It always pays to ask

I don't always read things as closely as I should. We received an email from Choice
Privileges stating that if you stayed at one of their motels during a certain time frame on two separate occasions, you could earn a free night stay. Because we had plans that included needing a motel, I thought this was great. However, when I went to check to see if they had awarded us those bonus points today, they weren't there. So, I clicked on the promotion link and read all of the details (which I should have done at the start) and found out that to get that free night, you had to book your stays through choiceprivileges.com . Oops! I then sent an email to their customer service asking if there was anyway I could receive credit for those two stays and earn my free night. I received a very nice email back from them a few hours later letting me know that as a one-time courtesy they would award me those bonus points. The two lessons I learned were:
1. Read the fine print. It will save you from having to ask for special help later.
2. It never hurts to ask. Since they said yes, I have a free hotel night (value approximately $85). If they had said no, I would have only lost the 5 minutes I took to write the email.