Reward booking point mismatch between phone and online

[glasszon]

I tried to book a reward booking on HGI Singapore, which shows as 20k points per night on the selected dates, I cannot book online as I will be gifting the stay to my mother and I won't travel with her.

Long story short, basically the agent cannot see the same availability and she can only see the exact same room for 30-45k points, not only that but they refused to believe the booking is available at 20k point and forced me to book it online and add my mother as additional guest (not ideal, but I have emailed the hotel and they say they will "assist with the check in process", so I assume this means they will accept it).

Have anyone encountered this scenario before? I tried 2 different agent and they both said the same story, it really leave a sour taste given it turned a straight-forward booking into something that requires 2 phone calls and 1 email to partially resolve, I expected this type of conversation for a RTW flight reward booking, not for a simple hotel redemption.

 

[JohnK]

Not the exact scenario but I have booked hotel rooms/reward nights for myself many times and added a "guest" and have advised the "guest" will arrive before me and they can checkin without me.

Have never had an issue.

 

[kyle]

I tried to book a reward booking on HGI Singapore, which shows as 20k points per night on the selected dates, I cannot book online as I will be gifting the stay to my mother and I won't travel with her.

Long story short, basically the agent cannot see the same availability and she can only see the exact same room for 30-45k points, not only that but they refused to believe the booking is available at 20k point and forced me to book it online and add my mother as additional guest (not ideal, but I have emailed the hotel and they say they will "assist with the check in process", so I assume this means they will accept it).

Have anyone encountered this scenario before? I tried 2 different agent and they both said the same story, it really leave a sour taste given it turned a straight-forward booking into something that requires 2 phone calls and 1 email to partially resolve, I expected this type of conversation for a RTW flight reward booking, not for a simple hotel redemption.

Yes that happened to me once -- lower points online, so I booked online. (I was trying to get a 2nd night after using a certificate.)

 

[glasszon]

thanks all, glad to hear I am not the only one who faced this problem before, guess the take home message is hotel's booking system is not necessarily better than Airline's booking system!

Edit: Yes, at the end I just make my mother as the additional guest so she will check in that way.