I had a strange experience at
The Plaza Hotel in Honolulu last week. I would appreciate thoughts on rectifying it, and also want other FTers to have a heads up in case they encounter something similar.
My brother and I stayed 3 nights at this property, using my BW Diamond Select account to check in. At checkout, my brother (same last name) paid, using 3 forms of tender to settle the approximately $600 bill: my credit card (previously authorized), BW gift cards, and $100 on his Platinum Amex which had the membership rewards promotion attached.
I waited a week, and only had the 500 point welcome amenity post. Concerned about not getting night credit to qualify for the "one night free" promotion, i called BW rewards. They checked with the property, who came back with "the rewards member didn't pay, so they don't get any points." I was told there was nothing they could do beyond that, I'd have to take it up with the property.
So I then called the property, who transferred me to a manager who said the same thing. I noted that first, I did pay for the room (albeit alloting a portion to my brother's CC). More important, there is no restriction in the Rewards T&Cs (per https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/le...onditions.html )
about specific kinds of payment being disallowed. Moreover, it states:
If you occupy a room with another Member, only one (1) Member will receive the Points and you must decide amongst yourselves who will receive the Points.
As we only claimed points on my profile, that should be fine.
Despite not finding other language in the T&Cs, the manager maintained that I only qualified for points because my credit card was used. She then politely indicated she would solve the problem.
Fast forward to today, I find that I received only 2,800 points, versus the roughly 5,800 points the stay should have qualified me for. Obviously, they were manually posted, excluding the GC and Amex payments. I should qualify for the promotion at least, but it's galling that I lose out on the points I should have qualified for--especially because getting that allotment would put me over 20K points, possibly enough to get two nights if they run the Dec / Jan promo again.
Thoughts or suggestions? TIA.