the (MilesDirect/Webflyer) system managers solved the problem that I did 'produce' myself by typing 'Swissôtel' on my swiss-german keyboard instead of simple 'Swissotel' the US-American way.
Thanks for solving the problem (and I promiss not to use those french accents anymore in the future ... the sytem-software provider might be happy that the Académie Française isn't using MilesDirect ...).