One Key to replace Hotels.com and Expedia Rewards from 8th July – what you need to know

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• Alan says:

  10 Jun10 June 09:42

  I’ve got a 7 night booking ending on 7th July which makes my 10 nights so hopefully will get credited ok before when my change happens. It’s the first time I’ve actually made 10 nights before losing history due inactivity!

  I tend to book direct with deals, as long as get right price I know this means hotel hasn’t got to pay their fees to Expedia group.

• Dave Smitton says:

  10 Jun10 June 09:57

  Just read the details and looked at US comments. It’s actually going to be 6% for top tier (easy to achieve) at their VIP properties of which there’s lot and you will get a Perk and check out extensions and possible upgrade on top. That’s actually better than I was expecting plus can earn this one key cash for flights and on VRBO.

  • Rob says:

    10 Jun10 June 10:04

    Only a fool books a flight via an OTA. Did you learn nothing during covid?

    • Paulo says:

      10 Jun10 June 10:09

      Bit harsh there Rob?

      • Rob says:

        10 Jun10 June 10:12

        Wait until you have a flight cancelled or delayed and the airline won’t speak to you because you booked through an OTA, and the OTA won’t answer the phone or reply to your email because, well, why should they waste the money on customer service?

        We have stopped ALL coverage of OTA flight deals since covid. We don’t, for example, cover Opodo’s regular money-off flight deals any longer. This actually costs us money because we got commission on those bookings and we don’t get commission on BA flight bookings made directly.

        • Paulo says:

          10 Jun10 June 12:47

          Not saying the decision isn’t justified, but insulting your readers isn’t a good look.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          10 Jun10 June 13:02

          Paulo – I don’t think it’s insulting.

          If Rob hadn’t written it first then some of us would have said it – and in more robust terms!

        • Rob says:

          10 Jun10 June 13:07

          We lost a few thousands pounds per year of Opodo commission by refusing to cover their deals any longer. We’re prepared to back up our position with cold hard cash (or cash losses, in this case) to stop readers making what we consider is a big mistake.

          You don’t need to agree with us, but we have put quite a bit of money where our mouth is.

        • Daniel says:

          10 Jun10 June 13:21

          Rob, a smart traveller can make real savings with OTA bookings. The vast majority of my bookings are directly with carriers but I use OTA from time to time where there is a substantial saving on an easily switchable routing.

          Over the years I’ve been stung a couple of times. If you’re willing to take the hit on those occasions it still can add up to a good value proposition. Depends on the levels of savings vs booking with carrier too.

        • Rob says:

          10 Jun10 June 13:33

          I think your 2nd paragraph just about sums up why we shouldn’t be recommending this option to people who are, in most cases, less experienced travellers than yourself.

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          10 Jun10 June 13:51

          Daniel but many people can’t afford to take any sort of a hit.

          And whilst most of the time peoples holidays aren’t affected at all or any changes to flight schedules are minor there is still a significant number who do suffer because of the almost total lack of customer service from many OTAs.

        • tony says:

          10 Jun10 June 22:06

          In all fairness my booking direct with Malaysian just before Covid made many an OTA look angelic. That’s when we booked non refundable flights, MH closed the route and refused us a refund because we’d bought – yes – non refundable tickets. They even argued the toss when I eventually got the credit card company to do a charge back.

          So whilst the OTA bashing is valid, the alternatives aren’t always great, either.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        10 Jun10 June 11:12

        Unless it’s literally in the next few days I’m with Rob the discount isn’t worth the hassle

        • CarpalTravel says:

          10 Jun10 June 11:37

          +1

        • Alan says:

          10 Jun10 June 13:49

          Rob good on you for having some morals.

          I’ve been warning people for years, before Covid, of the trouble not booking your flight direct. They are all fine when everything goes well but as soon goes wrong they are a lot harder to deal with.

        • Lady London says:

          11 Jun11 June 15:09

          +1.

          Though we are lucky in the UK in that we have s75 legislation that means if our OTA booking goes to absolute complete rat.hit we can in quite a few cases get our money back if we paid with a UK credit card.

    • Greenpen says:

      10 Jun10 June 11:34

      I have used Expedia frequently for flights and never had any problems. Some flights are refundable and others not but they do make that clear. Refunds have been promptly paid. Class and booking type is stated clearly and the prices seem to accord with Matrix ITA (although TK has been a problem as their flights appear as available on ITA but been sold so not available).

      I use the BA site for their flights and U2 and FR direct too. The Expedia website is also useful for more obscure airlines whose website are sometimes difficult to negotiate because of design and English translations.

      The only flight cancellations I have had were on BA from LHR and years ago VS, and both were compensated appropriately. We hear much of cancellations and horror stories but I suspect they are few and far between and sometimes self-inflicted.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        10 Jun10 June 13:59

        But the issue isn’t getting e.g. UK/EU 261 for a last minute cancellation as that and rebooking comes from the airline but often the lack of any service should a flight be cancelled or rescheduled months in advance and the OTA isn’t interested in doing anything for you or will charge a fee for rebooking onto other flights if you don’t like the initial one offered where if you booked direct it’s a much smoother service.

      • Joe says:

        10 Jun10 June 18:41

        I booked 2x £75 internal flights in Argentina with Booking.com because the airline’s website was rubbish and in a foreign language. After the flight was cancelled due to strikes Booking.com offered no rerouting options so I had to pay £700 to get alternative flights.

        To compound the issue, I still haven’t received a refund for the original flights after 4 months, and now Booking.com have disputed my chargeback claim saying that they don’t have a contract with me and are just a platform! I could try a s75 claim but suspect Virgin Money will say its not covered as each flights was <£100.

        Anyway, the lesson is that no matter how awful the airline's website it, persevere and book direct.

    • Alex Sm says:

      11 Jun11 June 00:58

      Covid is long gone… you are still once bitten, twice shy, @Rob 🪼

• James says:

  10 Jun10 June 10:05

  In the article Rob, you say
  “ However, the change has one benefit – you can cash out the value of your accumulated Hotels.com Rewards now without having to wait until you hit 10 nights”

  What does this mean?
  I can’t see an option in my H.com account to cash out my ~£120 (8 nights)

  • Rob says:

    10 Jun10 June 10:16

    Your £120 will turn into £120 of OneKeyCash at some point soon after 8th July and can be used immediately towards a hotel booking.

• whiskerxx says:

  10 Jun10 June 10:35

  Rhetorical question:
  Why don’t they consolidate all of their brands and simply have one platform – One Key?

  • Rob says:

    10 Jun10 June 11:18

    They are different platforms to be fair – Expedia is full service, Hotels.com is, well, hotels. More interesting is why they keep eBookers etc which are sub-scale and not global.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      12 Jun12 June 08:13

      This comment aged like a fine milk 🙂

  • Alan says:

    10 Jun10 June 13:52

    The answer is if you have multiple brands you have multiple chances of one of yours being chosen by a customer. The equation is how much extra does it cost you to operate said number of brands.

• AirMax says:

  10 Jun10 June 10:38

  Next to Cologne station is a massive office for Hrs.de

  Are they worth looking at as an alternative to booking / expedia? They’re not on trivago which seems strange

• Chrisasaurus says:

  10 Jun10 June 11:20

  Data point – line was converted to one key earlier this month during the signing in/booking process. There was no option to defer it that I could see.

  I presume this was down to the fact I was located in the US when I did it?

• r* says:

  10 Jun10 June 12:14

  They shouldve perhaps come up with a name that doesnt sound like wonky.

  It also sounds kinda similar to wan key, which is a fitting description of the new program 😀

• Paulo says:

  10 Jun10 June 12:51

  This move has really got me peeved. Back before this was announced I booked multiple hotels via hotels.com for an October trip, partly due to the fact I’d get good value back via their rewards scheme. Now that’s getting slashed; it’s a bait and switch as far as I’m concerned. They should honour the original reward scheme value for all bookings made prior to the switch was announced.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    10 Jun10 June 13:12

    These changes were first announced over a year ago.

    https://www.headforpoints.com/2023/03/29/hotels-com-rewards-gutted-one-key/

  • Cwyfan says:

    10 Jun10 June 16:29

    I have raised this issue from the start with them, as I two have October family bookings, and the last time I asked about them standing by honouring the reward offered at the actual date of booking for later bookings they said.

    Secondly, till the launch of OneKeyCash, you will earn stamps for each reservation. After OneKeyCash is launched, all the bookings that were already booked will start to earn OneKeyCash with the value of stamps. Bookings made after the launch of OneKeyCash will earn Onekey with a value of 2% for each eligible booking.

    I interpret the phrase with the value of stamps to mean booked but not yet stayed, will get the stamp value not the lower 2%, as long as it was booked prior to change day.

    They can not have it all ways!

    • Mike says:

      10 Jun10 June 17:32

      The rewards screen in my app states that my booking for October will ‘collect 6 stamps’ – the same screen has the One Key September message – I’ve screenshot it to show both messages together in case I can be bothered arguing at the time…

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