch instant replay, but with the scoreboard being so large and facing our seats they are not really needed.

One of the best things of the event was the dessert cart, which they roll by each suite and you have different options to choose from, although we were asked not to order any liquor with the desserts as SPG would be billed for it separately.

It was great to be shielded from the sun, and the weather outside was awesome for a typical Chicago July evening. Unfortunately the Cubbies lost 4-2.

Josh also told us that if we were posting pictures on social media, SPG would love if we could use the hashtag #SPGLife, and although it was not required we were happy to do it. A few days after the event I also received a short survey asking for feedback on our event and asking how the Moments experience could be improved, and I shared my thoughts about the program.

Overall Impression:

This was a fantastic redemption if you ever have a chance to experience a game this way. I would definitely recommend doing it and it was a great use of 25,000 SPG points. While SPG points are a currency I try to hoard as much as possible and redeem for flights and hotels, this is a good one if you are a baseball fan. You can have a look at the SPG Moments page for other events you can redeem your SPG points for.

The is a post from FreeTravelGuys.