jumbooze

Does anyone know how no show bookings are handled? Do I get reward nights counted?
i have a booking that will be paid but unused.
I’ve tried to search for no shows and credits for rewards but I didnt fin any info.

thedude99

Does the cheap hotel trick still work to extend expiry by a year? If yes, on to search for the cheapest hotel in the world

veeRob

Yes, just did it twice in the last couple months. Unfortunately the properties I used are no longer $2/night, so I can't share.

Concerto

I read in the comments section of a blog that hotels.com will introduce a fee of €4 (or 4 of whatever currency) for booking an award night. I believe reward nights booked via the app are exempt. IMO this is the beginning of a long thin end of the wedge.

Brendan

€4 or US$5 or CAD$6 or .. . .

Concerto

It seems that hotels.com has just become the dross that everything else is. Much of the time I go to their site, it is completely down. I mean, how much maintenance do you need to do? Right now, I am probably going to miss a good deal on a booking simply because I can't get online to complete it. It's simply a spinning beach ball, or an eternal loading sequence, or a plain error page.

Another thing, when I pay extra for a flexible booking, I need just that. Something that can be cancelled right there, or at worst, 24 hours before, not 7 whole days or even 2 weeks. What the heck is going on with that? In fact, there is absolutely no point whatsoever in booking a "flexible" room, because it is simply not. I sometimes don't know my movements until 3 or 2 nights before the stay, not 7 bleeding days. All the more reason to book directly with the hotels these days.

mollerwilliam

I still have not heard back from Hotels.com people on weather accumulated nights prior to the March 9th deadline will be honored at $400 rates. I'm really sad that this program is no longer.

Anyone have advise on what hotels program to try next? I WISH Priceline would give some sort of rewards. The new changes to Hotels.com now make this average at best.

Concerto

It seems that hotels.com Rewards is going to be scrapped as Expedia group all their companies together (ebookers, Orbitz etc) and create a new loyalty program for all of them. Really not good news if the hotels.com program disappears.

https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/0...yalty-schemes/

eponymous_coward

Hotels.com has a cobrand card with Wells Fargo (fairly new as well, from 2020); I would imagine that trashing it would be problematic for that relationship.

PhillyPhlyer40

Oh man! I have like 44 free nights now, i guess i better use them up.

Concerto

Well you know how it goes in this game, Philly, if we're truly smart we're not supposed to stash points and store up rewards. But I have certainly stashed a few too many points and reward nights as well (but not as many as you). Just spent one free night on an amazing, but simple, hotel in northern Greece.

Concerto

Hotels.com is no better. I was on the road in Italy recently and there was no way I could sign into the app. I needed to cancel a hotel and in the end calling the hotel and depending on their goodwill got me sorted out. Ended up doing probably too many password resets, so no matter what I do I am locked out. Of course, the app is the only way to avoid the €6 (or whatever it is now) extra surcharge for booking on the website. Also, there are often codes for collecting double stamps and there was one which was valid until midnight tonight (20 November). There was no way I could use it because I could not get into the app. Went onto chat and there was nothing they could do, but the raised the issue with their technical team and I will have to wait 4-5 days for a response.

Looking at Flyertalk and other respectable blogs like Head for Points, it seems to me that many many people have abandoned hotels.com, some saying that their prices are far too high compared to other channels. Personally, I quite like the rewards programme because of its simplicity. So what else is out there? I really don't like booking.com because they behaved so abysmally during the Covid crisis. I don't want to give them any money whatsoever, although they are hard to avoid globally. HRS is just a sliyjghe2sjyg here in Europe, customer service is ZERO, so that's out. I am thinking about just booking directly with the hotels going forward. With the little independent places I can often wrangle a better price on the phone (can you imagine hotels.com letting us use a phone? They would probably charge 60 Euros extra for it).

tr3k

And now it's been confirmed - hotels.com rewards are being scrapped. No more 10% discount, it's 2% now for everyone (and up to 6% for the "highest elites"). Well, there goes that one (and the only reason I was bothering with hotels.com and their godawful interface).

Hope this reduction does not affect competing booking services though. Like credit cards that give 10 points per $.

FlyinHawaiian

Thanks for the update; please follow the discussion of the new program in the following thread: Hotel.com rewards becoming OneKey

FlyinHawaiian, Acting Moderator
Other Hotels Forum