Forums › Hotel loyalty schemes › Other hotel schemes › Hotels.com loyalty transfer going to OneKey
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@JDB I claim it on the authority of the person on the Clapham omnibus!
Hotels.com have for many years run the reward stamps scheme in order encourage customers to book through them. As I have done many times, and as intended by Hotels.com, I relied on the assurance given by the scheme to make a decision to book accommodation through hotels.com. Lowering the reward due on the booking effectively increases my outlay on it. On this basis it is arguable that the rewards do form part of the contract, as you suggested might be the case in your other reply.
Also, unless you have hacked into my emails or somehow have access to those of Hotels.com customer service, you do not know what tone I have adopted in my communications with them, conciliatory or otherwise.
I think the last part of the terms « By continuing to collect Stamps and redeem Reward Nights with Hotels.com Rewards, you accept any changes to these terms and conditions. You are responsible for keeping up to date on any changes that we may make. The most current version will always be available on our website. » is what you need to look rather than the first part.
Have you been looking at the terms and conditions regularly and can prove that you did?
And for sake of completeness here’s a thread from last August discussing changes https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/hotels-com-2/
Have you been looking at the terms and conditions regularly and can prove that you did?
Again, that’s beside the point. At the time of booking, no announcement had been made about the scheme changing for UK members nor had we been informed. The site was offering reward night stamps on bookings with no cutoff. The confirmation emails even confirmed that stamps would awarded after the stay.
I’m fully aware that the terms and conditions have since changed. However the fact that they now say that the Onekey scheme replaces hotels.com rewards from some indeterminate date between 8th July and 16th September doesn’t make that change fair for existing bookings and is therefore open to challenge on that basis.
@marks7389 – I don’t think your analysis is correct. If I were in your position, I too would be cheesed off and I think hotels.com could have phased these changes in better as BA has done recently with some fairly dramatic changes to TP collection year ends and price based Avios earning. That said, I think that as @meta says, these changes have been trailed for such an incredibly long time that feigning ignorance would be an incredibly weak argument. Also, you and another poster are stapling the rewards programme contract to a hotel room booking contract which I believe is an incorrect approach. The two run in parallel, but are not entirely tied and changes to the rewards part wouldn’t be found to be unfair.
On a different note, I have never booked a room with Hotels.com but they are useful reference price/terms to beat, but ultimately they are the monkey. When you deal with the organ grinder you not only don’t get the aggro of any programme change but you get a better deal.
@JDB There is no feigning ignorance on my part, nor I expect, on the part of most people in a similar position. I made my reservation in reliance on the information available on the UK version of hotels.com at the time of booking. As has been stressed already, the UK rollout of the replacement scheme was not announced until April nor was there any indication about it on the UK site prior to then. These changes have not therefore been “Trailed for an incredibly long time” where it matters, ie on the UK Hotels.com site. Expecting every customer to be up to date with the latest discussion on Hfp or similar site, or in the habit of using a VPN to check out any updates on the US version of hotels.com is simply not reasonable.
UK customers prior to April had a legitimate expectation that what has long been promised and delivered by the existing scheme would be received. As such I do believe it forms part of the offer made by hotels.com to which it should be held. I do agree that this ought to be sorted out through goodwill and that legal pursuit for a relatively small sum would be counterproductive. It is disappointing however that hotels.com are not doing more to preserve goodwill by limiting the unfairness that implementation of these changes entails for a significant number of their customers. Even after the UK rollout of OneKey, Hotels.com was still likely to be my default choice for non-chain bookings, but after my dealings with them so far about this, I’m no longer so sure and it will depend on what happens next.
I am not feigning ignarance and I don’t believe that most people aggrieved by this change are either. As has already been emphasised in this discussion, the UK rollout of OneKey was only announced in April and there was no mention of any such change on hotels.com UK prior to then. It was therefore not “Trailed for such an incredibly long time” where it mattered, ie on hotels.com UK. To expect (as one or two posters on here seemingly do) hotels.com customers all to be up to date on the latest discussions on Hfp or similar, or to be in the habit of using a VPN to check out what’s new on the US version of the site, is simply not reasonable.
Many people booking on hotels.com UK prior to April will have done so in reliance on what the reward stamp scheme had long promised and delivered. They will have had a legitimate expectation that such benefits would be received again. As such I strongly believe that the reward scheme did form part of the offer from hotels.com to which they are required to hold themselves. I agree that goodwill should be how this is resolved but it’s disappointing that the way the reward scheme change has been implemented suggests that preserving customer goodwill was not a high priority when it was decided.
Data point:
FYI for those that have their status downgraded after migration to OneKey.. I had mine downgraded from Gold to Silver. I complained and they manually put me back to Gold.
@Nomad312 I have just watched the last episode of The House of the Dragon and your writing style could match those of the sires of Westeros.
I have emails from April 2023 informing me of One Key coming at some point in 2024. You can say what you wish but this was a well announced, advertised and known change of the rewards program.
I will continue to use Hotels.com when their prices match or are lower than others (plus you get plenty of avios via the shopping portal).
Winter is coming!
@yonasl I’m really not sure whether your comment about my writing style was intended as an insult, but I don’t take it as one. But then I always thought Lord Varys had quite a nice turn of phrase.
The arguments on both sides of this discussion are getting repeated, so I won’t (as I’m sure you’ll be pleased to learn!) labour the point, but in reply to your main comment:
Point of sale for hotels.com UK is UK site. UK site said nothing about OneKey until April. I made reservation on site before April, not knowing about OneKey. Site promised reward stamps for reservation. Confirmation email promised reward stamps for reservation. Hotels.com should give reward stamps for reservation.
To the old reward schemes and the new!
How many times do we need to spell it out. It was advertised really well that it is coming at point in 2024. My UK rewards site had this information since 2023. And I just checked like yonasl I had an email from Hotels.com UK last year too telling me to create one log in as OneKey is coming in 2024.
You signed up for a programme whose terms and conditions you have not obviously read. Whehter they are fair or not is irrelevant as you had an option not to sign up at all.
You also waited for 4 months to make a complaint since final announcement. If you asked back in April, they might have been more sympathetic.
Let us know how you get on with complaint.
Point of sale for hotels.com UK is UK site. UK site said nothing about OneKey until April. I made reservation on site before April, not knowing about OneKey. Site promised reward stamps for reservation. Confirmation email promised reward stamps for reservation. Hotels.com should give reward stamps for reservation.
… the reward scheme may or may not have formed part of the contract for hotel booking
however, if it was a non-contractural inducement to enter a contract, it may be a “representation” — search online for “misrepresentation” @Nomad312 for the implications of that.
Hotels.com should have made it clear at the time of booking that the nature and value of the reward was changing, and they did not. That smells of misrepresentation to me. IANAL.
Not really, there was always a link to changes that will take place when booking. It was so obvious on the booking pages and uk.hotels.com in big yellow box that you couldn’t miss it. You really have no leg to stand on with this legally. People should have really played on the goodwill in April, not now.
@memesweeper – I don’t wish to support hotels.com in any way, but there isn’t any sort of misrepresentation here. If you make any sort of travel booking today for next Easter, the booking itself may create a contract for the service you have booked at a certain price that can’t be changed but any reward/loyalty benefit that you might expect can change between now and then, within the terms of that scheme but nothing was fixed at the time of booking. Was any representation made either way?
A provider might choose to phase in those changes in a more generous way than required to sugar the pill – eg BA with its move to price based Avios awards or change of tier point years [still lots of complaints] but that’s a commercial decision for them. Another example would be Amex’s decision to change the spend threshold for the 241 mid-year for many. They could have done so with two months notice but they actually gave six months so striking a middle way. Was that a misrepresentation by Amex or just an exercise of its contractual right to amend terms?
The case of hotels.com is anyway a little different to BA and Amex because these changes were flagged a year ago but more importantly, they aren’t quite in control of the reward currency. Hotels.com pays the stamp out of the commissions it receives from hotels and those commissions have, in many cases, been slashed so the firm was no longer in a position to give back so much. The terms they enjoyed were cut and they have passed that favour on to the end user.
On a different note, I have never booked a room with Hotels.com but they are useful reference price/terms to beat, but ultimately they are the monkey. When you deal with the organ grinder you not only don’t get the aggro of any programme change but you get a better deal.
I have booked many rooms through Hotels.com and have always compared to other sites as well as booking direct and found them to cheaper when the one night credit was added back in to the equation.
On occasion I would ask hotels to match the Hotels.com rate and whilst they would match the online rate they would rarely take the 10% reduction in to account. Indeed a few months ago at a small boutique hotel on a winery in Chile on arrival we discovered I had booked for a month later – luckily it was cancellable so I cancelled on the spot and I asked them to match the price which even after speaking to the manager they couldn’t do so I booked it on Hotels.com at a rate cheaper than the booking I had had to cancelled. They were very surprised at the rate!
@qc – it’s never going to work every time. I think you must have come across a ‘manager’ which in the cono sur is often in fact just an administrator who the owner doesn’t entrust with decisions like pricing. Anyone with skin in the game would have taken your money directly.
I experienced the same in China once when they refused to match Agoda that was 15% cheaper than the website (although that offered guaranteed upgrade) so she told me I would have to book through Agoda but I might prefer to book through another firm that I had never heard of as it was cheaper! She also told be to call back when I had booked and she would process the upgrade. Bizarre. During my stay I met the organ grinder, so now go to her directly!
Sometimes it’s not just about price. There’s more than one hotel we use regularly that won’t budge on price but within that will offer guaranteed multi category upgrade and include all manner of things, airport transfers, laundry, rounds of golf, dinner, local tours etc. This works particularly well in those SAm countries where’s there is no VAT on the room rate.
Ultimately the hotel sets the prices + and has to cater for all sorts of guests/rates whereas hotels.com is a price taker and rebates some of its commission.
@memesweeper – I don’t wish to support hotels.com in any way, but there isn’t any sort of misrepresentation here
You may very well be right, but this discussion has swerved between various voices suggesting the awards scheme is part of the booking contract, and others that it is not. I’ve not read the small print and have no opinion on that, but if it is not part of the booking contract there is an argument to be made for it being a representation, and signposted that to @Nomad312. S/he can make up their own mind. The law on misrepresentation is mercifully clear cut (hence many companies taking steps to avoid its scope). Clearly, within the walls of hotels.com towers, and in many other places, it was known the scheme they were promoting in the early part of this year was not going to survive the year, but they take bookings a year into the future. If a lady from Kensington can win on a misrepresentation against a dating agency for failing to find her ‘the man of her dreams’ then we are all in with a shout 🤣
I’ve no doubt awards schemes can change in their, err, rewardingness (if that’s a word) and it’s entirely legal for that to happen, subject to T&Cs and wider consumer protection law.
If the margins for Expedia have dropped precipitously then I wonder how they are going to maintain the 10%-ish rewards in the territories where they are now abandoning the OneKey rollout?
How many times do we need to spell it out. It was advertised really well that it is coming at point in 2024. My UK rewards site had this information since 2023.
@meta How many more times do I need to spell it out more like. A change to terms and conditions has to communicated at the time and location of purchase in order to be valid. If it wasn’t on the website at the time of booking then it has no bearing on matters now.I’m genuinely interested in what you saw on your account prior to April because there was nothing indicating a change to the reward system on my booking page or on my account. By contrast, “You’ll receive rewards stamps after your stay” certainly was there.I suppose it’s possible something was buried in the terms and conditions that I’ll admit I don’t read thoroughly every single time but to add such a major change in that way would be sharp practice at the very least. Even then the advertising of reward stamps on the stay would contradict it. “Whether the terms are fair or not” is certainly not “irrelevant”. There is UK legislation covering this as @marks7389 has already pointed out to you
Neither is it true that I “waited 4 months to make a complaint”. The announcement in April was very vague about when the rollout would take place so it wasn’t certain what bookings would be affected. Even when I knew mine would be, I was still hopeful that they’d be fair and allocate a OneKey amount equivalent to the stamps I would have earned. When I was transitioned to OneKey last month I saw the OneKeyCash amount allocated to the booking and this is when I decided to email them.
Yes, I’ll post updates of any progress or otherwise in my complaint here. It’s been a few days since I was told my email had been escalated, so I’ll follow up next week if I’ve heard nothing by then.
But it was on the website. Terms and conditions that you signed state they can change the type of award and the amounts at will without having to notify you. Every time you click on the book button you agree to these terms. There is a tick box. Some people clearly can’t read what they sign.
The announcement wasn’t vague it gave clear indication of when the change will take place albeit with a range. It was also clear if your account switched you won’t get any compensation for a booking following the switch date. You clearly didn’t pay attention at the time.
And you are twisting the legislation to your own liking.
And you are twisting the legislation to your own liking.
No I’m not. Yes they have the right to change the rewards scheme and at any time, but for bookings from that point. What they can’t do is announce a change to terms that have already been agreed. This would be akin to increasing a price after payment but before delivery.
Once again, by the time that announcement was made in April I had already booked and paid for a non refundable stay. Anything hint prior to that to the effect of “coming soon” is not specific enough to change anything even if it had been on the website.
Just getting round to looking at my Hotels.com account since the transfer over to OneKey. I was Gold via the World Mastercard/Avis Presidents Club/Status Match to Gold for Hotels.com. I received 2 emails from Hotels.com saying I am now Silver but when I log in my account is still showing Gold which is great. Will this status match continue going forward. My Hotels.com renewal is up in Dec so if it goes down to Silver will I be able to status match again or has that now gone ?? I scrolled back through the comments and didn’t see anything. Thanks.
Has anyone else noticed that some of their hotels.com bookings made prior to the One Key changeover are apparently not eligible to earn One Key cash, even though they would have earned stamps under the old scheme? I’ve got three such bookings which apparently all earn a big fat zero. I feel ripped off and this is just going to make me even more likely to leave Hotels.com
I must have been one of the last converted just happened a few days ago – had 81 paid room nights in the last 12 months and now the bottom blue status in the new program.
My last communication was
Aug 20, 2024 Good news! You’ve qualified for Hotels.com® Rewards Gold again.That has to be one of the quickest status drops in history from the top tier to nothing in under a month.
If I log in via hotels.com I get one balance – if I log in via expedia get another. (same email).
Why don’t the hotel chains offer a status match – I can’t be bothered with Expedia at all now. Booking a room for a conference in Vegas – over £2,000 and it was saying you will earn £8.02
It isn’t just the change to this – I now can’t book and pay for US flights via expedia.com – they have decided all activity is now UK – so that has put all the costs up over 4%.
(Conversion rates / then also higher taxes / bank charges).What a joke – 81 nights now start again.
Has anyone else noticed that some of their hotels.com bookings made prior to the One Key changeover are apparently not eligible to earn One Key cash, even though they would have earned stamps under the old scheme? I’ve got three such bookings which apparently all earn a big fat zero. I feel ripped off and this is just going to make me even more likely to leave Hotels.com
I would say that’s worth challenging. The terms and conditions say the 2% base (excluding taxes) can be earned on “Eligible Bookings booked through a Participating Brand”. I can’t see where it defines that, but in practice it appears to be 2% across the board on new bookings. If you were to book the same hotels again, does it show that you would earn anything?
I must have been one of the last converted just happened a few days ago – had 81 paid room nights in the last 12 months and now the bottom blue status in the new program.
Again, that doesn’t sound right. The transition arrangements should award you status based on “trip elements” completed in 2023 or so far in 2024, including those under the old reward schemes. You only need 30 for Platinum status.
If I log in via hotels.com I get one balance – if I log in via expedia get another. (same email).
That suggests the account merge hasn’t completed properly.
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