Hotel rewards...
 

Any 121 guys have reward cards that can accrue stays from overnights on trips?

It depends on the specific hotel location. Some will honor them/give points and some won't.

Priority Club with hotels like Crown Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express

Some will honor them, some won't.

But at the ones which don't honor them for crew, there may not be anything in their computer which prevents it, it might just be policy. Always ask...some front desk clerks will give it to you anyway, even if the policy says otherwise.

La Quinta is pretty good.. so are most priority club hotels

Its hit or miss. We used to have a couple that would, but i haven't been able to get any points in probably a year. Most rewards programs do not include crew rates in their eligibility.

I've been trying for a long time now, and most of the front desk clerks keep saying that their system won't let them. They say that since the rooms are booked 24/7 for my airline, they are unable to apply just one specific night to my points account.

I'm not sure if its BS or not, but that's what I hear all the time.

The few times I have had points credited, its been holiday inn or holiday inn express. And, I've been able to get them on unscheduled overnights when the rooms werent booked in advance.

most airline crew rooms are direct bill and there is not a transaction for the room, so even if they put it in, you would not get it anyway

You gotta watch the guy or girl at corporate that books the room. We had a guy that had the cards himself and put the crew's room points on his card when he booked the room for us, and the front desk people were pretty stubborn about taking him off and putting us on.

Ayep...my experience has been that the crew-rates aren't high enough to earn credits.

Get a card at evey hotel you stay in, save them , pull them out at check in.
Hey, today I even got Skymiles.

Similar to others....it's seems to be completely hit or miss. That being said, I typically get the cards and present them to the clerk at check-in. If they take it, great.....if they don't, I'm no worse off.

We certainly spend enough time in these hotels.....might as well try and get a little back from them. Funny thing is, the more they cooperate and try to get me some points, the more likely I'll book w/ that hotel when I'm traveling on my own.

The rewards clubs are for spending "money" in the hotels, not "time."

What exactly would a crew give *to* the hotel that would warrant trying to "get a little back"?

Employment to the front desk clerk(s), cleaning crew, restaurant, van driver, maintenance worker. That is all I can think of..you know..not much :rolleyes:

Oh, so you pay for your hotels out of pocket? None of it is paid for or reimbursed by your employer?

I've had the best luck when staying at unscheduled hotels. I always ask, though, and even if I only hit on 20% of them, it still adds up quickly.

By staying in that Hotel we are giving them business. Doesn't matter who pays the room bill. Those people are employed due to the fact that people or companies rent the room(s). And yes, when I personally have to commute in a day early and rent a room I am in fact "giving to" the hotel also.

The vast majority of business travelers who become Diamond, Platinum, whatever at the large hotel chains are traveling on negotiated corporate rates and staying with chains directed by their employers. Their rooms are either paid by corporate direct-bill or by corporate-issued Credit Cards. They seldom pay rack rates, and the negotiated rates are often similar to our crew rates at the nicer places. The only reason they get points and we don't is the perception that the individual traveler picks their hotel, whereas ours is picked by the company.

Incidentally I am top-tier with one of the hotel chains and am far more likely to give them my leisure business (which is substantial) based on being treated well on my crew stays. Food for thought.

So, again, since it is your *company* that is giving the hotel business, then why is it that you, the individual, should be entitled in any way to "get a little back from them"?

Paid for the hotel on your own dime for your own personal needs? By all means, your business is what keeps them in business, so you're absolutely entitled.

So you would also agree that business travelers whose companies pay their airfare, hotels, rental cars etc should not get the points? Or are you just saying aircrews should not? If so, why the double standard?

Marriott is really good about it. Heck, last year someone credited me for a whole months worth of days in Omaha. That's helped with a few sweet(suite) upgrades.

What's with the asterisk usage?

you can get miles when non-revving, trying to find the logic behind hotels being different.

uhm I was not aware of this - how do you do it? (I should be a trillion miler by now with all the damn commuting I do :(

I have not done it with DL (only when it was NWA) and used my worldperks card to book the tickets. I didn't keep track of the miles so it may have not worked but asked for the number. I do know it worked when I did the "fly confirmed for less" because it got me enough points to be able and buy my wife a round trip ticket for a trip she went on. Now that I think about it there isn't a card input for DL when using travelnet. The NW system did. Ill try and see if my points added up for NW and carried over in DL miles.

I do spend money while I spend time in a hotel....

I may not be able to always pick which hotel or the chain the company puts me in, but I do have quite a bit of influence over which hotel the company doesn't put me in during a layover.:eek: A concept I am very quick to point out when the service is not what it should be, no matter what the rate is, or who is "paying" the bill.:rolleyes:

For the record, nost of the direct bill stays seem to go sans points for the room, but any resturant, bar etc... usually yields points, the secret seems to be to bill it to the room then seperate it at check out time. Until a year ago, Hilton gave us points for all our rooms if we had other charges on our folio, but if there was nothing but the room, no nada, they couldn't seem to seperate it in their system. Unfortunately, they figured it out. Now it seems that the only rooms we usually get points for are the ones that we pay for with a CC at checkout, about 1/3of the time, which still translates to about 40 nights/year for me. Plenty of rewards points to keep Priority Club Gold and HHonors Diamond and get 4-5 free nights/year in swanky places. Most of the time, just having those status' yield free internet or breakfast etc...

Be sure to keep track of all the "offers" that the major rewards programs offer, I sign up for them all, it has been a good year for Priority Club, but Hilton seems to have the best program for overall benifits and every qualifying stay generates 500 FF miles, that in itself generates a free r/t for the wife every other year, roughly.

There are a couple of good forums out there where bid-ness people share all the latest points programs/specials and how to maximize the rewards, worth a look if you can drag yourself away from APC for 30 minutes.

Fly safe out there

SD

However, it is an individual's choice on whether or not to spend their own dime on incidentals at the *company* hotel or go elsewhere instead. Also, I would venture to say as crewmembers we tend to often utilize our nicer *company* hotels while on personal travel. Perhaps just a couple of good reasons for the *company* hotels not to take crewmembers for granted and to "give a little back." Regardless of whose footing the bill, an individual should be recognized as whatever level of membership (silver, gold, platnium, diamond, etc) they have achieved.

Business travelers' rooms are also paid for by the company, and often selected now by corporate travel agents. By your reckoning should they not receive points? For that matter, my GF is former Air Force now ANG, when she travels on AF business she receives points. Should Uncle Sam get them instead? I guarantee for the most part her unit picks the hotel, not her.

I'm not sure what your objection here is. The TOC of most loyalty programs states that we won't receive points on crew rooms, and for the most part I don't. But when a hotel recognizes my status, or gives me points anyway, I'm far more likely to remember them on non-crew business.

Good point. For years service members were technically not allowed to accept promotions such as hotel or airline points when travelling on official government business. However, that changed a few years ago. While returning from a recent deployment I discovered that the embassy person that booked our group hotel reservations enroute home was actually credited the points for the entire group consisting of several dozen unit members. Talk about getting a nice little points kickback.