I would appreciate any thoughts about this loyalty program. I just recently joined and finished my first stay at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. The program updated my points the same day literally a few hours later. my company has quite a number of the member hotels as preferred hotels for travel so I thought I’d try them.

I’id like to know if anyone has thoughts about room upgrades and other benefits with this program. I know free nights are harder to come by since points get you $25 in redemption credits for every 12,500 points. The hotels seem like they are pretty good ones and generally are AAA four diamond quality or better.

You may want to look into the cross-redemption from Choice Prilvileges for Preferred Hotels. It may actually be much easier to earn free Preferred Hotel stays by staying paid at Choice Hotels (especially using their frequent "stay 2 times earn 8000 points" promos) than at Preferred Hotels, if I Prefer earns as slowly as you describe.

Booking Preferred Hotels & Resorts (in the Choice forum)

Choice Hotels are not preferred hotels for my company plus I don’t really want to spend 30+ nights in choice hotel stays to get a handful of free nights. I was thinking of either staying at Preferred Hotels or GHA/Omni hotels. I’m looking for upgrade ability rather than free stays. Thanks.

The certificates can be used at any of the Iprefer hotels and are even transferable. I got quite a lot of those (25, 50, 100 USD) and barely use them. So if anyone is interested in taking some of those off my hands at a good discount, just send me a PM

How were your upgrades when you stayed with them?

I saw that they offer a status match. Does anyone know how long the match lasts?

Just submitted a status match request (actually their email asked me about higher tier status with other programs).

So far in the iPrefer Rewards program they stays have posted very quickly. That's the good news.

The not so good news is that member property front desk staff are clueless about the benefits.

Marriot member for many years. Probably one of the best if not best rewards program there is. All depends on where you are traveling and access to the type of hotel you want.

I have a lot of iPrefer points so I turned some of them into vouchers. However I read - when you get the vouchers - that they can't be used for existing prepaid reservations. I assume that means when you show up at the front desk to checkout - unless you have an expensive reservation that you don't have to pay for in advance - you can only use the vouchers for incidentals like breakfasts and minbars rather than the actual room cost itself. Not as good as, for example, Accor, where I can use my points on the website to reduce the room rate I'm paying whether it's discounted because it's unchangeable or whether it's full price because it's short notice.
So not as helpful as I thought (leaving aside the difficulty of getting access to the website when I forgot my password and after requesting the password reset email I kept getting the message "access denied"!)

I think the website suggests Elite members only get their benefits if they book through iprefer.com

However, rates (and perks) for many hotels through Visa Signature, Mr & Mrs Smith, Tablet Hotels are more compelling.

QUESTION: has anyone been able to get their elite status benefits whilst using a 3rd party booking service? Thanks in advance

This is what I was told: “your benefits are available at hotels regardless of how the booking was made. If you do book through an ineligible point awarding channel please contact the hotel prior to arrival and have them attach/notate your I Prefer member ID and associated Elite status.” In my case I only wanted an upgrade but the hotel was full anyway. The welcome gift was a spa discount.

Any information about status match? I am spending 15 nights in Sept in Tokyo and I will try a match from Bonvoy.

They will match and instructions at https://preferredhotels.com/page/ipr...sked-questions

Cheers!