Hope you feed that back to them and that their competitors such as Hilton and IHG do award points on stays booked through travel agencies.

Certainly in the case of Hilton, I have to advise you, that stays booked through travel agents are not eligible for points/nights/stays in their loyalty program. This has been so for long time. I don't know about IHG, but I imagine it's the same.

Wrong!

All my Hilton stays booked through a corporate travel agent have earned Hilton Honors points since 2001.
Exactly the same for IHG rewards club, formerly Priority Club!

Interesting. Would you mind sharing who your corporate travel agent is? May be through private mail. We had two different corporate travel agents over the last years and neither one was eligible ... At least the current one is a major global player ... Hilton always referred to the section in their Terms excluding stays booked through "third party websites".

Has anyone used the 'Free breakfast for one companion' benefit for Gold Members? Do you need to inform them at check-in that you would like to use it? Are hotels generally aware of this benefit?

Yes, Yes, No

I'd say expect a 75% chance of needing to show the staff at checkout the Melia website, and argue over the need for the charge for the 2nd breakfast to be removed...

Thanks for the quick reply. I thought that might be the case :mad:

I might take the Gold member documentation that I got through the post with me.

I wonder if its worth emailing them in advance about it?

I don't think emailing helps. I believe it needs to be knocked off the bill at / just before checkout, just like the "book on Melia.com and get €5/€10/€15/€20 to spend in the hotel" offers. Someone from the hotel has to go through and zero out / discount the relevant spends for the gold breakfast and the online booking food/drink spend.

At really good hotels, at checkout, they say something like "we've taken off your melia website allowance and gold breakfast, can I print you the rest of the bill to review?". Medium hotels they say "hmm, please give me a minute" then manage to correctly remove most.

An email to the hotel likely won't help, as it generally seems to be up to the checkout staff to do the discount/zero... Just allow 10 minutes more for checkout than you would a a US-based US-flagged chain hotel, and bring printed copies of everything (Melia online booking discount etc!)

Many thanks. I'll leave it until check out. We also have a €15 discount. Will make sure I take printed copies of both.

I'll let you know how I get on :).

241 breakfasts and hotel credit
 

In my experience at INNSIDE New York NoMad, I had to mention to the waitress during breakfast that we are using 2 for 1 breakfast deal. She then re-printed the bill to reflect this. So it appeared all fine in the final hotel folio.
Re hotel credit, at Gran Melia Palacio de Isora I was asked to forward an email which promises a credit (in my case it was 20 euros per day) to a check-out clerk during check-out. It was all sorted out in a matter of minutes.
But overall I agree that hotel staff is often not aware of elite benefits like late check-out, etc., so you need to be ready to prompt them :)

Does MeliaRewards still do the free night birthday discount codes? My birthday is coming up soon, and I'd like to book at a stay at one of their hotels for a few days after. Also, is there a list of their hotels that participate in the offer? (Or if anyone has a code in their inbox they aren't going to use...)

Free night offer expired 1 or 2 years ago, now Melia offer for your birthday a discount for your next stay (20% for platinum members)

Saludos.

How long does it take for points to post? I completed a stay on Wednesday last week, but no points have posted yet.

Thanks for clearing that up. I was confused because the page is still there on their site :S

Around your birthday, you now need to head to "My Promotions" when logged into your Melia Rewards account, which should be https://www.melia.com/en/mymeliarewa...iones/home.htm . That's where you'll find your Gold / Platinum discount vouchers, and around your birthday also another "Birthday gift voucher"

Last year it was 20% off or a 1-category upgrade when checking in online. Not sure about the 2017 one yet, but possibly a January or February baby can let us know :)