Originally Posted by
fairviewroad
The technology exists and is in use by most modern companies. As I said, the fact that Best Western doesn't offer this is either due to an unwillingness to invest in the necessary e-commerce upgrades, or a deliberate attempt to milk their loyalty program customers for even more money by forcing them to pay a higher rate.
Hotels don't compete against airlines (or against "most modern companies"). Hotels compete against other hotels (and maybe these days against airbnb and the like
). Please show me
another hotel program that does allow making multiple forms of payment (not counting "cash + points" rates, which are not available at every hotel for every date even at those programs that have them).
Besides, what other hotel program can you name that gives cash-denominated gift cards (as opposed to free night certs or points) away as part of regular promotions? I think you're noticing this at Best Western not because its payment system is so different from other hotels, but simply because you probably don't have gift cards from most other hotels the way you do from Best Western, because no other hotel program I can think structures one or two of its "main" promos a year strictly as "stay N times, get a hotel gift card valued at $XX" with no other choices of what you get for those N stays. (Choice has summer promos for
partner gift cards, not their own, but in fact those promos earn points and you have to take the
extra step of redeeming the points for gift cards, if that is indeed what you want to use the points for.)