Preferred Hotels & Resorts is a collection of independent hotels around the world. For point collectors, there are two ways in which it’s possible to book many of these hotels with points: book with Choice Privileges points; or book with iPrefer points (iPrefer is Preferred Hotels’ own rewards program). In either case, it’s sometimes possible to get great value for your points. And, in either case, the process is often fraught with problems. In a recent podcast episode, Nick called Preferred Hotels my Turkish Airlines (because booking awards through Turkish is notoriously problematic). Nick was spot on. I’m writing this post after having booked a stay in which I’ve already encountered issues. More below…
Background
Choice Privileges has long had a partnership with Preferred Hotels in which it was possible to book Preferred Hotels with Choice points but only by calling Choice and trying desperately to find someone who knew how to make it happen. Early in 2024, though, it became possible to book Preferred Hotels online with Choice points. This was great because both Citi and Wells Fargo offer transfers from their bank points to Choice at a 1 to 2 ratio. Then things became even more interesting when Citi added Preferred Hotels as a direct transfer partner at an incredible 1 to 4 ratio. And while it wasn’t initially possible to book Preferred Hotels online with their own iPrefer Points, that changed last week (see: Many Preferred Hotels now bookable with points).
Problems Everywhere
Unfortunately, the entire process of booking Preferred Hotels with points is fraught with problems. While some people have reported success, many others have faced issues:
- The iPrefer website doesn’t work correctly, but the Preferred Hotels website sometimes does: There are two ways to search for points bookings: you can start by looking for reward nights on the iPrefer website (iprefer.com/offer/i-prefer-reward-nights), but that approach hardly ever works. Alternatively, you can search for hotels on the Preferred Hotels website (preferredhotels.com) and then change “Show Rates” from “Cash” to “Points”. That works better. Not great, but better.
- Unable to find available dates: From the Preferred Hotels website, you can search a location for specific dates and then show Points rates. This should filter to hotels that are available to book with points for those dates. In my experience, it sometimes works that way and sometimes does not. In some cases, when you click through from the search results to the availability calendar you find that the hotel is not actually available to book with points after all.
- Available dates not actually bookable: Sometimes you’ll get through to the calendar showing dates available to book with points, but then when clicking through to select rooms, the option to pay with points doesn’t show up. [Important note: I find this happens every time when starting the search from the iPrefer website, but when starting the search from preferredhotels.com, it doesn’t happen as often]
- Miscellaneous website bugs: Weird stuff happens all the time. For example, when searching for available hotels, the number of search results randomly changes each time you re-run the search.
- Unable to transfer Citi points to iPrefer:
- Citi’s ThankYou portal doesn’t recognize my iPrefer ID as valid and won’t let me even try to transfer points
- One reader reported receiving an error when transferring points, but it worked anyway. Susan wrote: “Transfer from Citi last night and initially got an error on Citi’s site, but noticed points are already taken from my account… I checked my iPrefer account and saw the points were received (instantly). Good thing I didn’t try transferring again. Booked Villa Copenhagen for 12.5k Citi points (50k iPrefer points) for next Aug. Cash price $485. Choice charges 40k so Preferred Hotel is a better value.”
- Unable to use points after transferring:
- Arthur wrote: “This has been a disaster for me. Just transferred Citi points for a booking and I can’t even book it. No matter what property I try to book, I get this error: Booking Error (501): There was a problem with your reservation. Please double-check your reservation details and try again.”
- Gary wrote: “It has been 9 days since I transferred Citi to I Prefer. I still can’t book the hotel I want despite daily calls into I Prefer, numerous emails to their support, and an email back saying that the ‘problem has been fixed.'”
- Different availability with Choice or iPrefer points. There is some overlap in which Preferred Hotels are bookable with Choice points and which are bookable with iPrefer points. When that’s the case, I’ve found that the availability doesn’t match between the two programs. With an upcoming stay, I had to book with Choice points because the hotel was not available with iPrefer points.
- Post-booking issues:
- I’ve heard multiple times from readers that they had booked Preferred Hotels through Choice and the hotel had no record of this when they showed up for their stay. Similarly, a reader tried to cancel an existing booking made through Choice and the hotel had no record of the stay. While I don’t know if the same thing is likely to happen with reservations booked with iPrefer points, I think it is likely. It is critical to confirm your stay with the hotel after booking!
- Some hotels simply don’t know how to deal with points bookings. One hotel tried to charge me the full rack rate even after I had paid with Choice points!
My latest booking
Yesterday, I wanted to book a Preferred Hotel for a four night stay next year. The hotel’s standard rate is either 57,000 Choice points (28,500 Citi points) or 75,000 iPrefer points (18,750 Citi points). Either way it was a good deal vs. about $600 per night, but the iPrefer rate is better if you need to transfer from Citi since it requires fewer Citi points thanks to Citi’s 1 to 4 transfer ratio to iPrefer. Unfortunately, the hotel was available to book through Choice, but it wasn’t available to book with iPrefer points. Weird. Luckily for me, I have tons of Choice points (many from my old Radisson America’s points that converted to Choice), so I didn’t need to do a transfer from Citi at all. The booking process through Choice was smooth.
Today, I got an email from the hotel saying that they needed my card for a deposit to hold the reservation. I thought that this was one of those deposits where they hold a certain amount until the stay is over and then refund whatever isn’t used. Nope. After calling and giving them my card number, I found that they had charged me the full cash rate for the entire stay! I called back and the issue was quickly resolved. The Choice booking included a virtual credit card from Choice that they thought was my credit card and so the charge failed when they used my name to try to process the payment. Once they figured out what had happened, they reversed all charges to my card. Meanwhile I found that Choice was apparently on the hook for the full cash rate for this stay.
Conclusion
Booking Preferred Hotels with points is awesome in theory but it seems that things go wrong more often than not. It seems that the process of booking with Choice points is smoother than with iPrefer points at the moment, but it’s still necessary to check with the hotel to confirm your booking. Hopefully Citi will fix their transfer issues, and Preferred Hotels will fix the many issues involved in booking with their own iPrefer points! Until then, keep in mind that persistence and a good deal of good luck may be required!
The post Preferred Problems (issues booking Preferred Hotels with points) appeared first on Frequent Miler. Frequent Miler may receive compensation from CHASE. American Express, Capital One, or other partners.