Best Western Rewards - SPRING12 promo: 3 stays Feb 6 - Apr 8, 2012 earns free night voucher exp Jun 30

This is the general SPRING12 version of the promo (copied from my Register for Special Offers list). There are also endless variations for AAA, etc.

Please note: I cannot yet find a web page for this, and in the last promo, the web page listed more aspects to the offer (additional bonus points if you did this or that) that were never spelled out in the Register for Special Offers writeup of that promo. So until we see the web page for this new promo, I would suggest you hold off on registering since you may want to wait to see which version of the promo is better, in case there are differences between them that are not yet apparent today.)

Stay 3 separate times between 2/6/12 and 4/8/12 and earn a free night voucher - (Feb 6, 2012 - Apr 8, 2012) - Promo Code: SPRING12 - Best Western Rewards® members (Member(s)) residing in the U.S., Canada, the Bahamas or the U.S. Virgin Islands who (1) register for the promotion and (2) complete three (3) separate qualified stays* between February 6, 2012 and April 8, 2012 (Promotion Period) at any Best Western branded hotel worldwide will earn a free night voucher (Promotion). PROMOTION REGISTRATION AND BEST WESTERN REWARDS ENROLLMENT/MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED PRIOR TO THE FIRST QUALIFIED STAY. Limit one (1) free night voucher per Member during the Promotion Period. Free night voucher expires June 30, 2012 and may be redeemed at any Best Western branded hotel worldwide. No voucher extensions, substitutions or replacements available. *A qualified stay for the purpose of this promotion is defined as one or more consecutive nights at the same Best Western hotel at a rate eligible for earning points or airline/partner rewards through Best Western Rewards. Only one (1) check-in/check-out permitted per qualified stay. Other restrictions may apply. Offer not valid with any other promotion or discount. Promotion is subject to cancellation or change without notice. Free night voucher redemption subject to hotel availability. Free night voucher redemption reservation must be completed by calling 1-800-567-4009. If a valid email address has been provided in the Member?s account profile, the free night voucher may be sent electronically to the valid email address 2-3 weeks from completion of the third qualified stay. Otherwise, a paper voucher will be mailed to the address on the Member?s account profile 4-6 weeks from the completion of the third qualified stay. All Best Western Rewards program rules apply.

Sounds like a nice promo. Can the free night be used at any hotel or are there restrictions (such as up to cat 4 with Marriott free night certs)?

PS: Where can I find this offer? There is nothing visible on the BW websites

Sounds like a nice promo. Can the free night be used at any hotel or are there restrictions (such as up to cat 4 with Marriott free night certs)?

PS: Where can I find this offer? There is nothing visible on the BW websites

Stay 3 separate times between 2/6/12 and 4/8/12 and earn a free night voucher - (Feb 6, 2012 - Apr 8, 2012) - Promo Code: SPRING12 - Best Western Rewards® members (Member(s)) residing in the U.S., Canada, the Bahamas or the U.S. Virgin Islands who (1) register for the promotion and (2) complete three (3) separate qualified stays* between February 6, 2012 and April 8, 2012 (Promotion Period) at any Best Western branded hotel worldwide will earn a free night voucher (Promotion). PROMOTION REGISTRATION AND BEST WESTERN REWARDS ENROLLMENT/MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED PRIOR TO THE FIRST QUALIFIED STAY. Limit one (1) free night voucher per Member during the Promotion Period. Free night voucher expires June 30, 2012 and may be redeemed at any Best Western branded hotel worldwide. No voucher extensions, substitutions or replacements available. *A qualified stay for the purpose of this promotion is defined as one or more consecutive nights at the same Best Western hotel at a rate eligible for earning points or airline/partner rewards through Best Western Rewards. Only one (1) check-in/check-out permitted per qualified stay. Other restrictions may apply. Offer not valid with any other promotion or discount. Promotion is subject to cancellation or change without notice. Free night voucher redemption subject to hotel availability. Free night voucher redemption reservation must be completed by calling 1-800-567-4009. If a valid email address has been provided in the Member?s account profile, the free night voucher may be sent electronically to the valid email address 2-3 weeks from completion of the third qualified stay. Otherwise, a paper voucher will be mailed to the address on the Member?s account profile 4-6 weeks from the completion of the third qualified stay. All Best Western Rewards program rules apply. See www.bestwesternrewards.com for additional program terms. Each Best Western® branded hotel is independently owned and operated. Best Western and the Best Western marks are service marks or registered service marks of Best Western International, Inc. ©2012 Best Western International, Inc. All rights reserved.


I had to login to my account & "Register for Special Offers"

Sounds like a nice promo. Can the free night be used at any hotel or are there restrictions (such as up to cat 4 with Marriott free night certs)?
Did you read the whole first post before replying? It answers that question!

Free night voucher expires June 30, 2012 and may be redeemed at any Best Western branded hotel worldwide.

PS: Where can I find this offer? There is nothing visible on the BW websites
That's why I said I could only find it in my Register For Special Offers list. When you log in and go to My Account, it shows a choice for last 30, last 60, last 90 days, etc, but directly above that has a few submenus, and one of them is Register For Special Offers. I only shows offers available to you, so I cannot give you a link to it, only directions on how to get there.

But what I reproduced above was all the imporant stuff from that, and what aaadalton reproduced below your post is it really complete.

And like I recommended already, I don't suggest registering for it yet, even if you can, because it could be that more details will be revealed later showing that registering another way might be better. (But if you register now at Register For Special Offers, you may not be able to register a different way later.)

Nothing for the UK/Europe once again :td:

and I'll have a week stay ending ON the 6th of Feb so I miss this :/

What a wimpy promotion (compared to other ones at BW over the past few years)!

We finally have the details and the links, and the details are IMHO very underwhelming:

You can only earn one free night voucher, no matter how elite you are.

There is a 1000 point bonus by paying for all 3 stays with your BW MC (no other MC), but it too is only earned once.

(Compare that to previous bonuses which gave stuff like several thousand bonus points on top of up to two free night vouchers, at least for elites.)

There's nothing extra here for elites, nothing extra for AAA members.

There is an airline bonus (that can be combined), but apparently only for Canadian programs Aeroplan and Air Miles. Nothing for any US-based airline.

At this point, I'm not going to go out of my way to stay at any BW hotels during this period. It's just not enough of an incentive for me.

Here's the link for the base promotion:

https://goldcrownclub.bestwestern.com/offers/seasonal.asp?season=spring&ptype=base

Here's the link for the base T&Cs:

https://goldcrownclub.bestwestern.com/offers/spring12-base.pdf

Even though there are other version like AAA, I only recommend signing up for the base version. Reason: If you substitute "aaa' for "base" in the above URLs, you'll find that the 1000 point BW MC payment bonus is mentioned in the base T&Cs but not in the AAA T&Cs! So is it possible that if you register for the AAA version you can't get this bonus??? :confused:

(No, even if you're a BW AAA member, there's no need to register for the AAA-specific version of the promo.)

Or myabe that's just a typo, because there's only one Q&A for all of them, and it does allude to the 1000 point bonus, even though it doesn't spell out all its terms:

https://goldcrownclub.bestwestern.com/offers/spring12-faq.pdf

(As usual, BW makes the promo way more confusing than they need to by having endless essentially-identical versions of it for their various submemberships. Why do they need to this if there's not going to be anything different about the promo for the different versions??? :td:)

I agree it is not the best promotion on earth. Nevertheless, I will stay three times at a low budget hotel in the USA for around 20 $ per night and get a voucher for a very nice hotel in Japan. That's not soooo bad, is it?

I agree it is not the best promotion on earth. Nevertheless, I will stay three times at a low budget hotel in the USA for around 20 $ per night and get a voucher for a very nice hotel in Japan. That's not soooo bad, is it?
Please explain where BWs that go for around 20 $ per night are still found in the USA. (And if those are special rates, are you sure they qualify for this promo? Only rates booked through Best Western tend to qualify!)

Around the places I stay most often, those tended to be the worst ones and have been booted out of the system in recent years.

and I'll have a week stay ending ON the 6th of Feb so I miss this :/

Would a stay with check-in on February 5th and check-out on February 6th qualify for this promotion ?

The answer may be obvious to more experienced travellers, but I don't see it addressed anywhere in the T and C's.

Thanks very much.

Would a stay with check-in on February 5th and check-out on February 6th qualify for this promotion ?

The answer may be obvious to more experienced travellers, but I don't see it addressed anywhere in the T and C's.
My experience is to always call (do not email!) BW CS whenever I have a question like this.

I've had positive results on overlapping stays on the other end (where only the first night arrival was within the promo period last fall and it still counted the 2-night stay), but I do remember I did call to find out if that would work ahread of time (since I would have done an extra stay before that had I been told "no").

I myself do not know, however, how it works with a stay starting before a promo and ending on the start date of the promo (or even if ending later).

I wonder if AAA rates qualify for the points earning purpose and thus for the promotion

I wonder if AAA rates qualify for the points earning purpose and thus for the promotion
Definitely. Both AAA rates and WEBONLY/TWEET1 rates qualify for points/miles earning stays and thus for all promotions.

In fact, BW has such a tight relationship with AAA that they have special AAA-specific memberships, which give you a separate 10% BW AAA bonus (whether the rate itself is AAA or not) that regular memberships don't get. If you're a AAA member, you may want to look into a BW AAA account status for that reason alone. (In some promos in the past, BW AAA members got a bit more than regular members, but not in either the last promo nor this one.)

I just found this promo after asking for missing credit from a stay in January (impressed by the quick response, although I'm not sure why it wasn't automatic given I booked the room while logged in). And for the first time we might actually be able to make use of it, with a spring break trip in April and a summer road trip planned for late June.

My question is about the restrictions of the "free night voucher". I understand the expiration date of 6/30, of course, but beyond that all the terms mention is "subject to hotel availability" -- what does that mean?

- Does the hotel have to have rooms available for points, or any room for sale? Or are there other capacity controls that might make these vouchers useless for a popular destination?

- Can a free night be combined with paid nights (we'll be staying 3 nights at a could of places in Utah and Colorado in the summer)?

My question is about the restrictions of the "free night voucher". I understand the expiration date of 6/30, of course, but beyond that all the terms mention is "subject to hotel availability" -- what does that mean?

- Does the hotel have to have rooms available for points, or any room for sale? Or are there other capacity controls that might make these vouchers useless for a popular destination?

- Can a free night be combined with paid nights (we'll be staying 3 nights at a could of places in Utah and Colorado in the summer)?
Yes, the hotel has to have rooms available for points. When they do voucher bookings, they actually do it as a points booking, but instead of deducting points from your account, they put in a note that it will be paid for by a voucher instead of points.

You have to make the voucher reservation over the phone, so if over the phone you explain that you want the reservation to be for 3 nights but one of them a voucher, they may be able to combine them on the spot. Worst case, you could always make separate reservations, ask to have a note put in the reservations that you are actually staying 3 nights, and at any rate alert the hotel upon check-in that you are staying 3 nights but split over two reservations.

I've done that before with two or more points reservations, when either: (a) the same room type wasn't available online for all the nights of the stay, or (b) I wasn't sure how many nights I needed, so I made the last night a separate reservation so I couldn't cancel it separately (if by its own separate cancellation deadline I figured out I wouldn't need it).

Yes, the hotel has to have rooms available for points. When they do voucher bookings, they actually do it as a points booking, but instead of deducting points from your account, they put in a note that it will be paid for by a voucher instead of points.

You have to make the voucher reservation over the phone, so if over the phone you explain that you want the reservation to be for 3 nights but one of them a voucher, they may be able to combine them on the spot. Worst case, you could always make separate reservations, ask to have a note put in the reservations that you are actually staying 3 nights, and at any rate alert the hotel upon check-in that you are staying 3 nights but split over two reservations.

I've done that before with two or more points reservations, when either: (a) the same room type wasn't available online for all the nights of the stay, or (b) I wasn't sure how many nights I needed, so I made the last night a separate reservation so I couldn't cancel it separately (if by its own separate cancellation deadline I figured out I wouldn't need it).

Thanks; that makes sense. So my key question is to make sure the voucher can be used for any room available for any number of points (the promotion terms don't say, but searches on older promotions mention specific 16000 etc point vouchers).

One of the hotels we want to stay it in June has only 1-queen rooms available for points (while larger rooms are for sale), so that won't work for the 4 of us, but another has rooms available for 32000 points (and $200+ for sale, so it'd be worth working to achieve the 3 nights before April 8 if we can use it for that)

So my key question is to make sure the voucher can be used for any room available for any number of points (the promotion terms don't say, but searches on older promotions mention specific 16000 etc point vouchers).
Isn't that question answered by this sentence in the T&Cs (from post 1 of this thread):

"Free night voucher expires June 30, 2012 and may be redeemed at any Best Western branded hotel worldwide."

Since the point requirement in BW is fixed for all the room types (that are available for points at all) in a given hotel (ie, the number of points required changes from hotel to hotel but at a given hotel never changes from one room type to another), for the voucher to work at "any BW branded hotel" requires that it work for any room type that is available on points. It seems to me that the issue is therefore only whether the room is avialable on points, not what the points category of the hotel is.

Isn't that question answered by this sentence in the T&Cs (from post 1 of this thread):

"Free night voucher expires June 30, 2012 and may be redeemed at any Best Western branded hotel worldwide."

Since the point requirement in BW is fixed for all the room types (that are available for points at all) in a given hotel (ie, the number of points required changes from hotel to hotel but at a given hotel never changes from one room type to another), for the voucher to work at "any BW branded hotel" requires that it work for any room type that is available on points. It seems to me that the issue is therefore only whether the room is avialable on points, not what the points category of the hotel is.

The same T&Cs say "Free night voucher redemption subject to hotel availability.", which could mean anything from any reward point value, to a specific point value (I thought the same hotel might have different reward point rooms available, perhaps at different times of the week/year like airline rewards, which doesn't appear to be the case), to a separate bucket of "availability" even more capacity controlled. Too many "Free <X>" vouchers turn out to be worthless when you try to use them that I'm always skeptical. It sounds like this is legit (provided you can do the stays and make use of it by June, of course); thanks for the insight!

I thought the same hotel might have different reward point rooms available, perhaps at different times of the week/year like airline rewards, which doesn't appear to be the case
It's very different. Airline rewards (with the exception of Delta's three-tier confusion) fall into two categories: capacity-controlled, and non-capcity-controlled (anytime, "last seat"). Most hotel programs don't have the latter category, so are simply capacity controlled.

Choice officialy has point values (on a per-hotel basis, not per-room basis) that change seasonally (they publish a couple seasons ahead typically), and then sometimes they go "on sale" or whatever at a faster and less-predictable frequency (the now-famous Italy 8000 points/night for a while, 40000 points/night later, 8000 again for a while, 40000 again, etc "rollercoaster").

But I've not seen any similar discussion in the Best Western forum about frequent point value changes. I have noticed that when a new hotel got built (the second BW at Bryce Canyon City UT for example) it started out needing less points (as I guess they wanted people to sample it), but as it got better known they raised the points to closer to the existing BW across the street. But I think that's just because I caught it right after it opened that I saw such a change between the first time I stayed and the second time I stayed.

At any rate, I haven't seen a printed BW directory recently, but in previous years when I saw them, they'd have the points requirements for each hotel printed there. That obviously implies they didn't expect them to change quarterly.

Furthermore, when I do a search for BW hotels by points, I'm told how many points the hotel is, not a point-range (depending on room). So I don't even see a mechanism in the BW system for pricing different rooms in the same hotel at different point values. (Even in some other hotel programs that do have such a feature, it tends to be very new, for example Premium Rooms at Hilton HHonors only started up in the past year, and are typically a poor point value.)

At programs which have "standard" hotel redemptions and then some sort of "premium" room redemptions, it may well be the case that you need to see "standard" reward room availability to use a free night cert. But since there's no distinction like this between different points levels of reward rooms within the same hotel at BW, at BW it simplifies into simply needing a reward room available.

It sounds like this is legit (provided you can do the stays and make use of it by June, of course); thanks for the insight!
In case you still have any doubts, I suggest you call BW customer service on the phone. On the phone I've found time very willing and able to explain confusing things about their T&Cs and procedures that the people who write up online can never seem to explain clearly. :)

Has anybody gotten their free night cert yet?

I completed 3 stays on March 2. I know they say 2-3 weeks, right? Just wondering if anyone had experience with actual posting time, or the form of notification -- email vs. snail mail. Thanks.

Has anybody gotten their free night cert yet?

I completed 3 stays on March 2. I know they say 2-3 weeks, right? Just wondering if anyone had experience with actual posting time, or the form of notification -- email vs. snail mail. Thanks.

Got the free night voucher via email on 03/06 after I completed 3 stays on 02/28.

Got the free night voucher via email on 03/06 after I completed 3 stays on 02/28.

Thanks for the update. That's a quick turn-around for BW. ^

Hello,

I have an address in Canada, but live in Europe. Is it a good idea to make an account with my Canadian Address? Because there a lot of promotions in USA and CANADA.

Is it also interesting to get an USA-address?

Do they check the address at checkins? Do you get the rewards or do they do an address check?

Do they check the address at checkins? Do you get the rewards or do they do an address check?

The standard practice at all hotels at check-in is to ask us to review the details on the check-in form, which would include your registered address. As for having a NAmerican address if you reside in Europe, suppose it doesn't matter all that much any more given correspondence (other than card renewals kits) is by email. However, if you have a non-US/Canada/Mexico passport but use a NAmerican address, you might get quarried at check-in if you're asked for the passport.

Just received my free night email/voucher. Qualifying stay was on March 30th and it posted to my account on April 3rd. (I see this quarter's promo is a $50 BW credit for three stays through June 3rd, starting April 15th.)

Too many "Free <X>" vouchers turn out to be worthless when you try to use them that I'm always skeptical. It sounds like this is legit (provided you can do the stays and make use of it by June, of course); thanks for the insight!

So true. But just to confirm what others have said, that doesn't appear to be the case here. I just booked a 36,000 point/night room at the Burbank Media Center location with my voucher.

Has anybody gotten their free night cert yet?

I completed 3 stays on March 2. I know they say 2-3 weeks, right? Just wondering if anyone had experience with actual posting time, or the form of notification -- email vs. snail mail. Thanks.

Last year it appeared in less than 2 weeks. No email (though they are supposed to be sent), it just showed up in the account.

Watch out guys! I learned this week that 32k points are missing in my account. When I asked BW customer service I got to hear "this is for a previous stay in the BW St. Gallen Walhalla". That stay was in June and it was covered with a free night voucher. I have no idea why they stole now - four months after my stay - 32k from my account. Both BW and the hotel are not very willing/helpful to solve this.