Earn up to 8 Avios per £1 with a special Hotels.com promotion

Hotels.com and British Airways Executive Club now have a direct earning relationship, allowing you to earn Avios with every hotel booking.

This deal allows you to earn Avios on virtually every hotel you book – Hotels.com covers several hundreds of thousands of properties globally, more than 5x the combined total of the top five chains – irrespective of whether they are part of a major brand or not.

In order to earn Avios, you need to book via this special link – hotels.com/britishairways.  You will ONLY see the box to add your British Airways Executive Club number if you book via this link.

There are two earning options.

Option 1 – earn 8 Avios per £1 if you book without earning Hotels.com Rewards credit

Until 7th June, you will earn 8 Avios for every £1 spent at Hotels.com as long as you choose not to collect Hotels.com Rewards credits.

The standard rate, from 8th June, is 6 Avios per £1.

The only way to do this is is complete your booking as a ‘guest’ on the Hotels.com site.  Do NOT log in to your existing account or create a new account.

Option 2 – earn 4 Avios per £1 PLUS earn Hotels.com Rewards credit

Until 7th June, you earn a lower rate of 4 Avios for every £1 spent at Hotels.com if you book whilst logged in, or if you create an account during the booking process.

The standard rate, from 8th June, is 3 Avios per £1.

However, you will earn Hotels.com Rewards credit as well.

Which option should I choose?

Before I answer that, let’s look at how Hotels.com Rewards works.

Hotels.com Rewards (the rewards page on their site is here) is an idiot-proof loyalty scheme:

You earn 1 credit for every night you stay, 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 collect or redeem at least one night every 12 months

There aren’t any catches when you redeem. There are no blackout dates and you can pick any property on Hotels.com that takes part in Hotels.com Rewards (ie most of them). You can pay the difference if you want to book a hotel which is more expensive than the value of your free night voucher. You do have to pay taxes and fees.

There is a lot of upside here:

ALL of your stays (assuming the hotels or vacation rentals 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.

If you book multiple rooms, you get credit for all of them. Most hotel loyalty schemes restrict you to earning points on one (IHG), two (Hilton) or at most three (Marriott) rooms per night.

So …..

Because I am a fan of Hotels.com Rewards, I would personally book via Option 2.  I would prefer to earn 4 Avios per £1 plus get 10% of my stay value back as Hotels.com Rewards credit.   This is better – for me – than earning 8 Avios per £1 but giving up my Hotels.com Rewards credit.  I find that I can generate one free night per year this way, mainly from family holiday bookings at unbranded properties.

However, if you are only likely to make occasional bookings via Hotels.com, you may prefer Option 1 and the higher upfront reward of 8 Avios per £1.   After all, your Hotels.com Rewards credit have no value at all until you manage to book 10 nights.

One other thing to remember

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 clearly makes sense.  If you are giving up hotel loyalty points or status benefits, you need to do the maths to see which option works best for you.

Conclusion

Whilst this is a long-term partnership between Hotels.com and Avios, the special rate of 8 Avios per £1 (for non-Hotels.com Rewards bookings) is only valid for bookings until 7th June.

You can find more information on the British Airways / Hotels.com partnership on this special page of ba.com although it does not mention the current special offer.

You need to book via this special Avios page of the Hotels.com website.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.