Originally Posted by
Happy
Exactly my points. The situation is not even similar except the time span due to the HUGE point increases this time.
It is good the hotels sent back email confirmations saying they would honor it. However if they eat their words and just say, "Sorry, we have made a mistake, some employees do not know the policy and mistakenly send you this. We are terribly sorry, but we cannot honor it." when you are standing at the counter of KS, or Maldives, you cannot expect any help from HHonor.
It is a calculated risk which very much depends on WHERE you are going.
Personally I want a trip that has least unexpected disruption, and do not want to be worried about if the email from 14 months ago would still be honored by the current hotel management as I think HHonor would not step in to help me out should the hotel decides not to honor it because they could not get HHonor to pay them, or at least not pay at then current level.
To each their own.
I think if you have a hotel confirming they will take the reward booking more than a year out in writing, you are pretty safe. It's the ones who get no confirmation who will have problems.
It's pretty poor form and terrible customer service for the hotel to write they will take the certificate and then renege. The response also would NOT have come from a low level employee like a FD clerk but from a manager or reservations personnel.
I personally would not (and did not) take the risk. But for those that did and have the hotel's email confirmation of secured points reservation, I think they will be fine.