A lot of people prefer booking their hotel stays through hotels.com, and for those people the popular online travel agency has just rolled out a great promotion.
In this post:
Hotels.com offering double rewards
Hotels.com has just launched what they call their most rewarding offer ever. Hotels.com members can earn double rewards:
- Book between May 14 and May 24, 2020, using promotion code RWD2X2020 (make sure you enter this or you won’t receive the bonus rewards)
- Stay between June 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021 (that’s a full 15 months)
- There’s no limit to how many bonus rewards you can earn
- This is valid both on refundable and pre-paid bookings
- Joining hotels.com’s loyalty program is free and easy
Basics of the hotels.com rewards program
Some people prefer not to be tied down to a specific hotel loyalty program, which is why the hotels.com rewards program is popular. Online travel agencies get paid a commission when you book a hotel stay through them, and hotels.com is essentially giving consumers back some of their commission in the form of rewards.
With the hotels.com rewards program, you receive a free night after staying 10 nights. The value of that free night is equal to the average cost of your 10 nights.
In other words, ordinarily you get 10% of your hotel spending back in the form of a free night after you stay 10 nights. With this promotion you’d earn a free hotel night after every five nights, rather than after every 10 nights. The value of your reward would still be based on the average nightly cost of your stays.
Think of it as basically getting up to 20% back on your hotel stays, which is pretty incredible.
Hotels.com is offering rewards twice as fast right now
The downside to booking through hotels.com
The one major downside to hotels.com — and the reason I generally don’t book through them — is that you typically can’t earn points with your favorite hotel loyalty program or receive elite benefits with third party bookings.
Therefore I typically only book through hotels.com when reserving a hotel that doesn’t belong to a major loyalty program, where the opportunity cost of booking through a third party is minimal.
You generally won’t receive elite perks on hotels.com bookings
Bottom line
Hotels.com is offering rewards twice as fast as usual with this new promotion. For anyone who is a fan of booking through hotels.com this is a potentially great promo, as you’re earning the equivalent of up to 20% back in the form of rewards.
You can book travel for the next 15 months, and even refundable bookings qualify, so it can pay to book speculatively now.
Anyone taking advantage of this hotels.com promo?
My experience with hotel.com is good. They have improved on their online capabilities and calling is no more needed. I had about 25 night to her cancelled because of the corona restrictions and got all my non-refundable bookings nicely refunded.
Just booked two more reservations for 4 nights. Got my $10 AX credit as well. Good promo. Easy money
For my 300 hotelnight bookings a year I use 90% of the time Hotels.com. That means that I have about 27 free nights a year. I think this is super value and cant reach that with other hotel programs. Also as a VIP gold member I get excellent customer service. Also with cancelling bookings because of Covid19.
But unfortunately here in Europe we dont have the offer of 5 nights instead of 10 nights for a night free :-(
One night free after ten paid ones is 9 percent off, not 10.
I am gold VIP with Hotels.com, now for 5 years in a row, they have an excellent VIP gold customer call center, VIP gold benefits are consistent (free breakfast, free internet...) across the vast majority of hotel brands, you get access to any hotel and can easily redeem free nights certificates. They regularly offer promotions for double nights rewards (stay 1 night which will count for 2 nights) along with special VIP gold rates and...
I am gold VIP with Hotels.com, now for 5 years in a row, they have an excellent VIP gold customer call center, VIP gold benefits are consistent (free breakfast, free internet...) across the vast majority of hotel brands, you get access to any hotel and can easily redeem free nights certificates. They regularly offer promotions for double nights rewards (stay 1 night which will count for 2 nights) along with special VIP gold rates and no black-out dates on redemptions. I do not miss my HHonors diamond, nor my IHG gold. As VIP Gold the call center consistently helps me to get a refund also on non-refundable cancellations. They have a strong negotiation power with hotel properties and this is always real money that comes back into my wallet.
Last but not least: they do not manipulate/devaluate any "point-fake-currency": you get back real dollars for your loyalty with them (based on the real dollar-rate you paid)
For those saying book direct - often here in Asia many small hotels (B&B, locally owned etc) direct site is MORE expensive than like hotels.com/Agoda
And to the person saying booking.com is better - just depends IMO on the market. I use TripAdvisor or Google Map Hotels feature to see which one is cheapest.
I would have to say that if I use an OTA, I prefer booking.com or trip.com.
OTAs generally suck especially Travelocity or Expedia. Book direct with airlines or hotels for better and more reliable service not to mention more honesty, integrity, and professionalism. If you think it is hard to get your money back from the airlines or hotels, it is fifty times harder to get it back from OTAs through their web of lies and lack of genuine service.
I have found that while they offer a 10% rebate through this program their room rates (for the same type of room and the same booking conditions) are almost always 12-15% higher when compared to Booking.com.
Are we sure the room rates will be counted twice when calculating the 10% at redemption? The promotion only says double STAMPS. All it does might just be give you 10% faster. Anyone can confirm this?
made booking for two nights (a few days before the US shut down), cancelled because of covid situation. contacted hotel directly, said nonrefundable but no prob, can get a voucher for use within 18 months. contacted hotels.com and they said would get back to me within four weeks. after five weeks, called again, they said that they will get back to me. such is the run-around nature of their service.
I like Hotels. Com and while it was hard to get in touch with them after COVID 19 it was the same way on every other site. I got full refunds on all my upcoming stays regardless of whether or not they were initially non refundable. They are usually easy to contact and work with. I have been a silver or gold member for many years and recc the booking site.
Hotels.com? No, thanks. Had a booking in Ushuaia, Argentina for two nights in mid- March. Two days before first night booking the directive from Argentina was to leave by the 16th or face a 14 quarantine. Extremely difficult to contact Hotels.com. Took nine weeks to finally get a refund. My advice, overlook third parties.
@Ben:
The earning (or discount) now is 16.7% (compared to 8.3% Regularly).
Still a very good deal.
Hotels.com -- this is the same terrible third-party booking site that dragged its feet to even begin compensating customers and started to address customer requests for cancellations only several weeks into the crisis? Never would I book through hotels.com again -- stay away at all cost!
I'd love to see an evaluation of hotel elite perks (lounge access, free breakfast, upgrades etc) in light of the coronavirus situation. What perks are left standing, and what perks still provide value?
Coincidentally, there is also an Amex Offer for Hotels.com
Get 1,000 additional Membership Rewards points one-time by using your enrolled Card to spend a minimum of $50 in one or more eligible transactions online at hotels.com/giftcards by 8/9/2020. See terms for exclusions.