Shopping online

[#1]

I'm taking a trip cross country and for the first time have used Upromise to find hotel partners. I made several reservations online via Upromise for hotels along our route.

Since online reservations are not in themselves payments for the room (since they only ask you to pay for the room when you get there), must we pay using the credit card I have registered with Upromise with which I made the reservation? If we use another card, not registered with Upromise, will the contributions be recognized?

I only recently registered my boyfriend's card on Upromise, and am not sure the verification will go through before we reach many of our destinations. I read a message here that you can pay with any card (not necessarily a registered card) for online purchases so long as the transaction began at Upromise, but I don't think that this would apply for hotels that are only taking reservations and not full payments online.

If anyone can clarify this for me, I would feel much relieved. (And much more willing to let the BF pay for some of the rooms like he wants to!)

Thanks!

Roro

[#2 · Accepted solution]

I looked at the merchant details for some of the hotels listed and they say that you don't need it. To look specifically at the ones you reserved, go to http://shop.upromise.com/mall/home and in the search box in the top right corner, put in the hotels you picked or the travel service you used (orbitz, travelocity, etc). Then click on the link that says "Merchant Details" and that should tell you.

Two things to remember when travelling:

- Sometimes those travel companies that check multiple hotels / airlines / car rentals for you are NOT cheaper than going directly to the place. I got a price for a Marriot hotel through Orbitz (1% contribution) and decided to go to the Marriot website to see what price they gave me. It was a little bit cheaper, but I also got a 2% contribution.

- Keep your emailed receipts. If two months after you [b]stayed[/b] (as opposed to reserving the room) at your hotels you still haven't received your contributions, send in a missing contribution inquiry to UPromise (you can find out how to do that in the Help section).

[#3]

Thank you, RammsteinNicCag! I didn't realize there were more detailed Merchant Descriptions than the ones I was already looking at. This definitely helps! (And yes, for both Choice Hotels and Westin it says that using a registered card is NOT required. Whew!)

My method for finding/ reserving hotels was actually to do a google search for hotels in the areas through which I'd be traveling, and then compare prices that way. I never once used Expedia or the other sites (though I probably could have for the search part), and I made all the reservations directly through the vendors. And yes, getting 3% from Choice Hotels can't compare to only 1% from Expedia.

[#4]

I only recently found out about those extra merchant details. I hope that they'll make those more noticable one of these days - it's definitely helpful to at least find out what stores you can purchase online and pick up in store.

[#5]

Ramm,

In this thread, you wrote "If two months after you [b]stayed[/b] (as opposed to reserving the room) at your hotels you still haven't received your contributions, send in a missing contribution inquiry to UPromise."  I have two outstanding stays at Marriott properties.  Does it really take past 2 months after the stay for the contributions to come up as pending?

wbylead