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Expedia launches a loyalty scheme in Ireland – coming here soon?

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Expedia has launched Expedia+ in Ireland – a dedicated loyalty scheme which rewards you for your bookings.

It is fair to say from the outset that Expedia Plus isn’t as generous as Hotels.com Rewards (the two companies share the same ownership) which I outlined here.  It is certainly better than nothing, though, and allows you to collect points on flights and car rentals as well as hotel stays.

Irish readers of Head for Points can find out more about Expedia+ here.

In a nutshell:

There are three tier levels:  +blue, +silver (€5,000 spend or 7 hotel nights) and +gold (€10,000 spend or 15 hotel nights)

You earn 2 points per €1 spent on hotels, flight and hotel packages, excursions and most car hire

You earn 1 point per €5 spend on flights

You earn 1 point per €1 on flight and car packages

+silver members get a 10% point bonus, +gold members get a 30% bonus.  Status members also get special benefits at selected hotels.  +gold members receive room upgrades at selected hotels and flexible check-in and check-out times.

You can earn points for ALL travel booked through your Expedia Ireland account, irrespective of whether you travel yourself

Points can be redeemed for Expedia gift vouchers.  The quoted example is a €25 hotel voucher for 3,500 points.

Based on the example at the end, this will not be anywhere near as generous as Hotels.com Rewards.  You would need to spend €1,750 on hotels to get €25 back which is a rebate of a little under 1.5%.

The most attractive part of the scheme may be the hotel benefits, but these are only valid at a selection of hotels branded +VIP.

Overall, there is no need to be jealous of our Irish neighbours.  That said, any loyalty scheme is more rewarding than no loyalty scheme and I would be surprised if Expedia had no plans to roll this out in the UK soon.

You can find out more about Expedia+ here.

Hotel offers update – April 2024:

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

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Category

General

Comments (8)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • James says:
    6 Sep6 September 10:50

    What do we think this means for their Nectar partnership?

    • Rob says:
      6 Sep6 September 13:23

      Good question. They have been pushing Nectar recently but the problem is that is doesn’t engender loyalty to Expedia. I doubt anyone books with them purely for the Nectar points – and even if 1-2% of people do, that doesn’t justify giving points to the other 98-99%.

  • James says:
    6 Sep6 September 16:27

    Off topic, but since a week ago there are regularly pop up video ads and sometimes the background/border (usually pale blue) becomes a massive ad. Think one was for McDonalds.

    Is this new? Very annoying..

    • Rob says:
      6 Sep6 September 16:55

      Was outside my control (ad agency was doing it) but I thought I stopped it on Friday. I have not seen one since.

      The ones I saw were for Aegean Airlines and O2 which I could have lived with but I still preferred to wipe them. The additional money they bring in does not, in my opinion, justify the intrusiveness.

  • signol says:
    6 Sep6 September 18:21

    I recently booked some flights on Ebookers, and was prompted to sign up for their loyalty scheme. Essentially, you get back a % of spend (about 1% on flights) but they did also send a £10 voucher to spend on any hotel as well.

  • JQ says:
    6 Sep6 September 21:36

    +silver (€5,000 spend or 7 hotel nights) and +gold (€10,000 spend or 15 hotel nights)

    Does anyone regularly spend €700 for one hotel night??

    • Fenny says:
      6 Sep6 September 22:29

      Does the spend only apply to hotels? If it includes things like flights, car hire, cruises etc, you don’t need any hotel nights.

    • Rob says:
      6 Sep6 September 22:30

      I think the €5,000 includes flight spending, which is not very profitable. They probably make as much money on 7 x €150 hotel rooms as they do on €5,000 of airfare.

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