American Express Membership Rewards - Will prepaying for hotel stays have effect on ability for Leading Suites promotions?

After coming home from a long Round the World trip, I was in total shock when I received my credit card statement and saw all the charges from the hotels during my trip. (Luckily I paid for my ticket before I left)

For my next trip I am thinking of prepaying my hotel expenses (room portion) with a direct payment to the hotel before I leave home so I won't have to worry about feeling shocked after my trip.

Since I want to try out one of the "Leading World Hotels" for my next trip and take advantage the "Leading Suites" promotion but don't have an AMEX card to guarantee my room (the reservations website says that AMEX is the preferred method of guarantee for this promotion), is it possible to use my parent's AMEX card (with their permission of course!) to guarantee the room and then send a payment by either wire transfer to bank draft directly to the hotel?

Right now I made the reservation using my Visa card (Leading Suite [they say the promotion is for AMEX card members]) and it hasn't been rejected yet... But can the hotel refuse to give me a suite at the discounted rate and insist on charging me the rack rate (20% more) if I don't show up with an AMEX card?


[This message has been edited by daniellam (edited 08-02-2001).]

I have also come home in the past to a nasty credit card bill that I could have done without.

Not sure if you can wire the funds directly to the hotel or not but what I do is use a travel agent that will book and charge me for the room in advance. I have found that this works really well.

I just came back from staying at the Sheraton hotel in Cancun, the hotel price if you booked via the hotel was $200 per night (ouch) I paid though a travel agent and only paid $98 per night so I was very happy.

I did the same last year when I went to Asia also.

I used www.airnet.co.uk (http://www.airnet.co.uk) on both occasions.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by daniellam:
Right now I made the reservation using my Visa card (Leading Suite [they say the promotion is for AMEX card members]) and it hasn't been rejected yet... But can the hotel refuse to give me a suite at the discounted rate and insist on charging me the rack rate (20% more) if I don't show up with an AMEX card?</font>

Yes.