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When booking an Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts stay and attaching a loyalty number, points are normally earned in that program. That was true for me after staying at the Beekman, a Thompson Hotel. The question is, how many points? My first stay cost $519 pre-tax - not including the $200 annual Platinum Card rebate - and I earned 2445 points as a Globalist, based on $376 qualifying spend ($350 before incidentals). The second cost $502, not including another $200 rebate, with earn of 1994 points on $306 qualifying spend ($297 before incidentals).

How is the qualifying spend determined? Surely it can't take into account the Platinum rebate. Perhaps Amex pays the hotel a significantly reduced negotiated rate despite charging me a lot more?

drnilescrane

So not Hyatt, but Four Seasons' website reveals the wholesale rates for FHR rates if you view the source code. I've noticed consistently it's 15% less than the rate on the Amex portal - i.e. a 15% commission. Could be different for Hyatt but I don't see why it would be - 15% is very standard for the industry. It's why the member rate ends up being the same 15% discount, they are just marking up third party bookings to cover the extra cost.

The negative adjustments for the $100 credit and breakfast probably is another part of the discrepancy. Hyatt's system doesn't give you points for Tax or Gratuity, but it does take negative points off of the whole amount. So if you have a restaurant check for $100, that might earn $70 in spend (with a hypothetical $10 in tax and $20 in gratuity), but when they take it off, it takes off -$100 of spend. Even worse is when they suppress breakfast charges, some agents will do it incorrectly so you earn $0 spend, but the internal adjustment is negative the cost of breakfast further mucking things up.

Typically you have to send it to your concierge to get the full internal folio, add it all up and fix it manually. Just poor coding all around by Oracle - Hilton's custom PMS is smart enough to handle this, I think Marriott's is too.

Markie

Please continue here - FHR - World of Hyatt (Globalist) Benefits & Earnings