Vedema’s 400-year-old wine cellar was one of the property’s most distinctive spaces, and where we visited for a private tasting during our one-night stay.
Most Marriott stays booked through American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts are expected to earn Marriott Bonvoy points and Elite Night Credit. That’s one of the reasons FHR is attractive in the first place.
Another interesting question comes at checkout. If the room has already been prepaid using an American Express Platinum Card, should the remaining balance also be settled on Platinum? Or is there a better option?
For this stay at Vedema Santorini, I had already committed to the Platinum Card. The prepaid booking triggered Fine Hotels + Resorts benefits, earned Membership Rewards and used one of my annual FHR statement credits.
The remaining decision concerned the incidentals. Dinner, wine tasting and drinks would all be charged to the room. Should I simply leave the Platinum Card on file, or switch to my Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card and earn Marriott’s 6× bonus on those purchases instead?
The Booking
Hotel: Vedema, a Luxury Collection Resort, Santorini
Program: American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts
Payment: Prepaid using Amex Platinum
Marriott Bonvoy number added to booking.
Benefits included:
Daily breakfast for two
US$100 property credit
Room upgrade, subject to availability
Guaranteed 4pm checkout
The $300 Amex FHR credit posted once the FHR hotel booking charge cleared
$478.14 had been charged to my Amex Platinum, with $300 reimbursed via the semiannual Amex FHR credit. Because the stay had already been prepaid, the only remaining charges would be food, drinks and anything else charged to the room.
Marriott Recognition Started Before Check-In
Although the reservation was made through American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts, Vedema clearly treated it as a Marriott booking from the start.
My Marriott Bonvoy number was attached to the reservation, Platinum Elite status was acknowledged in the welcome letter, and the hotel noted both the included FHR benefits and my Marriott recognition before I had even reached the room.
A warm welcome note from Management at Vedema Resort, recognizing my Marriott status on an Amex FHR stay
That wasn’t particularly surprising. Marriott generally recognizes eligible FHR bookings. But would the recognition continue all the way through checkout and into the points posting, or would the prepaid nature of the booking limit the opportunity to earn additional rewards?
The Strategy
Rather than automatically paying those incidentals with my Platinum Card, I wanted to see whether Vedema would allow me to settle the balance using my Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card.
If it worked, several things might happen simultaneously.
American Express would still honor the original FHR booking.
Marriott would hopefully recognize the stay normally.
The Brilliant Card would earn its Marriott bonus on the remaining charges.
The reason for switching cards was straightforward. The prepaid FHR booking had already earned 5× Membership Rewards through Amex Travel. But any incidental charges settled on the Platinum Card would earn only the card’s standard 1× return.
The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card earns 6× Bonvoy points on eligible purchases at participating Marriott hotels. At my current valuations, that’s about 4.4 cents of value per dollar spent, compared with roughly 1.5 cents per dollar from 1× Membership Rewards. It wasn’t going to transform the economics of the trip, but nearly 3 cents per dollar was enough for me to change cards at checkout.
During the Stay
The FHR benefits were recognized immediately. Breakfast was included, our Dorian Suite was upgraded to an Olympian Villa, and the US$100 property credit was applied automatically at checkout. A welcome gift of fruit, wine and salmon canapés was also waiting in the villa. Based on the accompanying welcome letter, we suspected that was Marriott status recognition rather than an FHR benefit, although we couldn’t establish that with certainty.
All on-property spend was charged back to the room rather than being settled individually.
Checkout
To be clear, this was NOT a “we went to Santorini and paid nothing!” type of story. We were there for the first time, and leaned fully into the experience. With a private wine tasting for two in their historic wine cave, poolside cocktails, and a rooftop restaurant dinner accompanied by one of Santorini’s better bottles of wine, our eligible incidental spend came to €417.
Vedema automatically applied approximately €85, representing the US$100 FHR property credit, reducing the payable balance to €332. The separate €15 Greek climate resilience tax remained payable outside the FHR benefit, as expected. €347 corresponded to $397 on a US card.
At checkout I asked reception to settle that remaining balance using my Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card. They were happy to do so.
The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card I wanted to replace the Amex Platinum with at checkout
Loyalty rewards
The Marriott stay posted normally. I received: 11,256 Marriott Bonvoy points (7,504 base, 3,752 Platinum bonus), along with a single Elite Night Credit.
The Brilliant Card transaction also posted correctly. The remaining incidental spend earned 2,382 Bonvoy points from $397 in eligible Vedema charges at 6×.
Meanwhile, the original prepaid reservation had already earned 2,390 American Express Membership Rewards points (5x) through the Platinum Card booking.
The Combined Result
One prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts stay ultimately produced:
Reward | Earned |
|---|---|
Marriott stay points | 11,256 Bonvoy |
Brilliant Card earnings | 2,382 Bonvoy |
American Express Membership Rewards | 2,390 MR |
Marriott Elite Night Credit | 1 |
In total, the one-night stay produced 13,638 Marriott Bonvoy points (about $100 at my current valuation), 2,390 Membership Rewards points (about $36), and one Elite Night Credit. That’s more than $135 in points value from a stay on which we still spent real money, but where the FHR credit and the choice of payment cards substantially improved the return.
An Important Observation
Interestingly, the Fine Hotels + Resorts welcome documentation stated that final room charges should be paid using an American Express Card.
That still left me with a choice of which American Express Card to use. I had prepaid the reservation with my Platinum Card, but at checkout Vedema allowed me to settle the remaining balance with my Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card instead. The FHR benefits had already been honored, while the Brilliant earned 6x Bonvoy points on the remaining hotel spend.
I’m not suggesting every Fine Hotels + Resorts property will handle payment in exactly the same way. But at Vedema, nothing required me to put the incidentals back on the Platinum Card simply because that was the card used for the original FHR booking.
Sensible Steps
Charge everything to the room.
Fairly standard at a resort, but restaurant bills, wine tasting and bar purchases charged back to the room rather than paid directly can potentially be captured by the hotel loyalty earn and the hotel credit card earn, where applicable.
Don’t assume it’s the same everywhere.
Policies provide a framework, but individual hotels often have flexibility in how they process payment.
Check the results afterwards.
Verify what eventually posts to both loyalty accounts and credit cards.
The useful part of this experiment wasn’t simply that the Brilliant Card earned another 2,382 Bonvoy points. It was that everything else held together when I used it. The prepaid FHR booking still earned 5× Membership Rewards, Vedema recognized my Marriott status, the stay earned normal Bonvoy points and an Elite Night Credit, the FHR benefits were honored, and the remaining hotel spend earned 6× on the Brilliant.
I wouldn’t assume another FHR hotel will process everything identically. But at Vedema, there was no need to choose between the two programs. The Amex booking and Marriott loyalty benefits stacked almost exactly as I had hoped.