Privacy Statement

The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), the organization that operates mybesthotelrate.com, has a strong commitment to providing excellent service to the visitors of our Web sites, including respecting your privacy. We understand that you may have questions about how mybesthotelrate.com (referred to hereafter as "this Web site") collects and uses the information that you provide to us. We have prepared this statement to inform you of the privacy principles that govern this Web site and other AAHOA sites which are listed in this privacy statement ("Statement").

This Statement contains numerous general and technical details about the steps we take to respect your privacy concerns. We have organized the Statement by major processes and areas so that you can quickly link to the information of most interest to you.

If after reviewing this Statement, you have any questions or privacy concerns please send a letter to:

Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA)
Attention: President / Legal Department
7000 Peachtree Dunwoody Road
Building 7
Atlanta, Georgia 30328

Browsing

This Web site does not collect personally identifiable information when you browse the site and request pages from our servers -- unless you voluntarily and knowingly provide the personally identifiable information to us. This means that we will not know your name, your email address, or any other personally identifiable information just because you browse the Web site unless:

• You access the Web site from a link in an email that we sent; or
• You have created a profile and either log-in to your account or choose to be remembered via your cookie, including on your web-enabled mobile device.

In these cases we will know who you are based on the information you previously supplied to us. When you request a page from our Web site, our servers log the information provided in the HTTP request header including the IP number, the time of the request, the URL of your request and other information that is provided in the HTTP header. We collect the HTTP request header information in order to make our Web sites function correctly and provide you the functionality that you see on this Web site. We also use this information to personalize content presented to you, better understand how visitors use our Web site and how we can better tune it, its contents, and functionality to meet your needs.

Information We Collect and How We Use It

When we need to collect personally identifiable information from you to provide a particular service, we will ask you to voluntarily supply us with the information we need. For example, if you would like to make a reservation at one of the hotels featured on this Web site, we will ask you for information such as your name, address, telephone number, email address, credit card number, and room preference to process your reservation. We will use your email address to send a confirmation and, if necessary, might use the other information to contact you for help in processing the reservation. We will also use your email address to:

• Send you a pre-arrival message summarizing your confirmation details, and possibly providing other information about the hotel;
• Notify you about possible special offers and promotions as described in the email section of this privacy statement; as well as send you periodic satisfaction or market research surveys.

You can opt out of marketing emails at any time. You can also opt out of AAHOA research surveys. On occasion, we may use third parties to provide us with additional contact information about you given the information you provided to us directly. For example, if we know your name and postal address, we may use a third party to provide us with your email address. We would then use this information for market analysis and marketing purposes.

Occasionally, you may be requested to provide personally identifiable information about others to us (for example, the name, address and contact details of your travel companion). In such cases, we rely on you to obtain that other persons' consent for disclosing their information to us, and inform them about us, how we will use the information and our contact details for any queries.

Children's Privacy

This Web site is not intended for children and we do not knowingly solicit or collect personally identifiable information from children.

Reservations

The personally identifiable information you provide to us for making a reservation is made available to the applicable hotel for the purpose of meeting your reservation request. After making a reservation or completing your stay at a hotel, unless you tell us otherwise, the information you provide will be used by us for marketing of hotels and other related products as we deem appropriate in our sole discretion. AAHOA may use the services of third-party mail houses for the sole purpose of mailing materials.

Click to Chat

To assist you in quickly accessing the information you want on this Web site, we might use third party software to proactively initiate or offer online chat if it appears that you are having difficulties navigating the Web site, if we believe you would benefit from assistance to help direct you to the desired content quicker, or to make you aware of other information or offers relevant to your search. It is your choice to use the online chat feature or to close the chat window. If you choose to use the online chat feature, the person that will chat with you may access your information and your past stay and chat history, if applicable. All information you enter via online chat may be associated to your email address and will be stored in our systems with any other information you provide and any transaction details.

Accessing mybesthotelrate.com from a Web-enabled Mobile Device

To the extent available, you might be able to access mybesthotelrate.com from a web-enabled mobile device to find a hotel, or to view or cancel a reservation. You might also have an opportunity to download an application to your BlackBerry or iPhone to provide additional functionality as described below. If you desire to view or cancel a reservation you will be required to enter your account user name and password, or confirmation number and last name. No other personally identifiable information will be requested. In addition, you can make a reservation from a web-enabled device. When you make a reservation you will need to provide certain personally identifiable information such as name, email address and credit card information.

If you have downloaded the application to your device such as a BlackBerry or iPhone you can take advantage of finding a hotel near you that is provided via Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. No personally identifiable information is retained to deliver this service.

Securing the Transmission and Storage of Information

This site has various security measures in place that are designed to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Credit card transactions are handled by a reputable third party banking and processing institution. They receive the information needed to verify and authorize a customer's credit card and process the order. When we ask you for credit card data, it might be transferred over a Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) line, provided you are using a SSL enabled browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. We might also use SSL on other pages where you would enter personally identifiable information. This measure would ensure that your information is encrypted as it travels over the Internet. This type of secure mode is generally enabled before any such information is transmitted from your computer or web-enabled device. One method of knowing that you are in secure mode is when the padlock or key icon in the lower right-hand or left-hand corner of the computer screen appears in the locked position. In addition, when accessing a secure server, the first characters of the site address will change from "http" to "https."

After information reaches AAHOA, it is stored on a secure server that resides behind firewalls designed to block unauthorized access from outside. Inasmuch as laws applicable to personal information vary by country, various hotels or other business operations may put in place additional measures that vary depending on the applicable legal requirements. Information collected on the Web sites covered by this privacy statement is generally processed and stored in the United States.

Disclosure of Information to Third Parties

In addition to the travel-related services and required information sharing described directly above, AAHOA may use the services of third parties, such as market researchers, fulfillment houses, email service providers and mail houses that process mail for AAHOA, persons authorized by you, and the entities and marketing companies that provide these services for AAHOA. These parties are generally prohibited from using personally identifiable information for any purpose other than for the purpose specified. We do provide non-personally identifiable information to certain service providers for their use on an aggregated basis for the purpose of performing their contractual obligations. Except as described in this paragraph and the sections above, we generally will not authorize the sale of personally identifiable information to entities outside of AAHOA and third party service providers for any non-AAHOA use without approval.

Cookies

To the extent applicable, our Web site uses "cookie" technology. "Cookies" can be defined as encrypted strings of text that a Web site stores on a user's computer. Our Web site might employ a Cookie throughout the online reservation process. Without Cookies we generally are unable to keep information you enter on multiple pages together. For example, unless mybesthotelrate.com can remember the dates you used in your hotel search, we will not be able to check room availability. Cookies also enable us to customize our Web site and offerings to your needs and provide you with a better online experience on mybesthotelrate.com. In addition, Cookies can be used to:

• Allow registered users to sign in without typing their email/username each time;
• Measure usage of various pages on our Web site to help us make our information more pertinent to your needs and easy for you to access; and
• Provide functionality such as online reservations and other functionality that we believe would be of interest and value to you.

These types of Cookies might be referred to as "session" Cookies and "persistent" Cookies. Session Cookies are generally temporary and can be automatically deleted once you close your internet browser. Persistent Cookies will remain on your computer hard drive until you delete them or are otherwise removed upon expiration. We do not use Cookies to ascertain any personally identifiable information about you apart from what you voluntarily provide us in your dealings with AAHOA. Cookies should not corrupt or damage your computer, programs, or computer files.

We might use third-party advertising technology when you visit our Web site and sites upon which we advertise. This technology uses information about your visits to this Web site and the sites upon which we advertise (not including your name, address, or other personally identifiable information), to serve our advertisements to you. In the course of serving our advertisements, a unique third-party persistent Cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser. In addition, we might use beacon gifs (see description below), provided by our ad-serving providers, to help manage our online advertising. These beacon gifs generally enable our ad server to recognize a browser's Cookie when a browser visits this site, and to learn which banner ads bring users to our Web site and whether a reservation on mybesthotelrate.com is executed. The information collected through this technology is not personally identifiable.

You may set your browser to block Cookies (consult the instructions for your particular browser on how to do this), although doing so might adversely affect your ability to perform certain transactions, use certain functionality, and access certain content on our Web site.

Pixel Tags

AAHOA and its third-party service providers might use pixel tags (also known as "clear gifs" "beacon gifs" etc.). Pixel tags generally are not visible to the user of the Web site and consist of a few lines of computer coding delivered with the Web page. Pixel tags are not used to collect any personally identifiable information apart from what you voluntarily provide us.

Pixel tags might be used for the following:

• Track customer response to advertisements and Web site content;
• Determine your ability to receive HTML-based email messages. Our email service provider might include a pixel tag, which they refer to as a "coded sensor" in all of the HTML-based messages sent on our behalf. The sensor should activate when the email message is opened and flags the email address of the user as one that is capable of receiving HTML-based email messages. This capability helps our service provider to send the email in a format you can read. The sensor should not collect or use any other information. If you cannot receive HTML, you will not receive a functioning sensor;
• Know how many users open an email and allow our service provider to compile aggregated statistics about an email campaign for us; and
• Allow us to better target interactive advertising, enhance customer support and site usability, and provide offers and promotions that we believe would be of interest to you.

Emails about Special Offers and Promotions and Opt-Out

It is our intention to only send you email communications that will be useful to you and that you want to receive. When you make a reservation, we might periodically contact you via email and provide information about special offers and promotions that may be of interest to you. These communications will relate to offers which may also include the promotions of select, reputable third parties with whom we have a strategic marketing relationship because they offer products or services that we believe would be of interest to you. We typically use third party email service providers to send emails. These service providers might be prohibited from using your email address for any purpose other than to send special emails.

You have the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us, or update your privacy preferences as follows:

You can send email to:	opt-out@aahoa.com
You can send mail to the following postal address:	7000 Peachtree Dunwoody Road, Building 7 Atlanta, GA 30328 Attention: Privacy
You can call the following telephone number:	(404) 816-5759

In addition, every time you receive an email, you will be provided the choice to opt-out of future emails by following the instructions provided in the email. Please allow at least 10 business days for us to process your opt-out.

Additional Terms and Conditions

AAHOA is only responsible for the privacy statement and content of this Web site. We are not responsible for the content, data collection and use practices, and privacy policy or the use of cookies on Web sites from which you have accessed this Web site or any non-AAHOA Web sites that you may access from this Web site.

Visitors to this website may be required to agree to or sign non-disclosure agreements, license agreements, terms of use, and other terms and conditions, as a condition of visiting this Web site or receiving products and services from mybesthotelrate.com. If the event of any conflict with such other terms and conditions and this Privacy Policy, such other terms and conditions shall prevail.

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our Web site so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users via our Web site. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.

Legal Issues

This is a United States Web site and is subject to laws of the United States and the State of Georgia. AAHOA will disclose personally identifiable information without your permission when required by law, or based on a good faith belief that such action is necessary to investigate or protect against harmful activities to AAHOA, property (including this site), or to others. As mentioned previously, laws related to personally identifiable information vary by country.

If you are a customer who resides in the State of California, you have the right to request from AAHOA a list of third parties with whom we shared personally identifiable information about you for their own direct marketing purposes during the previous calendar year. Although AAHOA does not share personally identifiable information with unrelated third parties for their own direct marketing purposes, many of our members' hotels are permitted to use the personally identifiable information they receive from AAHOA to market their hotels .