HfP EXCLUSIVE: Get an extra Hotels.com Rewards free night credit with your next stay

Hotels.com has offered Head for Points readers an exclusive promotion code.

And, unlike many Hotels.com promotions, this one is valid on virtually every hotel on their site – including all branded hotels.

When you make a booking at Hotels.com by 8th September, you will receive one free extra credit in Hotels.com Rewards.  The minimum stay required is 2 nights, the maximum stay 28 days.

If you book a stay of two nights, it will count as three nights towards the ten you need for a free night.  A stay of three nights will earn four credits etc.

If you are working your way towards a free night but are a little short, this offer could push you over the line quickly and release the ‘locked in’ value you have built up.

Why we like Hotels.com Rewards

A lot of people end up, by choice or by default, splitting their stays across a number of different hotel chains. They do a lot of nights, but never enough to build up status or a decent number of points.

For these people, Hotels.com Rewards is a better way to go.

Hotels.com will be familiar to most readers. It is a huge hotel booking portal covering pretty much every corner of the planet.

You won’t find Hotels.com much cheaper than booking a hotel directly. When a property is part of a bigger chain with a ‘Best Rate Guarantee’, you can be certain it won’t be cheaper. However, the majority of the properties on the site count for ‘Hotels.com Rewards’ (285,000 hotels, which is about 10 times more than all of the ‘big seven’ loyalty schemes combined.)

Hotels.com Rewards (their home page is here) – previously known as Welcome Rewards – is an idiot-proof loyalty scheme:

You earn 1 credit for every night you book, whatever the chain

When you have got 10 credits, you get a free night

The value of the free night is the average price you paid for those 10 nights

Your credits don’t expire as long as you have one stay every 12 months

There aren’t any catches when you redeem.  You can pick any property on Hotels.com that takes part in Hotels.com Rewards (ie most of them) and you can pay the difference if you want to book a hotel which is more expensive than the value of your free night voucher.

There is a lot of upside here:

ALL of your stays (assuming the hotels you book are in Hotels.com Rewards and most are) will count towards free nights. No more ‘wasted’ stays.

Your free night can be used to book any room on Hotels.com. Most reward schemes restrict the ability to book club rooms, suites, family room etc. That is not a problem with Hotels.com Rewards.

When travelling, you are free to stay at the hotel which is most convenient for where you need to be – no need to mess around with badly reviewed properties or out of the way hotels purely to find one in your favourite chain.

The only snag is that Hotels.com bookings do not count for points or stay credit in the loyalty scheme of the chain where you are staying.  You may get your status benefits but it is down to the goodwill of the hotel.  If you are booking independent hotels, or hotels chains where you do not collect their points, Hotels.com could make sense.

How do you get your extra Hotels.com Rewards free night credit?

The good news is that this special Head for Points code can be used at virtually any hotel that can be booked on the Hotels.com website.  There are no restrictions on what chains can be used.

Here is the process:

Stage 1:

Visit Hotels.com via this link, or any other link on this page.  The code will only work if you visit the Hotels.com UK site via a link on Head for Points.

Stage 2:

You must log into your Hotels.com Rewards account before booking.

Stage 3:

Select your room, which must be:

• a pre-paid one
• for a TWO-NIGHT or longer stay
• completed before 31st December

Stage 4:

Enter the code RWD1H4PA17 when booking.

If you don’t see the price breakdown with the bonus free night highlighted, as in the picture below, it hasn’t been applied properly.  This could mean that you’ve visited Hotels.com via a third party and not via a link on Head For Points.

The last day to book is 8th September.

You can only claim one free night credit per Hotels.com Rewards account.

What is the small print?

You can find the full T&C’s on this page of the Hotels.com website.  There are no major exclusions or issues, however.

The last word ….

We’d like to thank Hotels.com for making this offer available to Head for Points readers.  If you collect Hotels.com Rewards free night credits, or you think that this is a good time to start, an extra credit will give you a good push towards your next free night.

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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.

Want to buy hotel points?

• Hilton Honors is offering a 100% bonus when you buy points by 14th May 2024. Click here.