DaveH

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: 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.

Often1

Seems fair. You were credited for what you paid for.

DaveH

Actually Often1, I was not. Apologies if that was not clear in the OP.

storewanderer

Seems this is a lesson in just how stingy a hotel can be. They got paid for the room and rather than giving points they found a way to weasel out of giving you the points by saying it wasn't you who paid for it. Then they come back and give you some sort of partial/inaccurate points credit. Wow, just, wow. Who's to say those weren't your gift cards? They cannot prove otherwise since gift cards are not linked to a specific person (right? the cards were not embossed with someone else's name like a cell phone rebate gift card, right?). The $100 charged to someone else's card appears to be something they can try to deny (as you point out, doing so appears to be against the BW Rewards T&C) but the rest of it is completely bogus.

I wonder how much the points on a $100 charge cost the hotel? I can't imagine much. At this point I'd suggest escalating within BW to executives as well as figuring out who owns or manages that hotel (if it is a management company for instance, escalate to its executives as well). You will waste enough of their time it would have been much cheaper to just give you the points.

Also you will want to leave reviews on Trip Advisor, etc. explaining what took place so other travelers can exercise caution with this property and make sure they are properly credited the points for their stay. Who knows what else this place does, if it routinely shorts people points, or if your situation is a one off.

This sort of behavior by properties really hurts the integrity of the program.

DaveH

Thanks for your thoughtful reply storewanderer.

Indeed. It left me wondering whether points crediting is manually audited at the property level; whether this management was an outlier; and whether the properties themselves have to pay corporate for the points (I'm guessing so, given these facts).

I am happy to report that my 1 free night voucher did arrive, just one day after the points were processed.

They actually were my gift cards, purchased by me (not that that matters). No name embossed on them.

Just to clarify, I don't see how the T&C gives grounds to deny points even here. Parties of > 1 who share rooms chip in to settle the bill all the time. The terms only specify that just one member can be credited--i.e., my brother and I couldn't both claim the credit, no double-dipping--which is completely fair, and which is all we did.

[/QUOTE] At this point I'd suggest escalating within BW to executives as well as figuring out who owns or manages that hotel (if it is a management company for instance, escalate to its executives as well). You will waste enough of their time it would have been much cheaper to just give you the points.

Also you will want to leave reviews on Trip Advisor, etc. explaining what took place so other travelers can exercise caution with this property and make sure they are properly credited the points for their stay. Who knows what else this place does, if it routinely shorts people points, or if your situation is a one off.This sort of behavior by properties really hurts the integrity of the program.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the suggestions!

Now that I do have the voucher, the question is how much hassle the missing 3K in points--worth < $30--might be worth in my time and energy. Worth a quick note to the right BW exec for sure, but figuring out who to write to with little-to-no assurances it might work sounds like a marginal use of time.

Good point about how it might be worth a few lines on TA regardless.

DaveH

Following up, I had an additional 2,000 base points credit over the weekend, along with another 1,000 for the 50% Diamond Select bonus.

Oddly, I was alerted to check this by an email telling me I'd been awarded 500 points for my stay. Eh? Got the same email again this morning.

I have not contacted BW again since I started this thread. Thus I can only guess that someone at BW was following this thread, and decided to quietly give me points for the portion of the payment that were my gift cards, but still declined the $100 paid with the card in my brother's name (even though I reimbursed him). Seems odd....

sdsearch

The email means next to nothing. It's telling what you've been awarded at some point. It's not necessarily telling you you've been awarded a new 500 points.

I just got an email other day about having been awards 500 points for a stay a few months ago. My point total has not gone up. So they simply re-sent an email from months ago about my last earning.

The email in my case is about the Diamond Select bonus. In your case, was at least one of your Diamond Select bonus postings for 500 (not the total, but a particular posting)?

DaveH

Thanks sdsearch. That comports with my data point, because I just received a third email congratulating me for (the same?) 500 points in earn.

thunderdeacon

I received said 500 point email, and then an email apologizing, saying the 500 point email was a mistake.

sdsearch

Yes, but in my case that's a mistake too, because they said "the" previous "email" (singular case) was a mistake, whereas they'd sent me more than one saying the same thing.

And they told me point total was wrong, whereas it's correct. It's the additional 500 point part that was wrong (or at least misleading), not the total, but they claimed it was the total that was wrong.

So both their original emails and their correction emails are wrong!

hhdl

Depending on the property management software being used, point crediting can be basically automatic, especially where a family of chains develops custom software (e.g. the vast majority of Hilton hard brand properties use OnQ from Hilton which automatically does Honors credit). When it's more off-the-shelf software, posting points is likely to be manual.

starchoice

I don't see what difference it makes regarding "who pays". If the room was reserved in your name and your membership number was used, it is irrelevant who pays the account. If your brother paid with cash, would thy say the same thing that it wasn't you who paid?