Would an allowance that offsets the total bill (including accommodation) be useful to you?

We're exploring an idea and would love a gut check from operators here.

Today, when a guest doesn't fully use an allowance, the remaining balance becomes breakage. We're considering an option where, instead, any unused allowance balance is applied as a discount against what the guest still owes on their bill for the room, capped so it only ever reduces the amount payable (never paid out as cash).

The use case we keep hearing: you want to give a guest a monetary reward or credit, say for a referral, a goodwill gesture, or a loyalty perk - that they can put toward their stay, without discounting the room rate itself. This would let the credit reduce the guest's bill while keeping it accounted for as a cost rather than a rate reduction.

A few questions:
- Is this something you'd use? How often?
- What scenarios would you reach for it (referrals, service recovery, loyalty, owner/management arrangements, something else)?
- Anything about how breakage works today that this would or wouldn't solve for you?

Still early — no commitment on timing — just trying to understand how much appetite there is. Really keen to hear your thoughts.