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Expedia drops Nectar as an earning and spending partner

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Expedia and Nectar have announced that they are ending their partnership on 15th December.

At present, you can earn Nectar points on all Expedia bookings at the following rates:

Package bookings: 1,000 Nectar points 
Hotel-only bookings: 200 Nectar points 
Flight-only bookings: 200 Nectar points 
Car-only bookings: 200 Nectar points

With such paltry earn rates, it is hardly surprising that few people were choosing to use Expedia purely because of the carrot of Nectar points.  Remember that, in 99% of cases, Nectar points are worth exactly 0.5p when redeemed.

Expedia drops Nectar

You will continue to earn points on bookings made up to 15th December, irrespective of when you travel.

From the same date, it will no longer be possible to redeem Nectar points for Expedia vouchers.   To be honest, since they were worth the same 0.5p per point of value as redeeming them in Sainsbury’s, this is not a great loss.  You can always use your points to pay for your groceries and use the money saved to book travel.

Sainsbury’s bought Nectar earlier this year, and I’m not sure if they will consider this a loss or if they are happy to see the scheme shrink down to a pure Sainsbury’s ‘earn and burn’ scheme.

Expedia Rewards, the lacklustre Expedia loyalty scheme which we covered here, will continue.

Our review of the American Express Nectar credit card is here if you are interested in other ways of boosting your Nectar points.

Comments (148)

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

  • Mr Dee says:

    To note, if you cancel your IHG free night voucher and it doesn’t get credited back then you can contact the customer service and they will credit this for you

  • Dave says:

    My points didnt arrive from the last groupon offer a month or so ago, is that normal?

    Then again I also didnt get the bonus for the avis rental either when I normally do 🙁

    • Delbert says:

      I’ve purchased the 2k package on both our accounts at least a dozen times from IB and also the one occasion from AL and never had a problem with them posting and always within the stated 10 days. Still, my words mean nothing if you’ve experienced problems yourself.

      My wife and I also went all out on the crazy IB Avios promo and received the entire 180k points in good time without issue. Subsequently shifted the lot out of IB to BAEC and already exhausted the balance on return flights to Tokyo this coming Friday. Again, a lot of people have complained of missing Avios.

      Still, if it were me, I would bombard IB and Avis with emails until they rectified the issue. If these companies want to promote these offers and don’t honour them then you are well within your rights to unleash hell on them.

  • Lee says:

    I purchased 2000 Iberia Avios through Groupon.es last month and they did appear on my Iberia Plus account (so I just bought another 2000). However, it did take quite a while – the full 10 working days they advise plus a few more.
    OT – My BA Redemption Booking to St Lucia (150k avios plus a 241) next June has just been downgraded from First to CW (They have dropped the 1st Cabin altogether). BA let me select my CW seats without charge (I only have Blue Tier) and are processing the Avios refund. I guess I am entitled to 75% of the Avios back per EC261?

    • Jonny says:

      Hi Lee, same thing happened to me, 2-4-1 St. Lucia next May, apart from the fact it was only the return that was downgraded as we were always J on the outbound. We only received the F-J downgrade difference in Avios as a refund so interested to hear if you have any joy with the 75%.

    • Anna says:

      I’m sure there’s an article somewhere in HFP about what you should be asking for, based on the experience of one reader who took legal action!

    • Genghis says:

      I’m no EC261 expert but as it’s 2 weeks’ + notice, isn’t it just the F->J difference and no compensation due?

  • philip says:

    Have been collecting points for one just over one year now and have made my first spend. Got 4 cyprus economy tickets in summer list price £2300 and it cost me 60k points and £140. I did use a voucher which is due to expire in november to save myself 20k points. Loads of availability in cyprus school holidays found thanks to tims app. Sadly couldn’t get a marmot hotel there as only takes 3 people.
    Short haul school holiday time redemptions definitely the way to go for my family.
    Thanks rob for a great site

  • Ammar says:

    Ot- have a marriot travel package from pre merger, can the expiry date be extended easily without using more points?

    • Richard says:

      When you call up to convert your ‘legacy’ package into a ‘new’ package, the 12-month usage deadline will reset. Use this to your advantage!

      Once the certificate has been converted, it (apparently) can’t be extended again, although it’ll be the best part of a year before we have any real data on this.

  • Jon says:

    Happy to report my £50 Hilton credit from Amex appeared this morning!
    OT: Has anyone had any trouble accessing chat on their Amex account homepage? When I go to the chat page, or just click “Help” and it takes me to chat, phone, snail mail etc, the chat icon just continuously loads and doesn’t let me click it? I’ve tried on chrome and IE.

    • Crafty says:

      What’s the history of this one? I’ve not had email acknowledgement or anything in the app for a stay 7 days ago now. Never waited this long for something to credit.

      • MDA says:

        Been 3 days since my last stay and not appeared – they seem to be experiencing IT issues ever since 31 Oct (a pre-warning notification came up which sounds like they knew its going to be a mess)

      • Jon says:

        Hi Crafty, sorry for not getting back sooner. I had an email ackknowdlgement about a week after I bought the room, and then the credit appeared around 4 or 5 days later.

    • Simon says:

      Fine on Chrome twice 3 days ago with Chat for me.

  • David says:

    Amex MR -> Hilton transfers: I have a few (1.3k) Hilton points due to expire in 7 days. Obviously small change so not too bothered, but transferred 200 MR points to Hilton a couple of weeks ago, to reset the expiry. They haven’t turned up in my Hilton account yet. Anyone else had a successful transfer recently? I remember seeing a message about maintenance, but I think that should have finished now…

    • paulm says:

      It will be a Hilton issue I’m sure as points from stays are not always posting since the update to their systems

      • Walty says:

        Same here. Checked my transfer last night on Amex and it still says pending so at least that is a good sign.

    • AndyW says:

      Same, points haven’t credited after two weeks. Was onto them yesterday and they tried to blame Amex, told them I thought unlikely since Hilton are the ones that have just conducted a big IT upgrade/downgrade. Anyway, they have opened a case. Very annoying as want to close my plat to reset the clock.

  • A Dickinson says:

    If you buy via the Groupon deal is there a Foreign Transaction fee you’d need to account for as-well in the price per avios? or is this balanced out by the exchange rate

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