Did Southwest Hotels Steal 15,000 Points From Me?

[Teddybear1]

I think they did.... 

We booked 2 premium rooms at a resort via SW Hotels. 

15,000 RR Points per room was the advertised reward, 30,000 total for the stay.  

SW Hotels required a second name on the booking because there were 2 rooms, I've never had that request from Hilton or Marriott, ever.  Didn't think anything of it so we tossed a second name on the booking.      

We pre-paid and only saw 15,000 points deposited in the RR account for the primary guest who paid for 100% of the stay.  Called for clarification and were told that because the 2nd name (which we were FORCED to add or could not complete the booking) did not match the primary name on the reservation and RR account, and as a result we will NOT be getting the additional 15,000 points. 

No exceptions, no flexibility, no accommodations for 2 people that have been loyal to SW for decades.  No possible way to add an RR account to the booking for the added name, or deposit the points into the primary guest account where they should have been all along. 

Several hours of phone calls and supposed supervisor escalations, nothing.  Unwilling to help us or make this right. 

Bait and switch?

Theft and fraud?

Or, total scam?      

[bballflyer]

Did they require a 2nd name for the reservation or when entering the RR number, or when checking in or some other time?  I have made reservations in the past for similar dates at the same place though I think I had always canceled one before actually staying there.  That is not good there isn't a way after the fact to add it in because I would feel it is easy to miss upon booking. 

[Teddybear1]

There was no way to enter a second RR#, just a second name which was required to complete the booking.  So, the 15,000 points we were expecting as a result of this pre-paid stay vanished into thin air. 

Only reason we booked this was to collect the RR points, otherwise we would have booked direct to get our hotel status loyalty.  Very disappointed in the level of customer service for a very expensive luxury stay.   

[SoCalFlyer97]

Hello!

As a frequent traveler and regular user of SW Hotels, sorry this happened to you. I have not had any major trouble with SW Hotels which is powered through Booking.com however I have always booked one room under a reservation and I always pay the extra few dollars for free cancelation.

I've not used their multiple room option (I'm aware that just about all Points Plus properties w/ 2 or more rooms booked in a single booking are non-refundable but offer some huge RR offers). I ran a demo search to see if I can reproduce the cause of your symptom or see if I can locate any rule or restriction that may have caused any confusion about your promised 30k point offer.

I did a random weekday search for two rooms in LAS and saw a luxury Waldorf Astoria posting for $511. Some interesting facts:

The posted price is marked as "Price for 2 adults for 1 night". The $511 quote is actually per room, not for both rooms (a little confusing for me but the price is clarified on the details page where the total is $1102 including the resort fee...fair enough). The offer is 18,000 Companion Pass Eligible RR Points total, about $270 worth of SW flights plus the value toward Companion Pass...Nice offer!

When I go the checkout page, I see where it asks for the two guest names and I assume that Guest #1 is the buyer, Guest #2 is the second adult to occupy the second room.

Further down is the field where the buyer enters their RR number to claim the 18,000 points.

Anyway, as a buyer, I would expect to get 18k points should I move forward with this reservation and fulfill the stay. Based on your experience of you receiving only 15k of the promised 30k offered, would I as the buyer expect to receive only 9,000 of the 18k points? If so, something doesn't stack with the customer service rep's response as I did not see any other term, rule or restriction on this...It might warrant another call or email to SW Hotels Concierge with escalated support to see what caused your points to be cut in half.

Let us know.

[Teddybear1]

I have called many many many times, they are not budging.  I am asking for the call to be escalated to anyone at higher levels who can help and not only are they unwilling to move this along, they are rude, short, and almost have a mocking attitude about the entire situation.  So infuriating. 

I'll never book with SW hotels again, but for those that do please ensure you are making separate bookings if you want to maximize your rewards on multiple rooms. 

I don't know how else to categorize this as a blatant THEFT of my expected points.     

[SoCalFlyer97]

Hello-

Sorry to hear you're still having trouble with Booking.com. This is very unusual as Booking.com is a legit 3rd party booking engine. What is most unusual is they appearing to not escalate your claim.

Would you confirm my question in my first reply where I brought up the example hotel offer (where I saw 18k total Companion Pass Eligible RR Points offered for booking two rooms for two people in Vegas). See the screenshots in my last reply.

On the checkout page, I see where it asks for the two guest names and I assume that Guest #1 is the buyer, Guest #2 is the second adult to occupy the second room. I would expect to get the full 18k points should I fulfill the stay as I didn't see any published restrictions other than the buyer's name needs to match the name of the RR accountholder to earn the points.

Based on these screenshots and your described experience of receiving only 15k of the promised 30k offered, would I as the buyer get only 9,000 of the 18k points?

Also, I would locate the original "Your hotel reservation is confirmed" email and double check that the total points promised in the email says, "Rapid Reward points 30,000 Points" beneath the grand total of the stay. If it says 15,000 that is the total points promised, not for each person.

If the email documents the full 30k points, it's possible something technical happened between the Booking.com engine and your hotel's booking system that the customer reps either cannot or don't know how to resolve.

If Booking.com is not able to resolve this and you already submitted all your supporting documents to them, we as buyers have the CFPB to fall back on which should force an escalation. I cannot give direct advice in this area as I don't know all the facts concerning your stay but I can share what I would do if I proceeded with the above example booking at LAS, followed all the rules, fulfilled the stay, expected to receive 18k points but only got 9,000.

If I find that after submitting multiple inquiries with the supporting documents that Booking.com cannot resolve the issue or the reps state an unpublished "rule" that half of the RR points go to me and the other half to the other person (which would be impossible as there is only one RR account field), I would submit a complaint to the CFPB and include the confirmation email documenting the points promised, and the email communications between the parties. This would force the booking site to have upper-level staff investigate this.