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!
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Was really excited to see the Brando as a bookable property… of course shows tons of availability but unbookable for points any date
I transferred from Citi to I-Prefer 13 days ago. I was finally able to book the property I wanted today.
Ugh! I had the same thing happen with the Preferred hotel in Amsterdam. I specifically checked if rooms were available for our dates. I transferred the TYPs and Preferred received them. But now I cannot book a room, even though it shows award nights available. Even Choice shows availability. Now, I am stuck with 100K I-Prefer points that I probably will never be able to use.
“One hotel tried to charge me the full rack rate even after I had paid with Choice points!”
I had a similar issue in Oslo with a Choice property operated by Strawberry. When I checked out I was asked for a credit card to pay the bill. When I explained I’d used points I was asked to send my confirmation email to a certain Strawberry email address. The desk clerk said they weren’t used to having reservations made with points. I never heard back, which was a relief.
“One hotel tried to charge me the full rack rate even after I had paid with Choice points!”
Agreed — Hotel Californian sent me a CC auth form for the full paid rate, until I pointed out to them that I’d paid with Choice points.
I was going to defend iprefer–I have a weird surplus of these points from work travel and direct award stays have been seamless. BUT, I made the mistake of booking through Choice, and that has been a nightmare. Hotel charged my card full freight for the stay and won’t reverse it despite my sending in what is very clearly a confirmation of my award booking. Points are gone.
Not surprising. I have had issues with booking some of their other associated hotels in the past. Last year we stayed at the House Hotel in Galway, Ireland. There are several Irish properties in the “Choice Hotel Group,” which seems to be somewhat separate from the overall Choice Hotels (maybe sorta like what used to be called Nordic Choice). When I cancelled and rebooked, I never received the points back. One email I received said something about $25 (I paid 20k Choice points), and when I called in, the first agents I talked to only saw $25. That must be what Choice gives the hotel for one night? A supervisor eventually was able to figure it out, and I got the points back.
i didn’t find out about the problem until I went to check out in Munich. The hotel wanted to charge a cash rate…which happened to be half the online rate against which I was using points. It was resolved but I thought it was a hotel specific issue until I read this.
I now wonder if the online rates are twice what the hotel would quote directly.
And I thought Marriott had abysmal IT!
Sounds like dealing with Avios transfers between BA, IB and IE, that many run up against.
As a reminder, iPrefer allows individual properties to opt out of points redemptions. Rotten program feature. For these properties, you can convert iPrefer points to a cash voucher at a rotten rate and present it to the hotel as an offset. Not advised.
Ultimately, the fact that they allow hotels to opt out isn’t functionally all that different from programs where it’s not “allowed” but hotels do it anyway.
Fair enough. To your point, I’ve seen Marriott properties jack around with redemptions.
– November to March, all rooms are open for redemption but in April to October only base rooms are open for redemption.
– Cat 8 properties are priced at 101k to avoid FNC use.
– Properties are priced at points+cash to avoid FNC use.
I got the 501 error. Called up twice and spoke to someone that got the same error. They told me someone would contact me and nobody ever did. It’s been a week now and now these points are stuck.
It sounds worse than the problems with TK. IMO, the savings aren’t worth the trouble, at least for now.
As a data point, I booked a hotel in Lisbon through Choice (Preferred Hotels). The reservation doesn’t show up anywhere on the Choice site but it does appear in my iPrefer account. I received a confirmation from Preferred hotels for the reservation.
Listening to the podcast, an email confirmation does not actually mean that the hotel will know about your reservation when you arrive. Best to contact them a couple of weeks before so you can start the process of working out any problems in advance.
You can call it “Life Miles” of Hotels.
Wow, I thought Sonesta was bad but this is much worse. For a long time I was unable to book hotels with points, both for myself and P2 (we got the Sonesta cards). Could not book online and they told us to call to book manually. More recently I was able to book a night though. But that’s not nearly as bad as the issues you had here.