Questions and Answers

Wondering how this works please. I have an upcoming stay booked with FHR which comes with a $100 food/beverage credit. The hotel has a Michelin starred restaurant where we plan on using the credit but we will still be left with several hundred out of pocket for the tasting menus. Question is how is that credit usually applied? Will they make us charge the dinner to the room & pay for it all at once during checkout so they can subtract the credit then? If that’s the case, since I think I have to use the Amex Plat to pay for the hotel because it was booked using FHR, I won’t get any bonus spend for the hotel or dining portion. Or ideally, would I be allowed to pay for the meal then & there with the food credit applied using my Chase Reserve to get 3x points?

I’m all about maximizing my bonus points! Thanks!

The $100 credit is applied to your final bill, granted you pay your stay with an Amex card. With FHR, perks are *usually* granted if you pay with an Amex (it actually doesn’t need to be the Platinum, but it needs to be an Amex with your name on it – read the fine print for your stay, as it may not be the case for every property). So you could negotiate with the restaurant and have $100 charged to your room and pay the remainder with your CSR I guess? that’ll depend on the restaurant or on how flexible your waiter will be…

We always pay in cash, avoids this kind of time waste.

[QUOTE=”Clem, post: 52053, member: 2278″]The $100 credit is applied to your final bill, granted you pay your stay with an Amex card. With FHR, perks are *usually* granted if you pay with an Amex (it actually doesn’t need to be the Platinum, but it needs to be an Amex with your name on it – read the fine print for your stay, as it may not be the case for every property). So you could negotiate with the restaurant and have $100 charged to your room and pay the remainder with your CSR I guess? that’ll depend on the restaurant or on how flexible your waiter will be…[/QUOTE]
Thanks Texas Flyer! So it doesn’t sound like it’s a set rule. I guess I’ll clarify once we are there. When you say any Amex, do you know if a SPG Amex would work if you had any experience with that?

[QUOTE=”Clem, post: 52053, member: 2278″]The $100 credit is applied to your final bill, granted you pay your stay with an Amex card. With FHR, perks are *usually* granted if you pay with an Amex (it actually doesn’t need to be the Platinum, but it needs to be an Amex with your name on it – read the fine print for your stay, as it may not be the case for every property). So you could negotiate with the restaurant and have $100 charged to your room and pay the remainder with your CSR I guess? that’ll depend on the restaurant or on how flexible your waiter will be…[/QUOTE]
Thanks Clem! So it doesn’t sound like it’s a set rule. I guess I’ll clarify once we are there. When you say any Amex, do you know if a SPG Amex would work if you had any experience with that?

[QUOTE=”MMM, post: 52065, member: 1977″]Thanks Clem! So it doesn’t sound like it’s a set rule. I guess I’ll clarify once we are there. When you say any Amex, do you know if a SPG Amex would work if you had any experience with that?[/QUOTE]

Yes, and again I would check the fine print on your reservation, in your emails at the end. Usually mine say:

[QUOTE] Payment must be made in full with an American Express Card in the Platinum Card Member’s or Centurion® Member’s name. [/QUOTE]

I recently stayed at the St Regis in San Francisco via FHR, and I actually had the option to link my Amex SPG during the reservation process. I did read in a couple of places that sometimes the check in people can give you a hard time if you are not using your Platinum, but the FHR fine print usually state what I quoted just above so technically, you are allowed to use whichever Amex you want as long as it’s in your name.
The reason why I’m being a little cautious in my comment is because everytime I made a FHR booking I had that stated in the fine print, but I can’t be certain that it would apply for every hotel, everywhere.
I’m pretty sure the restaurant would let you split the payment between your room and your CSR though.

I’ve used an assortment of Amex cards to pay for stays. As long as it doesn’t have foreign transaction fees, you should be fine — ideally you can use something that gets more than 1pt/$1!