I frequently travel with several colleagues from Brazil in the US. Our practice has always been for me to book rooms and guarantee. I see the whole range of how the hotels handle the check in, stay credits and points.

It varies by property by clerk - different for different visits. In general, I pay for my room and my colleagues from Brazil use traveller checks at check out to pay for their rooms. Sometimes the hotel moves reservations into their names sometimes not - I suppose any time I also get credit or we/they get upgraded is fortunate. I verify that I get what I am do for what I pay for with the guaranteed credit card. Anything extra is a bonus. For most chains the plans offer limited benefit to my colleagues - but I also use my ff accounts to upgrade our flights when available.

It seems that the system control depends very much on how the desk or accounting staff at the hotel handle the stay.