I see there's been a lot of recent discussion about hotel miles. Let me summarize the data points that I have:
- RocketMiles and BookAAHotels are owned by the same company, booking.com.
- Even so, they often have wildly different prices and mileage opportunities.
- The rates and mileage offer can change very quickly, even within hours or minutes.
- The RocketMiles website is better but I've found BookAAHotels to have better customer service. I used RocketMiles just once and then ended up cancelling the booking, so all of my experience is with BookAAHotels.
- RocketMiles offers just one opportunity to get more miles; BookAAHotels offers two (one "pay more to get more miles" and then another "boost" at checkout).
- Despite a few reports to the contrary, 100% of my bookings and potential bookings have offered the extra miles at almost exactly 2¢ per mile.
- I completed 4 hotel stays through BookAAHotels in January and February, and purchased the maximum number of extra miles on all of them. They all posted as base miles, despite the fact that the confirmation email split out the miles between base miles and promo miles. The base and promo miles posted as separate line items in my AAdvantage account but all in the "Base" column.
- On March 1 all those base miles converted to LPs without a hitch.
- However, since then, there have been a couple of reports that the promo miles are now posting as non-LP bonus miles, so I would be very careful about buying miles over and above the base mileage offered, until there is more clarity. I believe these were from RocketMiles; I haven't seen a similar report regarding BookAAHotels. But it's likely that BookAAHotels will follow suit.
- I just completed a BookAAHotels stay yesterday and am in the middle of another one. We should know in a few days how BookAAHotels is now handling the promo miles going forward. I will report back here as soon as I have the information.
- Someone asked about no-showing. I no-showed for my first reservation and got the miles exactly as if I had checked in and completed the stay.
I've tried to address all the points raised in today's posts here, based on my first-hand experiences. I hope this will be helpful.