The end of Hotels.com Rewards? Expedia Group to merge all of its loyalty schemes

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• BC says:

  23 Sep23 September 06:32

  Completely disagree regarding Ebookers. Nearly always at least a 10% discount code (12% at the moment) over the last few years, plus 5% rebate credit for booking through app. Makes it a winner over hotels.com almost every time.

  • Beardless Hipster says:

    23 Sep23 September 06:44

    Ebookers most certainly is a better scheme than hotels.com In addition to the instant discounts you get 2 lounge passes per year with platinum (1 pass with gold). Book rooms for other people from your account and still get night credits.

    • CarpalTravel says:

      23 Sep23 September 06:47

      Already this is backfiring for Hotels.com. I didn’t know much at all about ebookers but now I do, I’ll be looking towards them for potential future bookings.

      Once I’ve used up my collection of rewards nights, at least.

    • Jon says:

      23 Sep23 September 07:02

      Ebookers is owned by Expedia too. You get to share in crappy ‘rewards’

      • Rob says:

        23 Sep23 September 07:18

        Hotels.com also lets you book for others from your account and get the night credits.

        The airport lounge pass benefit is decent, which we stress in our review.

      • CarpalTravel says:

        23 Sep23 September 08:11

        Two reading fails in two days. I’m on a roll… 🤦

  • A13 says:

    23 Sep23 September 06:46

    Completely agree. 5% instant rebate through the app and stacks with discount codes which have pretty much always been available too. Has been my go-to scheme for years.

  • Rob says:

    23 Sep23 September 06:49

    The discount code is separate to the loyalty scheme – and Hotels.com discount codes, in some (not all) cases, trigger the free night credits too.

    • SydneySwan says:

      23 Sep23 September 13:08

      That’s correct.

• John says:

  23 Sep23 September 06:33

  You don’t receive 10% back with Hotels.com. You get 11 nights for the price of 10. That’s getting back 9.19% by participating which should reasonably be rounded down to 9%.

  • Bagoly says:

    23 Sep23 September 12:53

    I think your spellcheck did a bit of anticipatory rounding there.
    I get 9.09%.

• Jon says:

  23 Sep23 September 06:40

  Bugger. They better not cancel the £500 worth of spendable reward nights I have banked. Time to cancel my next stays and rebook as rewards.

  We should not be surprised I suppose. I always thought it was odd that Expedia group had such different operating models.

  • Mark says:

    23 Sep23 September 10:41

    I think they’d find themselves on the receiving end of a few MCOL actions if people aren’t given a reasonable opportunity at least to cash in existing reward nights, as existing stamps / stamps due on existing bookings. On the assumption it changes to a credit off future bookings type approach I’d expect the value of that to be rolled into the new scheme.

• A13 says:

  23 Sep23 September 06:49

  Ebookers BONUS+ is the better reward scheme, and if we’re losing that then that is the unfortunate thing, not hotels.com rewards.

  • pauldb says:

    23 Sep23 September 06:54

    +1

    I wonder if cash back/discount codes is part of their thinking as well as loyalty %s. Somehow booking.com seem to do nicely out of paying zero to 4% cash back and only some opaque discounts.

  • Aso40 says:

    23 Sep23 September 07:07

    Agreed, much prefer ebookers – better cash discounts overall up front, which is good as only book independent hotels occasionally. Really never seen the appeal of hotels.com.

    • Rob says:

      23 Sep23 September 07:20

      That’s fine – you’re the eBookers sort of customer with that profile. There is a guy who responded to my LinkedIn post who has booked 500 nights with Hotels.com, banking 50 free nights. That’s the Hotels.com sort of customer, and the one they may now lose. He is worth 100 of you, commercially.

      • KBuffett says:

        23 Sep23 September 07:34

        Hotels.com is/was fantastic for people who expense bookings or book for others.
        Surely they know that and I’d be surprised if the completely terminate the current scheme

        • tony says:

          23 Sep23 September 08:26

          Well perhaps they launch a RocketMiles type scheme which to me seems little like an elaborate tax dodge for road warriors.

          You pay over the odds for a hotel, get a huge wad of air miles in return and your employer is hopefully none the wiser.

          So if the demographic is split as clinically as that, you get lower prices across the board and no or limited rewards for the 95%, vs an exceptionally high price and generous rewards for the 5% who want that sort of thing.

        • Rob says:

          23 Sep23 September 08:40

          No VAT receipts from RocketMiles, so employer is not happy.

        • John says:

          23 Sep23 September 08:57

          That’s disputable. You know, if your employer allows you to keep miles/points/CB, you could as well book direct. E.g., Accor gives up to 14% CB through the pertinent portals. That directly beats hotels.com. And you get the points on top. Of course, other programs such as Marriott don’t pay more than 5% CB. But depending on the promos they’re running, you still may come out ahead of hotels.com.

  • Alan says:

    23 Sep23 September 08:56

    @Rob no VAT receipts from Expedia either though? Certainly not on my recent booking.

    • AL says:

      23 Sep23 September 09:33

      Long time Hotels.com user here. Lack of VAT receipts is number one thing that irks me.

      • CarpalTravel says:

        23 Sep23 September 09:41

        Yeah, has been a bit of a pain for me. And their woeful map search, moving about on its own once you ask it to refresh the search and resetting the filters. Won’t miss those things.

      • Chris says:

        23 Sep23 September 10:18

        Look for “Pay at property available” on the hotel page, select “Pay at hotel” if you get a payment option pop up and for good measure check before confirming the booking that “Your card won’t be charged – it’s only needed to guarantee your booking” shows below card details and the “Payment schedule” on the right shows 0 due now and the full amount due at property.

        Once at the hotel they will require your payment card to check in as they have not yet had any monies. On checkout ask for the VAT receipt. If they start going on about Expedia/hotels.com just point out as it was paid at the hotel deal the hotel needs to issue the VAT receipt.

        All still a faff and wish they would streamline this process.

        • Alan says:

          23 Sep23 September 21:30

          Ah OK, yep I can see would still be possible on post payment, this was a prepaid booking.

• BJ says:

  23 Sep23 September 07:25

  Agree 100% with the comments here that ebookers bonus+ is the better scheme, it is certainly not a dud. The perks in combination with port@ls yield a high return, especially if staying close to the platinum qualification requirement. However, there always was a need to check eboojers rates versus the competition as they were often higher but we got substantial wins sometimes too. If anything it was hotels.com that was closer to a dud for reasons others have already posted but I would not go that far, it just depended whether people preferred the simple option of a bit less than 10% back to use on hotels com by sticking with their own loyalty scheme or if they preferred 10%+ back in hard cash to spend as they wished for a little bit more hassle via the port@ls. Personally I preferred 10%+ option with ebookers as the lounge passes were always useful when flying Air Asia at points when I was without PriorityPass.

  • meta says:

    23 Sep23 September 08:48

    I value lounge passes at £0 as at any point we have lounge access either via Amex Plat or HSBC cards. I also sometimes get extra money on hotels.com via port@ls even when using a reward night (I’d say a bit more than half of the time). As of last year, when using codes you can also earn reward night stamps and also there are Secret Prices available to members which are pretty good. I had huge discounts in the past…

• BJ says:

  23 Sep23 September 07:36

  As readers though, we are not all that interested in what we are worth to the loyalty schemes, we are much more interested in what they are worth to us. So much so that we will all sometimes go on a bender (pun intended) knowing full well the potential consequences to the opportunity, and even the scheme/company itself.

  • BJ says:

    23 Sep23 September 07:38

    That was meant to be reply @Rob 07:20

• Tracey says:

  23 Sep23 September 07:45

  Have 3 reward nights banked at around £500 each. Wasn’t planning on spending them until the next long haul rewards trip late Summer 2022.
  Have also made bookings for son’s wedding, I think 12 x 2 nights across 3 accounts for next Spring.
  Would be a pain if things changed on either. Wedding isn’t such an issue, as the hotel also has given us an allocation, but the hotels.com rate was at a time when they were offering a great discount.

• Mikeact says:

  23 Sep23 September 07:57

  I need to dig out Rob’s recent one on Booking.com which seemed to be better in some respects if I remember correctly.

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