Earlier in the year we let you know that Best Western Hotels had bought WorldHotels – a chain of about 300 hotels around the World. Up until now we didn’t know how the chain would be, if at all, integrated into Best Western and Best Western Rewards. We have the answer now and it looks like WorldHotels will be run separately with their own program called WorldRewards. This essentially replaces their long defunct World Hotel Peakpoints program.
What is WorldHotels Rewards?
That’s an easy question to answer. It’s almost an exact copy of Best Western Rewards. The program earns points at the same rate as Best Western Rewards for stays at all participating WorldHotels locations and offers up the same elite levels. Their are slight differences in the levels from the base level being named Red instead of Blue as seen in BWR and the benefits are slightly different like late check out only being available to higher elite levels in WHR.
Elite Levels & Benefits
Here are the WHR levels and benefits:
Compare this to BWR:
As you can see the earn and qualification rates are exactly the same. The benefits are less with WHR as there are no thank you gifts or points, late check out is only available to the top two levels and free night redemptions don’t count towards status.
Also, just like Best Western Rewards, WorldHotels Rewards is offering the famous Status Match No Catch promotion. This means they will match your status from another hotel program, I’m guessing even Best Western Rewards is included. Learn more about the Status Match offer here. I’ll have to update our feature How to maximize the elite status benefits from The Platinum Card from American Express to 10 hotel chain elite statuses now thanks to this status match offer!
Earning Points or Airline Miles
Reading the terms and conditions of the program it does appear that not only do WHR members earn points for stays at select WorldHotels they also receive points for stays at all Best Western Hotels.
Members may earn Points at participating Licensed Hotels on stays that
are eligible to earn points (“Eligible Stays”). Not all Licensed Hotels
participate in the Program. Please view the list of participating Licensed Hotels. Members may also earn Points on Eligible Stays at all Best Western branded properties worldwide.
As you can see it states ‘Not all licensed hotels participate” and it is a big number. Right now it appears that only 61 of WorldHotels 300 or so locations are participating in the program. None of the hotels are in Canada.
You can also choose to earn airline miles with WHR, they have seventeen airlines to choose from, some of which are not partners with Best Western Rewards (and vice versa).
Learn more about earning WorldHotels Rewards Points here and more about earning Airline Miles here.
Redeeming Points
This is where the big difference lies between the two programs. At this time it appears that you cannot redeem your WorldHotels Rewards points for actual free night stays. That would explain why you don’t earn elite status on free nights….. At this point you can only redeem WHR points for gift cards or certificates. Here’s an example:
Learn more about redeeming WorldHotels Rewards Points here.
Program Launch Bonus Offer
To celebrate the launch of WorldHotels Rewards you can earn 4x Points on all stays at all the participating WorldHotels locations around the World. This means you’ll earn 40 points per US$ spent on those stays. Learn more about the promotion here. The 4x points offer runs until December 31, 2019.
Thoughts
That’s about all we know so far about the program! In general you’ll want to join this program if you know you may have stays at any of the ~60 hotels and earn the bonus points. It would be nice to know if you could earn Best Western Rewards points for those stays instead however since you would be earning points for future free nights and not just gift cards. Still a reward is a reward and the fact that you can status match right away it should make stays at any of those WorldHotels a little bit better if you can score a room upgrade!
Visit WorldHotels Rewards today to learn more and to join the program