If I was to book a room could someone please tell me if it's only the portion that is left that gains points or still the total cost?
Eg room = $200
Use points to pay equivalent of $150 and cash for remaining $50

Do I get points for only the $50 portion or still the full $200

Many thanks

Only for the $50 dollar portion.

Thank you ^. Is there any particular reason as to why?

Points are given on actual money spent. I don't know of any programme (be it frequent flyer or hotel loyalty program) that would give points on spent points... the fact that you get points to spend is already a benefit, it would seem weird to give you further benefits on something that's also a benefit, no?

Does this mean that if you spend points, you wouldn't receive benefits such as upgrades, etc...?

No, you can have upgrades on stays booked with points.

but receiving an upgrade is sometimes difficult (ignoring of your status happens quite a lot

Thanks ,I get the gist of what you're on about regarding points earning points,so my next scenario would be I pay for the rooms as normal and then change say 20,000 points for 10 x $60 paper vouchers and pay for all the incidentals I occur upon checkout using these so would I then still be eligible for the points for all these incidentals I had charged back to my room?

There are no more usd60 vouchers. Only eur40 now.

Basically points are calculated Basing on the cash portion upon checkout. So irrespective of what you bill to your room, you will only earn points upon checkout on what you actually pay for in cash. So assuming room is eur200 and incidentals EUR150, and you have vouchers to pay for eur240, then you will earn points on only eur110 (but not before less tax).

Thanks for the explanation ! So it's a lose lose situation then

Depends how you see it. Paying with points instead of cash is not a bad thing...

Couldn't agree more ^ Only thing is whenever there is the slightest promotion in Australia bang goes paying by points ! Is it like that world wide ?

Slightest, No. But those big sale events dont allow payment by points.

That's a big bug bear here as well as some of top notch hotels still command circa $180 + even in BIG SALE !

I've heard people say that you need to owe at least $10 at checkout, after using points, to earn points and stay credit, etc.. I've heard others say $20. By the way, does anyone know a thread on this? I couldn't find it, maybe because there's no obvious name for this to use as a search term. Or maybe nobody wants to talk about it. I asked CS and they said that you do earn points while using points, but didn't specify a minimum.

The $10 or $20 rule seems kind of random and doesn't fit my experience. I've paid $12-$15 and still earned points.

Since you earn points on what you pay, excluding tax, maybe you just need to pay more than the total tax. e.g., if tax is $10 and you pay $11 at the end of the stay, you're good. In other words, any cash/credit payment is considered to be applied toward tax first and if you don't get through that, you've paid for nothing in their eyes. I'm sure someone has proposed this before. Has anyone had any experience that didn't fit this rule? E.g., earning points while paying $10 on a $400 stay? Or not earning points while paying $8 on a $52 stay?

As an example, if you paid $88 in vouchers (4000 pts which is 2X$40 EurosX exchange rate) while booking a rate of $84 and $8 tax, you'd owe $4 additional at check-out. That would be considered part of the tax, so you earn no points. As most know, you can't use just one voucher unless you only have 2000-3999 pts in your account.

What you could try here is buy a meal at the hotel (or something else) and that might be sufficient to earn points, especially if the amount due at checkout exceeds the total tax. That seemed to work for me (unintentionally) on one occasion when I didn't owe much at check-out but happened to have eaten a meal at the hotel.

Sorry a bit out of topic.

Any one has requested the vouchers recently?
- how long it takes to get the vouchers?
- how long it valid for?
- any restriction of use?