coolcoil

I'm surprised that I did not find another thread on this topic.

I've been BW Diamond for several years ever since I discovered that the BW in the town where my company HQ is located provides excellent value - decent rooms at a good price. I stayed there 35-40 nights a year and stayed at other BW's in the USA 15-20 nights per year. At the other BW's I was always treated well and often received upgrades.

I saw that I did not receive points or stay credit for my January trip, so I applied for credit on the website. Here is the reply that I received:

We apologize for any misunderstanding, but according to Best Western Rewards policy, this stay was reserved at a third party booking rate that does not qualify for credit. As a one-time courtesy from our office we issued your account 500 points bringing your point balance to XX,XXX. Future third party bookings will receive no points. Due to the nature of this reservation, this stay will not count toward any promotion nor toward accumulated qualified nights stayed.

To be assured future credit on a qualified stay, you can book your reservation directly through www.bestwestern.com,by calling the hotel, or by calling our office at 1-800-528-1234. A complete list of non-qualified rates can be viewed by following the link below.

http://www.bestwestern.com/rewards/benefits/terms.asp

When I followed the link, I found this text in the terms and conditions:

All stays are eligible to earn points (“Eligible Stays”) with the exception of the following (NonEligibleStays”):
- Stays booked through online travel agencies (“OTAs”), such as priceline.com, expedia.com, travelocity.com, booking.com, kayak.com (i.e., channels other than Best Western branded booking channels);

I work for a large corporation, and their strict policy is that all trips are booked through the company's online travel agency, so I do not have the option to book through a BW-branded site.

I assume this policy change started on January 1, as all of the bookings I've done over the past several years were through my company's agency.

Oh well, more business for Holiday Inn and Hilton brands...

jm1991

As far as i know, not many hotel chains issue rewards when booking through 3rd party sites.

coolcoil

I have always received full reward points and stay credits for all hotels, including BW, when booking through my company's AMEX website. This is the first time that I have not received them.

jbjelloid

Please let us know how you make out with Holiday Inn and Hilton. I fear you may face the same result.

coolcoil

I will let you know, though I'm not travelling until the end of the month. However, I just looked on the Holiday Inn website, and they show this:

What are qualifying room rates?
Qualifying room rates are applied when you book through IHG central reservation offices, IHG Web sites, travel agents or directly at the hotel. In North, South and Central America and the Caribbean, points may be awarded on locally negotiated rates if these rates are discounted less than 30%. At Asia Pacific hotels, qualifying room rates also include all locally negotiated rates.

I take this to mean that I'm still good with IHG at least.

If it were true that all hotels suddenly stopped giving points to travelers who booked through our company AMEX site, I would have heard about it. I probably did not hear about the BW change because I'm one of the few travelers in my company that was a regular BW user. All of my colleagues stay at other chains. Most of them think staying at BW is "slumming." Even my very frugal boss teases me about BW, though he appreciated the savings.

sdsearch

It's a bit confusing, because there are corporate booking sites, and then are third-party consumer sites. Apparently BW does not distinguish between them, but it's not exactly the only one.

At Choice Privileges, at least for promos, you need to be an elite member of sufficient level for corporate booking sites to count toward qualifying stays for the promo. Until you get to that sufficient elite level, you'll be treated not much better at Choice than at BW with corporate bookings.

writerguyfl

Before you throw the baby out with the bathwater, are you certain that the person responding to your compliant didn't make a mistake? In many cases, corporate travel booking sites are not treated the same as online travel agency. Perhaps the agent saw an IATA number and didn't look to see exactly which travel agency is involved.

If I were in your shoes, I'd seek out clarification from both Best Western and my company's travel department.

jm1991

That is correct. Some corporate travel agencies are eligible for earning points but alot of public OTA such as expedia and Priceline are not. The person that told you may be mistaken

rubbernyc

+1

You should call again to clarify this. The person who "helped" you may have mistaken your booking as coming from an OTA as opposed to corporate travel agency. I have never had any trouble with hotel points posting to any chain from bookings made by my company's agency.

pointshogger

Agreed, I would give them a call to try to sort it out instead of just depending on an email exchange.

JordanWalker

Anyone booked through booking.com lately?

coolcoil

Sorry, I haven't come back to this forum in a while. Thanks to you and others for this advice - I will give it a try. I'll give the hotel manager a call.

For what it's worth, I stayed at a Holiday Inn during my last trip to the company HQ and I did get my points. Though when I saw the bill for $528 that would have been $380 at the BW I felt pretty bad. Yes, I got 5,580 points, but spent nearly $150 of the company's money to get them.

GBM.flights

Any update on this topic (all third parties excluded)?
I'll be staying at a hotel part of BW. booked through a corporate TA.

checking T&Cs OTA's seemed to be excluded, quite clearly:
but apparently not all non-BW booking channels:

coolcoil

Can't say. The management of the BW where I used to stay 40+ nights per year could not be bothered to respond to my query. I have not stayed one night in a BW since. No problems with Hilton, Sheraton, Marriott and IHG properties.

jm1991

One of my friends booked a room with priceline and when we checked in i asked if i could add my rewards. they added it with no problem but only received 500pnts plus the elite bonus points.