Anyone having trouble with Choice posting to your rewards list over the past couple of days? That's the only one I'm having trouble with....

Haven't had anything post to Choice yet, but they all show in my topguest account. Just started hitting Choice on the 14th so about a week of activity.

Choice posts via a Quality Inn for me. Only one I haven't mastered is Voila.

UPDATE:

Nix that. Just checked, Viola has started to post. Success with all nine partners.

I disagree. I use Facebook Connect on several sites that I run, but I don't recommend using it as an end user. It's real scary stuff. Every FB users is given a unique User ID #, UID. When you login to a random site with your FB login credentials the first thing they do is download every piece of information that facebook will give them access to including your UID. That UID can then be used with other information aggregated from other companies and connected back to you with the UID. If you don't click the log out button on facebook your session remains open and anyone can grab your FB UID as you surf the web. Go to a website about Activity 1 will make Company X tell Company Y to dispay an ad about activity 1. Some people care about this and some people don't. The difference with giving a CC to someone and a FB id is that 99% of people know what can happen when your CC# information is comparmised, but only 1% know what happens when you FB# is.

If a mainstream website intends to use your information responsibly they will have their own log in system. If they force you to use Facebook connect they are up to no good. My advice is NEVER USE Facebook Connect and ALWAYS Log out when you leave facebook's site.

They won't hack your FB page, but that token can then be used to grab a lot more information about you including your profile picture. Be weary of any webiste that has you use FB connect and a password for their own site. If that password is your FB/email password you could be in for a world of hurt.

Just signed up for Viola... wow their website is unstable.

What did you put in the ID? I can't seem to find my ID number... (and their website is down again...)

I don't recall precisely where I got it, but I'm pretty sure it showed up on the web page when I first signed up. I copied and pasted that account #. Try logging into your account and look around for it. Multiple postings have worked for me now, with all nine partners.

Am I the first one to do a TopGuest Run?
 

Upon arrival at SYR last week, I stopped at the hotel cluster near the airport. There's a Holiday Inn, Doubletree, and Quality Inn right next to each other. Easy way to top off accounts...

On my way out, I reset the expiration for my Virgin America account. I checked into several of the VX entries at SFO - the one that credited was "Virgin America Baggage Claim".

I'm using Foursquare on an iPhone - zero problems with recognizing the check-ins so far.

Does anyone know what time Topguest's "day" resets?
 

Friday night (24th) at around 9:15 CST I checked-in to both a Doubletree and Holiday Inn using Yahoo Places. Sure enough, a few minutes later they showed up in my Topguest account but both showed as a check-in on the 25th. I checked-in to both again mid-day on the 25th, but only scored the one set of points. So now I'm trying to figure out when their day rolls over. Anyone have any ideas??

I think it is 5:00 PM Mountain Time. I typically do my check-ins around 5:30 PM and it always shows up the next day.

I got this today in my email:

It's kinda strange as I just started using Topguest a few weeks ago.

EDIT: My wife got this also and has only been a member for 7 days

I also got this, and I have been using it only for a few weeks, too. :td:

So can you give us some info on what might have been the problem? Hotel check-ins only? Not near the place?

I try to add in a ton of other check-ins, and I don't necessarily do a hotel every day.

"Specifically, we have noticed over time that you seem to be checking in to our partner venues in a way that is not in the spirit of the Topguest program and in breach of Section (1) (c) of our TOS."

Section 1 C of the TOS states: By sharing a check-in at a place with Topguest, you represent and warrant that you are actually at that location. Topguest reserves the right to refuse to give rewards for checkins that Topguest, at its sole discretion, determines to be fraudulent or otherwise inauthentic.

I wonder if checking in to too many places in a short time period leads them to conclude that you are not "actually at that location".

This is precisely how they filter accounts for a usage that violates T&C.

I too received the same email after only a few weeks of Topguest use.

I've noticed that Facebook Places and Gowalla require you to be within a few meters of the target, whereas Foursquare allows you to check in from a great distance.
Topguest must have run a check against the properties being checked-into and the "precise geolocation information from each of the location-based services" as mentioned below.

I wonder how long the suspension period will be.




As Mooper wrote back in message #15:

Dear [Mooper],

Topguest currently enables you to get points from the world's biggest loyalty program, Priority Club, and rewards from the coolest hotels in America, The Standard hotels, just for checking in on foursquare, Gowalla, Twitter and Brightkite. We can do this because we retrieve precise geolocation information from each of the location-based services, and then apply our own anti-fraud rules. That way, we know that each check-in is a bona fide visit to the hotels awarding you points.
Recent improvements in out anti-fraud rules mean that, for now, we are ceasing to support Yelp, Loopt and Google Latitude. We will, of course, reward you with points for any check-ins that you have made to this point on those services, but will not do so going forward.
So, look forward to receiving your points soon and link up other services (Gowalla, foursquare, Twitter or Brightkite) on your Settings page!
Cheers,
The Topguest Team.

Consider what the "precise geolocation information" is and whether the check-in services know precisely where you are in the first place (there are many ways to make the service "think" you are somewhere you are not).

The instrumental point is that if you push a good thing too far, it will go away. There are easy,efficient ways to utilize this service so it benefits you - just be smart and prudent. If you've been checking into 50 hotels per week, they can easily filter, find, and ban you - as they should.

Is this valid in the UK? I have got around to signing up, but it is not showing :)

I can answer that now, I have 50 pts showing up on the top guests rewards,. so it looks like it worls here in the UK :)

I've got points for Hilton & Priority Club in UK so far

I wonder if any other Hilton HHonors properties will be allowed for TopGuest checkin. Right now, it is just Doubletree, which doesnt have as much of a presence as some of the other brands in the portfolio.

Hilton points are posting within one day for me. According to the info in the thread PC points are posted in batches. What about Choice points? Are they posted daily or in batches?

I'm currently in NYC. Yesterday, I randomly got an alert "you have just received 50 Choice Privileges points for checking in at a Quality Inn"

I'm not staying at a Quality Inn... I'm at the new Element by Westin at 39th & 8th. However, there is a Comfort Suites two doors away, about 75ft.

Does TG automatically "check-in" by proximity? I thought that one had to actually check-in (register) at the hotel?!

I have no idea how this works. :confused:

Choice points have been posting in batches for me.

I'm having problems with Doubletrees. Sometimes, several show in FourSquare, which probably means users added them, and I don't often know which to choose to get credit. I assume there's only one 'official' location check-in per hotel, and I'm choosing the wrong one.

Happens sometimes. Try the one you think is best, wait a day. If it doesn't post, try again with tour next best choice. Repeat until it posts, then you know the correct one to use.

I don't know what's going on with the program but it seems like priority points hasn't been posting in my account lately =/

The first time I check-in at a location, I'll run a search for "Doubletree" then look at the stats for each result. Usually one has significantly more check-ins. Also only one or two will have a mayor, which tends to indicate you've got the right one.

Nearly a month, I never get my point into real account yet. I meant for Doubletree.

You can check if you chose the right one by checking your account on topguest. They seem to update at the :15 and :45 minute mark of each hour.

I believe another hint is that the official location also has an icon that looks like a bed.

I haven't ever gotten points into my Wyndham account, but the PC, Hilton and Choice points have been posting. With that said, I also got banned lol.....it seems it was a form letter as it wasn't sent directly just to me :td::

Hi,

We noticed you're a big user of Topguest (great) but that you seem to be using the service in ways that violate our Terms of Service (less great).

Specifically, we have noticed over time that you seem to be checking in to our partner venues in a way that is not in the spirit of the Topguest program and in breach of Section (1) (c) of our TOS.

We are hereby suspending your account and will not be forwarding instances of you receiving points to our partners. You may continue to check-in and will see your rewards on Topguest.com or in the mobile applications but you will not be awarded points for these check-ins.

We look forward to you using Topguest in the manner we intended and will resume crediting points to your account when we see a change in behavior.

Regards,

Topguest.

Mine is banned too but my wife's account is holding up so far.

I've not had one of these yet but Im sure it's on the way, and I'm interested by the wording.

The first section I bolded seems so final in the way it's written (as in, that's it - game over). The second statement though seems to say they'll carry on transferring points to the hotel programs at some point in the future if you play nicely.

Does anyone else agree with my thought process on this and, if so, I wonder what 'playing nicely' looks like specifically.

Yes , I agree with you. I will continue to use the program and tone it down a bit to the 4 properties that are within a 1/4 mile of my work and see if that helps. It's free points for little/no effort so I'll try to play nice with them.

I won't be wasting the effort to include the Wingate Inn any longer tho, as it seems they aren't posting those points at all.

--wes

I have been getting my wyndham points posting in the same manner as Hilton (same/next day).

Hrmm, it may be an issue with this particular hotel. I don't think I'm in a position to complain to them right now tho lol....should have checked it prior to getting my "you've been bad" email

--wes

Would you mind telling us what pattern of usage led to getting the ban please?

There are 4 local hotels close to my work address. I was using the 4square browser that allows you to put in the location. I would check into these four properties daily along with checking in at the airport to hit a Virgin spot. I did it for about a month straight, missing a day every now and again.

To be honest, it's not that far fetched. I could easily check into these four locations and drop the Virgin check-in and it'd be legit for a mon-fri thing. These locations are all within 1000 meters of my work location.

I'm going to start checking into the four locations that are right there on a mon-fri basis and see if that allows them to reinstate my account. It's worth a shot I suppose.

The locations near me are a Doubletree, Wingate Inn, Quality Inn and a Holiday Inn select. However, for some reason the Wingate has never posted any points, so perhaps I'll cut that one out as well.


--wes

I've been doing it for a month and the response I got from those ba$tards was:
"The aim of the Topguest service is to.encourage sharing of actual visits to venues on users' social networks through the incentive of points. Please let us know when are you willing to engage in this behavior rather than checking in every day at a venue in rapid succession.
Regards,
Topguest."

"Rapid succession" for those morons are check ins half an hour or more apart. I can walk from one location to another from where I work in 10 min. They are just bunch of asses.