Best Western Rewards - Awaiting summer airline promo

If anyone notices the return of what has been an annual summer bonus - 1500 miles per $100 travel cards bought - could you send me a PM? I am trying to pay attention myself but I will be working a lot of long days in the next few weeks and by the end of the day I just forget to check. IIRC in the past it has started some time in June and goes to end of August.

Thx!

Woohoo! Love it, the 1500 miles for $100 promo is back! RTW ticket here I come! :D

just spent $1200 to buy up (40,000)miles for our latest F RTW 2x120,000mls paid 0.03c per mile wish id found this deal could have saved few$$ say $1000 card=15,000mls could have saved $450 !!!

Beware! In my experience, $100 BW Travel Cards are worth a bit less than $100 (maybe $90ish or so if you need two stays to use one card up).

Reason: You can't use them for any rates that require prepayment (even though the rates the require prepayment can usually be used often right up to the day of check-in, and thus after the cancellation date for other rates has typically passed!). This is because you can't enter the Travel Card as a form of payment online, and on prepaid rates you can't change the payment method once you get to the hotel.

On stays I book with my BW MC, I almost always use a prepaid rate (whether the Internet Speical rate, or the Manager's special which is what you get through most of the promo codes mentioned in other threads here). To not use those, I have to pay several dollars more a night.

(I go so far sometimes as to book another rate days ahead, and then if the prepaid rate is still avialable right before the cancellation deadline of the other rate, I'll book the room again again with the prepaid rate, and cancel the other reservation with the higher non-prepaid rate. After the cancellation deadline, there's not much difference between a prepaid rate and a non-prepaid rate.)

To me, that's several dollars I lost by using a Travel Card instead of using a regular credit card.

And since the hotel iddn't cost the full $100 (for a one-night stay), that'll happen again on the stay I do to use up the rest of the card. So several dollars tijmes two!

So I suggest you make sure, at the very least, that what you earn (bonus points or bonus miles) are worth having to pay for a slightly higher rate (if in your case also a "prepaid" rate is what you'd otherwise use).

Of course, if you happen to stay at a hotel which doesn't have any prepaid rates (not even with special discount codes) that are lower than non-prepaid rates, in that case there's no "penalty" for using a Travel Card. Unfortunately, in my area, that's never the case at the most affordable BW hotels.

Here's the link for the BW Travel Card/Air Miles Promo going on from June 1 to August 31, 2011.

http://travelcard.bestwestern.com/travelcard/promotion/airlinebonus11.jsp

Airlines listed are:
Aeroplan
AirMiles
Alaska
American
Continental
Delta
Southwest
USAir

Note that the amount of air miles earned varies depending on the airline. For example, a $50 Travel Card earns 500 AA miles. On USAir, it takes a $100 Travel Card to earn 500 US miles.

Could anyone please explain how a "virtual" Travel Card is used in real life? Btw. if I book a hotel for $100 and pay my stay with these Travel Cards, will I still get an invoice for $100 or for $0? Any experience how many AA miles will I get for a €100 card? Any experience with regard to FX rate applied if I buy USD card and will pay the bill in EUR?

Could anyone please explain how a "virtual" Travel Card is used in real life? Btw. if I book a hotel for $100 and pay my stay with these Travel Cards, will I still get an invoice for $100 or for $0? Any experience how many AA miles will I get for a €100 card? Any experience with regard to FX rate applied if I buy USD card and will pay the bill in EUR?

At checkout you have the option of how you would like the 'card' delivered. If you choose email or print, presumably you get a voucher to present at the hotel instead of a card that you would need to wait to have delivered by mail etc.

As for FX, I believe you have the option to purchase in EUR from the outset.

Could anyone please explain how a "virtual" Travel Card is used in real life? Btw. if I book a hotel for $100 and pay my stay with these Travel Cards, will I still get an invoice for $100 or for $0? Any experience how many AA miles will I get for a €100 card? Any experience with regard to FX rate applied if I buy USD card and will pay the bill in EUR?
As I noted above, you can't enter the card numbers online (whether you have a physical card or a virtual card). You have to guarnatee you reservation with a normal credit card. You can, if you wish, alert the hotel in the notes that you'll be actually paying with a travel card, but I don't know if that makes any difference or not.

At checkin, I typically have to give them a copy of the printout of the virtual travel card email, and they need to keep that printout because it takes them a while to process it. Then in the morning (these are one-day stays in my case) if it's all on the travel card there's nothing charged to the credit card. But obviously, you may not use up a travel card "exactly", and so eventually you will likely have a stay where you use up a travel card and the remainder is paid with the credit card you used in the reservation process.

... Gotta go, I'm off to a BW tonight where I'm going to use up the small remaining portion of the virtual travel card I used for one stay already!