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Introduction to Expedia’s rewards program
Like many other travel-booking platforms, Expedia also has its rewards scheme which provides members exclusive discount, perks and point-earning opportunities when you book with them.
[Membership Tiers]
Expedia Rewards has three tiers:
- Blue: entry level; benefits include 10% extra discount on participating hotels
- Silver: 10 trip elements required; benefits include 100% bonus points, VIP Access at select hotels and special customer service line
- Gold: 25 trip elements required; benefits include 200% bonus points, enhanced VIP Access at select hotels and special customer service line
The partnership between a hotel and Expedia is very different to one between them and say, Hilton or Marriott. Expedia doesn’t add any branding value or management assistance to the hotel, therefore you can’t expect them to provide substantial benefits to Expedia customers.
One trip element could be a flight ticket, a hotel room night, a holiday rental night, a car hire or an activity ticket. It’s relatively easier to move up the tier ladder, as bookings made for other people also count.
For a family of three, one flight booking earns three trip elements (note that return flight counts as one trip element only), and same for three attraction tickets. Note that however, trip elements are subject to a minimum spend of £20 per element.
If you are an HSBC Premier customer, you can upgrade to Gold immediately.
[Earn and Spend Points]
Expedia’s earning scheme is quite simple – you earn 1 point per £1 spent on hotel, car-rental, activity and flight & hotel package bookings, and:
- Silver members earn 1 additional point
- Gold members earn 2 additional points
- Bookings made in the app earn 1 addition point
- VIP Access hotel bookings earn 1 addition point
1 point is equal to 1p when redeemed against your future bookings. Note that for flight-only bookings you only earn 1 point / £5, and no bonus is applicable.
The most a Gold member can earn is 5 points / £1, which is equivalent to 5% cashback. It’s not ludicrous, but is the icing on the cake if you have good coupon codes.
[VIP Access]
Expedia has a collection of VIP Access hotels, where Silver and Gold members can enjoy exclusive perks when staying with them. Watch out for the VIP Access logo when you browse the search results:
If you are a user of Hotels.com you are probably already familiar with the concept, as both of them belong to the same company. It’s unclear what each individual property offers, but generally you could expect one or more of the following:
- Free breakfast
- F&B discount
- Room upgrade
- Early check-in
- Late Check-out
Since benefits are not outlined on paper, your experience might vary even for staying at the same hotel.
Extra reward stamp for Hotels.com bookings
If you are contemplating booking a hotel stay, Hotels.com has a decent flash sale which is worth considering.
It is valid for the UK site only, and full terms and conditions are available here.
- Book by September 23
- Stay by April 30, 2022
- Get an extra reward stamp for any hotel booking
- Promo code RWD1921 is needed at check-out
Since you are awarded one extra stamp no matter how long your stay is, the best scenario is for an one-night stay where you earn two rewards stamps in total, equal to a 20% rebate roughly.
Bid for cheap travel deals with Luxury Travel Diary
Luxury Travel Diary is a UK-based company that offers luxury travel reviews and tips, and most importantly charity auctions on travel-related items. Most of them are for hotel stays, completed with travel bags, travel pillows, sunglasses and suitcases etc.
Maybe some of you are already smelling bargains when I mentioned auction. Even better, although the company is UK-based the participating hotels really spread across the world. Asia for example, has been dominating the auctions recently probably as a result of their sooner recovery from the pandemic.
Some of the current auction items, as well as the current highest bids are (view here):
- Park Hyatt Istanbul, 2 nights – £160
- InterContinental Davos, 2 nights – £46
- Sheraton Grand Doha, 3 nights – £44
- InterContinental Marseille, 1 night – £63
- InterContinental Bordeaux, 1 night – £101
- Movenpick Bangkok, 3 nights – £151
Most of such packages are for premium rooms or suites, and inclusive of daily breakfast if not more. If you are the lucky winner, remember that you can only pay via Paypal, not credit card or anything else.
I’ve been a keen bidder in the past and won a few lots, and the experience has been overwhelmingly awesome. I won two nights in a duplex at a luxury Riad in Fez, Morocco and paid only around £100; and for roughly the same price I stayed three nights at the brand new Al Najada hotel in Doha – they even upgraded me to a massive suite courtesy of my GHA Black status.
[Black Friday] Hotels.com 5% off all hotel bookings
Although nothing exceptional, Hotels.com is running a Black Friday deal which could be useful to some.
You’ll see the pop-up when visiting their homepage.
By Monday 30th November, book your stays and enter code BFRWD5 to take 5% off your bookings. 5% off is not great, but the good news is you also earn reward stamps as usual, which is rarely the case with coupons.
Hotels.com app-booking bonus stamp offer
Hotels.com is running a new offer to encourage customers to book through the app. Details of the offer can be found here.
To participate, remember that it works on the app only.
- Book by 22/09
- Stay by 31/03/2021
- Enter code APPRWD1 at checkout and collect one extra stamp per stay
Like all such promotions, you must choose the Pay Now option to be able to apply the code, even if the reservation is refundable. Also note that the bonus is per stay, so it works best on one-night stays; in theory if you have a longer stay you can probably split it into multiple bookings.
I don’t value Hotels.com rewards much, as it usually represents a delayed, under 10% return (or with this promotion, 20%) only, which is nothing exceptional at all. However, I do appreciate their elite benefits, especially the hassle free guarantee which means you could cancel non-refundable bookings for free if plans change. And with this promotion, you can potentially reach Silver with only five nights, which isn’t bad.
Bonus stamp on Hotels.com stays
Hotels.com is running a promotion which awards you bonus stamps, making you earn free nights faster.
Instant Expedia Gold status for HSBC Premier clients
Although less known, Expedia has its own rewards scheme called “Expedia Rewards”. Elite members can earn bonus points, and enjoy some special perks when booking through Expedia.
Buy miles for 1 cent each by staying at hotels!
If you don’t know what Rocketmiles is, they are an online hotel booking platform just like Booking, Agoda and Hotels.com. But they way you are rewarded is different – you get a number of miles or points for each booking.
