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[Roro]

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

[RammsteinNicCag · 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).

[Roro]

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.

[RammsteinNicCag]

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.

[wbylead]

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

[0602]

I have had multiple stays at marriott they do not post, nor do they ever hit "pending".  I have had to fight like a dog to get my credit from UP for marriott stays.  They know there is a problem, but refuse to fix it or listen to complaints.  It also does not help that call centers are based overseas--where no one understands you nor do you understand them and both sides get frustrated as the calls take so long going back & forth.  You will have to save the email from marriott proving when you made the reservation and the invoice from marriott.  You will need to fax all of these to UP so that marriott can do "research" and get back to you in 6 months as to your credit...very frustrating!  but worth the credit if you can get it .

[Roro]

Yes, I've had a few of my hotel stays not register in my Upromise account when they ought to have (IE: much longer than the suggested 45 days).  To counter this (and the inevitable loss of rewards), I've set up a stickie note on my desktop where I keep track of ALL my purchases/ reservations that should see Upromise returns, with the date and amount. Then, I periodically will update each entry with the date and amount of a pending/posted reward that shows up in my UPromise account.

If I see that a reward payment was not posted for a certain item and it's been more than 45 days since I had bought it/ stayed there, that's when I go back into my email or receipts folder and initiate a Upromise search request. (It helps that I save ALL my email, and have a folder in my file cabinet for paper receipts. For hotels, you always need the receipt you get upon checkout to send/ fax to Upromise for investigation).

When I first started with upromise i had no idea that some rewards would just disappear or not go through, and I suspect that a few of my early purchases just never got registered. Now that I'm vigilant about keeping track of my own activity, I can catch when the merchant is slacking with my rewards (which happens a bit too often, in my opinion).

So, if you can be ok with feeding your inner obsessive secretary, this method may work for you, too.

[Jeff]

Roro, that's great advice.  Thanks for sharing.

0602, I'm working with customer care right now to see where your reward stands.  Will circle back to post an update as soon as I know more.

[KSimila]

I've had the same problem. Stayed at a Marriott in early October, booked with TurboSaver toolbar, never got credit. I sent in the dispute and faxed in the paperwork a month ago, still nothing. I guess I should call to see what's going on, but having heard reports of difficutly with overseas call centers, I was hoping to avoid that. Every other online retailer seems to work well, but I've really had difficulty with Marriott. And I'm booking another stay for a couple weeks away. If it wasn't company travel, I would try a different hotel chain, but I really don't have a choice.

[wbylead]

I have six uppaid stays with Marriott.  Each one is with a registered credit card.  The first two I submitted, got Pending, the others I haven't turned in yet.  This looks like something UPromise should handle since all of us are having similar issues.  It doesn't seem fair for us to chase these down since UPromise agreed to have them become a partner.