GREAT THREAD and very informative post SanDiego1K!!! This post should be required reading before any new posters are allowed to ask a question in this forum. It would probably answer 50%+ of the basic questions that a lot of the newer members seem to be asking! In fact when I see a basic question asked which has already been asked and answered in the past week or is readily found here, I am just going to post a link to this thread for them. ^

Everything in your post was spot on IMHO, although regarding the point above, you might also want to add that it's possible to call Reservations and get bonuses officially added before your stay. Normally this is not necessary unless you are completely anal (granted many of us FTers are ). However in other cases it actually is important, such as when you are trying to add DEL5K to an AAA rate. It seems that a lot of promos (G bonuses, DEL5K, etc) don't pull up properly when booking an AAA rate online, but they are definitely useable on the AAA rate and Reservations can add the bonus easily. In fact Reservations can actually add TWO (2) bonuses to each Reservations whereas we can only add one bonus to each reservation when we book online.

So sometimes a call in before the stay can be helpful in getting bonuses added (especially DEL5K or DELISH which is supposed to be added before arrival).