PHOTO: The exterior of the RIU Cancun.

With so many websites offering discount-hungry travelers book-it-yourself travel options, you’d think the need for travel agents would be a thing of the past. You’d be wrong. In fact, some of the biggest names in hospitality have found that the contributions made by travel agents are so important to their businesses, they’ve created rewards programs offering free accommodations and other travel incentives to the most dedicated tourism partners. RIU Hotels & Resorts is one of these companies.

Since 1992, the family-owned brand has offered rewards points to travel agents, their agencies, and tour operators through the RIU Partner Club. Tourism professionals that sign up for the Club receive benefits immediately, earning 850 points, which is equivalent to a single night’s stay at one of RIU’s Classic hotels.

But wait, there’s more! After following a series of simple steps, including becoming a RIU Specialist, members can earn enough points for a total of three nights at one of RIU’s most luxurious beachside resorts throughout Mexico and the Caribbean.

The first step toward becoming a RIU Specialist is to sign up for RIU’s Partner Club. After submitting important verification information, the new club member can register for the specialist program.

Once inside the program, members are led through a lesson plan that covers RIU’s Spanish history and the company’s core values. Details on each of RIU’s three brands—the Palace, Classic and Plaza hotels—and how they differ are included in the course. Key facts on hotel destinations, such as Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama and the Caribbean are also introduced.

To become a specialist, the club member must complete and pass the online course of six lessons (chapters), which can take up to three hours in total to complete. Each of the lesson plans can be broken up and done individually to accommodate travel professionals’ work hours, or all six can be completed in one sitting.

Beginning with the first lesson, “Getting to know RIU,” there are a series of interesting details, such as how the family first started its company and how it expanded to become the international luxury brand it is today.

Interspersed throughout each lesson chapter are pop quizzes, which help prepare the participant for each of the final quizzes. At the end of each chapter, the club member is given the opportunity to review all of the information for that chapter once more before taking the final exam or simply moving forward.

If the thought of taking exams seems like too much work and brings to mind a few nightmarish memories from school years past, fear not. The way the program is set up, the quizzes are more fun and insightful, than nerve-wracking, as they focus on the selling points of RIU’s luxury properties and locations. The quizzes consist of true and false, multiple choice, matching, and fill-in-the-blank questions.

To get an idea of how incredibly easy this is, the first chapter has only four final quiz questions and two mid-chapter pop quizzes. Jotting down brief notes while reading along with the lesson plan will make these tests that much easier.

At the end of each quiz, participants will see their score immediately to find out if they passed. A score of 80 percent moves the member on to the next chapter and that much closer to a few free nights at one of RIU’s resorts in Mexico, the Americas or the Caribbean.

Receiving a score lower than 80 percent simply means the participant has to review all of the same material, which takes much less time the second go-round, and retake all of that chapter’s quizzes.

Once all six chapters have been completed and passed with an 80 percent score or higher, the member becomes a specialist and earns a two-night stay, in addition to the 850 points already received. Before the specialist can redeem the points, however, one more step must be completed.

The final step should be the easiest, since it entails doing what tourism professionals do best: sell travel. Booking a client at any of RIU’s 100 properties worldwide releases the hold on the initial 850 points given for signing up as a RIU Partner and the additional two-night stay earned by completing the specialist program.

With the release of these rewards, members can book their own three-night stay at any one of RIU’s Classic hotels, including the newly renovated RIU Cancun or the brand new RIU Playa Blanca in Panama, which opens April 2014.

Members can also exchange their initial 850 points to upgrade their accommodations for two free nights at a Palace hotel, such as the AAA Four Diamond-awarded RIU Palace Pacifico in Puerto Vallarta.

If two or three nights seem too short a time to vacation at some of RIU’s amazing locations, the company also offers additional opportunities for acquiring points throughout the year. Plus, the more bookings an agent makes for their clients at a RIU hotel, the more points the agent will receive.

Aside from the many obvious benefits of this rewards program, members will be pleased to know that there are no blackout dates for redeeming these free accommodations and the points never expire.

So, let’s review, signing up for the RIU Partner Club, spending about three hours to complete an online course, and booking travel for at least one client at any one of RIU’s hotels equals free accommodations that can be taken any day of the year. It’s a wonder every tourism professional hasn’t already signed on to reap the rewards.