Welcome Rewards relaunches as Hotels.com Rewards – what has changed?

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• Peaceful Waters says:

  6 May6 May 06:15

  Huuuuge sigh of relief!

• joe says:

  6 May6 May 08:48

  Well done hotels.com. They were the best loyalty scheme for me anyway, and now they’ve shown the others that you can change without ‘ enhancing ‘ away value.

• Richard Johnson says:

  6 May6 May 08:50

  Thank goodness, all that research they did must have paid off!

• Liz says:

  6 May6 May 10:02

  I used hotels.com for all my hotel bookings for this years holiday but have since joined IHG. I have been looking at the IHG site for hotels in the USA for next year. If you book a reward night do you have to pay separate taxes in cash or are the taxes included in the reward points? It doesn’t show additional taxes in the “view rates” breakdown.

  • Rob says:

    6 May6 May 10:22

    Tax is a % of the room rate, so it is 20% or so of nothing which is nothing!

    • Liz says:

      6 May6 May 10:56

      Great! Sounds good to me! Thanks

• Chris says:

  6 May6 May 10:48

  There is a 10% off code kicking about on vouchercodes just now for hotels.com.

  Not sure what restrictions there are on it but hopefully it will be of use to someone.

  It’s refreshing to see something change without it being devalued to hell.

  • Rob says:

    6 May6 May 12:06

    These codes often stop you earning Welcome Rewards / Hotels.com Rewards credit so be careful.

    • Chris says:

      6 May6 May 13:36

      Ah, sorry didn’t know that. Perhaps not such a good idea after all. Sorry!

  • JQ says:

    6 May6 May 17:57

    10% off is what you get anyway, so you might as well use it even if it doesn’t count for anything

• DW201 says:

  6 May6 May 11:09

  discounts off hotels.com are useless Ive found. Only includes ’boutique’ hotels and no big chains.

  Im constantly getting spammed with 50% off, €100 off etc and have never managed to use one….

  • Kai says:

    6 May6 May 11:14

    Maybe I was (un)lucky, the Grand Mercure Bangkok is indeed 50% cheaper than advertised on Accor (£125 vs £250) for my upcoming trip, and I found it out after having booked another hotel..

• Andy says:

  6 May6 May 11:28

  Stayed at the Doubletree in Leeds on Sunday as a reward night, still had to pay £16 in taxes for the room, just £1 more than they charge for parking!

  • Roger says:

    6 May6 May 11:38

    ‘Stayed at the Doubletree in Leeds on Sunday as a reward night, still had to pay £16 in taxes for the room …’ That looks like a mistake and is worthwhile challenging, I think.

    My DoubleTree award stays in New York (Times Square) and Cape Town – 3 separate stays each – had 0% tax added. I can’t see that UK VAT would be different. 20% of £0 should be £0, and UK rates should include VAT anyway.

    • Liz says:

      6 May6 May 13:50

      Just had my monthly statement emailed to me – at the bottom were the T&C’s as follows:
      ¹Free night does not include taxes and fees. You may pay the difference if you choose a room that costs more. You are responsible for paying for taxes, fees, meals, incidentals and any other costs associated with the booking or stay. And you cannot use any balance from free night credit to pay taxes, fees, meals, incidentals or any other costs. ²Bookings made on a property where the customer pays the hotel directly, package bookings, bookings made using a non-zero dollar coupon or discount code and other certain bookings do not qualify toward the ten (10) nights.

    • DW201 says:

      6 May6 May 14:11

      I tried to redeem my 1st ever free night for a hotel in Seoul (im hoarding them for a travelling trip) and it was asking for £20 of tax on a £110 room….

      I didn’t get around to booking.

      Cheers

      D.

  • Nick says:

    6 May6 May 12:09

    How odd. I tend to use my “free nights” as a discount against a more expensive room rate (e.g. use a £80 “free night” as a discount against a £100 booking), so perhaps that is why I’ve never suffered this “tax” i.e. because the £20 cash I’m paying covers this sort of thing.

    It is still the best loyalty scheme around for me – the range of hotels, flexibility and availability are infinitely greater than with any chain-specific schemes and these are ultimately the most important factors when booking hotels. A box of chocolates and an upgrade is nice, but not at the cost of booking the best, most convenient hotel. The value of Welcome Rewards is stable, understandable, uniform, and not significantly worse than the standard loyalty rewards offered by the other schemes (e.g. I discovered to my cost that the Club Carlson triple points offer does not work on points+cash bookings, even though they are Eligible Stays under their general T&Cs and earn standard points). I’ve been a bit hoodwinked I think with top tier status at some chains, and end up booking them because of some non-guaranteed benefits. I think I’ll go back to using Hotels.com in future.

• Amazon Shipping, LA Sues Wells Fargo, Hotels.com Reward Changes And Medical Emergency During Flight - Doctor Of Credit says:

  7 May7 May 00:49

  […] Welcome Rewards relaunches as Hotels.com Rewards – what has changed? by Head For Points. Sometimes no real changes is good, you’ll still earn 1 free night for every 10. The other difference is their secret price, which basically just allows them to undercut without chains having to dish out best rate guarantees. I’m a Hotels.com fanboy – these changes don’t excite me but I’m just happy they didn’t gut the program. Add in 8% + other discounts from portals and it’s pretty damn good if you don’t care about status, upgrades and hotel points. […]

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