Hotels.com Rewards adds an avoidable £4 reward booking fee

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• BrianN says:

  26 Sep26 September 12:59

  OT – IHG Rewards Premium Credit Card

  With regards the free night voucher, do you have to have consumed the voucher before the expiry date or do you only need to have booked a night with it?

  For example. Expiry date Sep 2020. Do I need to both book and stay by Sep 2020? Or can I book by Sep 2020 but stay on a date after this? eg Mar 2021

  Thanks

  • Rob says:

    26 Sep26 September 13:24

    Just booking IIRC

    • Brian says:

      26 Sep26 September 15:19

      Hi Rob

      Thanks. Would you have a contact you could speak to that could confirm this?

      I’ve tried both IHG and Creation and the information is both patchy and inconsistent, not sure the people I spoke to actually known the answer.

      • Roy says:

        26 Sep26 September 16:01

        Doesn’t prove that nothing has changed, but Rob managed it back in 2016:

        https://headforpoints.com/2016/07/05/ihg-rewards-club-no-show-fine-penalty/

      • Peter K says:

        26 Sep26 September 16:05

        I’ve booked more than once for a stay after the expiry date of the voucher, but booked it before the expiry.

        • Peter K says:

          26 Sep26 September 16:06

          Including this year for a stay in July.

  • Genghis says:

    26 Sep26 September 16:52

    Just booked, for sure.

  • Rooster says:

    26 Sep26 September 21:34

    I have 2 that would have expired but I booked a day before they expired and no problem

  • Adam says:

    26 Sep26 September 22:00

    Booked a hotel two weeks ago one day before certificate expiry. Stayed with no problems.

• Russ says:

  26 Sep26 September 13:06

  I’ve never really benefited from Hotels.com as I keep forgetting to book through them. If you book via them religiously then I can see the benefit. But I can’t be the only one who forgets to book via them and ends up receiving no benefit.

  • Crafty says:

    9 Oct9 October 17:48

    Surely this is the same for every single loyalty scheme in the world!

• BJ says:

  26 Sep26 September 13:09

  O/T: Popped into Morrisons yesterday to get £100 vouchers before amex offer expired, asked for a lucky dip (something I rarely ever do) after hearing somebody saying rollover, and got very lucky indeed 🙂 Biggest prize I ever won in my life before being a bottle of spirits so it came as a bit of a shock. Think I’ll spend it on avios at the next sale and boost the winnings further with a 241 Christmas redemption.

  • memesweeper says:

    26 Sep26 September 13:53

    nice 🙂

    although promoting the purchase of lottery tickets to advance towards a credit-card spending bonus probably isn’t generally a wise idea !

    • Shoestring says:

      26 Sep26 September 14:29

      how much?

      • BJ says:

        26 Sep26 September 14:49

        769 🙂

        • Shoestring says:

          26 Sep26 September 14:52

          not bad, my wife bought herself £10 for her birthday in August (like you, she never normally buys Lottery stuff) as I was away out in the sun – she won £120

    • BJ says:

      26 Sep26 September 14:52

      Think I’ve bought one once about every 2 or 3, maybe even 4 years, it’s that rare for me

      • Shoestring says:

        26 Sep26 September 14:57

        I prefer games of skill such as the Daily Mail sharepicking competition (double 🙂 🙂 in order)

• Jen says:

  26 Sep26 September 13:21

  Sadly AMEX has disappeared from DVLA for taxing vehicles.
  Bit disappointed as I used to tax company HGV vehicles through that so it was easy was to get £10k spend a year.

  • SimonW says:

    26 Sep26 September 13:50

    Found this out yesterday too…. I paid at the Post Office with my Amex instead – no problems.

• AndyK says:

  26 Sep26 September 13:31

  OT. Need to cancel a non-BA flight which was paid for by BAPP. Transaction triggered sign up bonus Avios back in Feb. Will Amex try to take sign up bonus back?

  • Shoestring says:

    26 Sep26 September 14:22

    no

    • AndyK says:

      26 Sep26 September 14:41

      Thank you
      I spent well over the sign up limit in the first three months even without this flight.
      And this is not a flexible flight even. Cancelling as they changed the departure time.

      • Shoestring says:

        26 Sep26 September 14:46

        they’ll take your transaction points back but you’re on very firm ground if you hit the spend target anyway without taking this transaction into consideration

        I know YMMV etc but I’ve had to cancel a few things such as car rental several months down the line and Amex have never taken back the Amex offer statement credit associated with the original purchase either

        • Jonathan says:

          26 Sep26 September 17:10

          Shhhh! (Though they seem to have sorted this loophole out recently)

        • Genghis says:

          26 Sep26 September 17:30

          From historical experience the sign up bonus gets taken away only if you refund the transaction that took you over the threshold to get the bonus in the first place. As to whether it’s changed recently, no idea.

        • Rob says:

          26 Sep26 September 17:48

          Correct – I assumed that’s what the OP meant, but perhaps not?

  • Rob says:

    26 Sep26 September 14:35

    Normally they would, but this far on …? Dunno

• aDifferentSimon says:

  26 Sep26 September 14:09

  OT: Has anyone tried loading a revolut card with an mbna credit card? Any fees?
  Thanks

• Charlieface says:

  26 Sep26 September 14:28

  OT: Drowned out by all the Thomas Cook news, Adria Airways looks like it’s also about to go belly-up. It’s already suspended all flights.
  Don’t forget you can claim on Section 75 for rebooking, not just a refund.

  • John says:

    26 Sep26 September 17:10

    Sad but they were always much more expensive than their partner airlines like Lufty and LOT when I was trying to go to Slovenia.

• memesweeper says:

  26 Sep26 September 14:40

  If I’ve ‘saved up’ by making bookings with hotels.com, forgoing other benefits in the process, surely they cannot unilaterally make me pay to redeem? How is this not a material change to T&Cs?

  • stevenhp1987 says:

    26 Sep26 September 15:55

    Just redeem in the app? You can still research in your browser etc.

    • memesweeper says:

      26 Sep26 September 16:07

      …. or they can change their T&Cs to include the charge, but don’t retro-apply that to credit (or part credit) earned before the T&Cs were changed. I don’t think it’s OK to apply new charges to credit already earned.

      • Lady London says:

        26 Sep26 September 20:39

        I agree with you. They cannot presume that everyone is in a position to (or willing to) use the app… I think they’re on sticky legal ground.

        It’ll just stop me booking with them because I think it’s bit dirty to change the cost of redeeming any points that have been earned on the basis it would cost nothing to redeem the points.

        I think it’s just a way of pushing people into the app so they can hoover up all your data, track you and sell it (for lots, you’d be surprised what your data is worth). I’ve just had one of my cards claim the only way to manage my account in future will be to use their app and not the website. They didn’t give the contractual notice period that this was what they were changing, they sent lots of threating emails out saying you have to use the app now or you can’t manage your account. I’ve complained and probably reporting them to the Ombudsman for lack of notice of removal of functionality.

  • Roy says:

    26 Sep26 September 18:03

    All other loyalty schemes seem to devalue on a regular basis. Why should hotels.com be any different?

    • Shoestring says:

      26 Sep26 September 18:11

      Tesco Clubcard hasn’t actually devalued (for me) – still the same conversion rates as several years ago on the ones that matter. I don’t think dumping (say) Uber counts as devaluation, maybe degradation of the offer range but you’d expect the range to change over time.

    • Rob says:

      26 Sep26 September 19:42

      Revenue-driven points-based schemes must devalue, logically. If IHG kept an InterCon night at 70,000 points then – to take it to an extreme – in 50 years time you’d be paying £5,000 per night for a room currently costing £100 per night and getting a free night with every paid night!

      No reason, except for corporate greed, to devalue schemes which are not revenue driven.

      However, one problem Expedia / Hotels.com has is that they are making monopoly (well, oligopoly) profits. The 22% commission they charge is not sustainable and the bigger chains (who were foolish enough to agree to this in the first place) are now trying to push back.

      The problem is that Expedia / Hotels.com – and Priceline / Booking.com – are actually too powerful. Imagine IHG pulled its 7,000 hotels from the 500,000+ on Expedia / Hotels.com. Who is the bigger loser? IHG or Expedia / Hotels.com? I doubt 98% of customers would even notice but the hotels would take a huge hit.

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