kwanwui

Thanks for the tips

I travel for leisure and I won't go on business trips. Usually when I book hotels, I will book via hotels.com together with topcashback.com which gave me 7% more cashback, which added up to about 17% off the listed price which works really well.

GarlicFlyer

When I tried it, the topcashback.com never actually pays.

be001

Does anyone know how the hotels.com free nights work when you book multiple rooms for your family. I booked 3 rooms on my account, different guest names in each room. It says "at the completion of your stay you will earn one night"

Will I really get 3 nights ($400/ea) or will I get one night at the rate of all three rooms added up together ($1200)? Or will I really only get credit for one room one night.

rc408

You earn 1 free night after 10 room nights completed. Any room booked in your account, whether in your name or not counts. The amount you are allowed for your free night is the average cost of the 10 nights.

How many nights is each room booked for? A total of 10 nights will get you 1 free night of equal or lesser value.

be001

1 night, 3 rooms. Wondering if Ill get credit for 3 nights or one very expensive night.

lonelycrowd

Can confirm this. 3 rooms booked at the same resort for family members for a five night trip yielded credit for 15 nights in my account. Every 10 paid nights without a promo code (except the annual rebate promos) equals one free night, and you can bank multiple reward nights to save up for a longer stay or multiple future stays. So, be001 will definitely get credit for 3 nights.

It's a great program if your travel habits don't align well with the major chains. The fact that they are able to offer this rewards program plus cashback portals, rebates, and gift card discounts gives one some idea of Expedia Group's power to negotiate with the properties that appear on the site...

be001

Thanks for this. I agree I find lots of value in this program as so many hotels just aren't part of any chain, or I wouldnt stay enough/have a credit card to make the chain's program worthwhile to credit.

Wow I forgot about gift cards. Do you get free night credit when you use gift cards as well?

The BNA Gentleman

I hate that it can't bank separate of the reward nights. I'd rather blow the 1k I have in it on 2 nights at a really nice place and not so spread out over the 9 night I have.

Stimplus

I am new in this.

GUWonder

Haven't they been reducing the cashback portal rebates when also collecting Hotels.com reward credit for paid nights?

HouseBrand

I don't know if mentioned yet, but the cash back provider shoop.de (formerly qipu.de) offers 6% STILL WHEN USING the hotels.com program (8% w/o).

So it is basically 10% + 6% cashback. Did it now 3-4 times, every time they paid!

But I recommend to do still a price comparison search as hotels.com is not always the cheapest, but sometimes they are.

chunky649

As other have explained, you are basically getting 10% back from your ELIGIBLE stays (i.e. not using any coupons). Cash back is hit and miss for me. I used to get Fatcash, but most of the time, I have to complain to get it. I am getting similar issues with ebates (which took over FATWALLET). Anyway, the amount is small ("up to 4%").

I am also seeing more and more cases where I cannot redeem my 'free hotel night' on many many hotels that are discounted...

rhivolution

I use Quidco (UK based) for cashback and have only had it fail once. I do a lot of hotel booking / canceling, both for myself and others, and often using my company card. I think Hotels.com is excellent for that (obviously ). Like someone mentioned above, when I travel, I choose my hotels according to location and that's made difficult by sticking to one loyalty scheme. Hotels.com allows me to be flexible and accumulate points for other people's stays. I have 6 free nights built up at the moment which will give me and my partner a cheap week away somewhere nice next year. I used two reward nights over the summer when I couldn't justify the cost to stay on in Lyon during Euro2016 without them. Lifesaver given how much I'd shelled out on a semi final ticket already!

So, hotels.com is my main loyalty scheme. However, I also do take part in the IHG accelerator promos etc, because it's usually really good value. It wouldn't make sense to split my stays up between another scheme as well, but I think the balance is pretty good between hotels.com and IHG.

dinanm3atl

As mentioned if you are just using any card and never going after any promo I guess hotels.com is worthwhile. Their 'loyalty' program is a joke as you 'may' get better deals and and a dedicated phone line. If 10% cashback is worthwhile then I guess it works.

However every chain seems to always have a 'pay same rate and get 1000, 2000 or varying bonus points'. At that point it doesn't make sense.

Also I've noticed that hotels.com doesn't show every hotel all the time. Properties that I booked direct with no current problem taking reservations just simply doesn't show up.

Never could get behind the hotels.com system personally. Seems a more casual system.

GUWonder

I get a c. 17-19% return back on hotels.com bookings in the way I do it. Even as I have top-tier elite status in a few hotel point programs and play the promo game well, I find hotels.com has an important role to play in my travels.