Hotels.com is an Online Travel Agency (OTA), which – in monthly internet traffic – generates roughly 46M visits (source semrush.com – March 2024). That’s less than 10% of OTA’s big daddy, Booking.com which generates more than 567M visits a month. Despite not being the biggest Online Travel Agency, Hotels.com did have one very unique benefit though, their rewards program. Unfortunately, Hotels.com is going to change their rewards program. Please read below what these changes mean and whether it’s still worth it booking with Hotels.com
Hotels.com rewards changes
Hotels.com rewards program was very attractive if you regularly booked with them. For every one night booked, you would get 1 stamp. After you collected 10 stamps, you would receive one night for free (excluding taxes). This one night could be exchanged at any participating hotel, for the average value of the 10 nights already spend. This would basically mean you would get an extra 10% discount after you have booked 10 nights. Hotels.com was unique with this set-up and it was a very attractive rewards program – especially if you weren’t already an active loyalty member of one of the big chain hotels.
However, hotels.com decided to change their rewards program in July 2023 in the US, into ‘One Key’ which got rid of the stamps. This is also going to happen in the UK and other regions, sometime in 2024. I couldn’t find an exact date except that it will happen sometime between July and October…
With One Key, you will get 2% of your booked amount (excluding tax) as OneKeyCash. The only advantage to this program is that you now don’t need to wait 10 nights to redeem any value. Nor do you need to book an extra hotel night to get that value back. But obviously, 2% versus 10% is quite a big difference.
What happens with existing Hotels.com rewards
Existing Hotels.com rewards will be converted into OneKeyCash. Here’s an example:
Assume you have 4 stamps, and your average booked value was $200. This will then we converted to 200*4/10= $80
So, in this specific example, $80 will be booked into your new OneKeyCash account and that will be the best return on your bookings you will ever see with One Key! Since Hotels.com is owned by Expedia.com, both Expedia.com and Hotels.com will now use the same rewards program going forward. This means that if I you already had any Expedia.com credits, these will then also be merged into the same One Key account.
Is it still worth it booking with Hotels.com
The 5 biggest Hotel Booking sites are (based on monthly traffic March 2024 – source Semrush.com);
1. Booking.com 567M
2. Agoda.com 97M
3. Expedia.com 80M
4. Hotels.com 46M
5. Kayak.com 42M
4 Hotel Booking websites are Online Travel Agencies, which means they handle the reservations themselves. Kayak.com (like Trivago.com) is an aggregator. This means Kayak.com is more a search engine; it searches the internet (OTA websites as well as hotel chain websites) and simply provides you with an overview of available hotels. But when you want to make the actual booking, you are referred to the OTA or Hotel (chain) website.
One thing to watch out with these websites is how the taxes and fees are displayed. Agoda.com only shows the taxes and fees at the final booking page which is very annoying and makes it difficult to compare.
Agoda.com originally focused on the Asia region. Even now, you’ll still get the best selection of hotels with Agoda.com when specifically looking in Asia.
With the rewards program from Hotels.com going away, I don’t think there is a big difference anymore between Booking.com, Expedia.com, or Hotels.com. Personally, I would just compare the selection and the prices of all these 3 websites since selection and prices could differ. Hotels.com could still have the best selection and price in a certain market, during a certain period, so they are definitely still worth checking out.
When searching on these websites, make sure to be a member to get the best rates.
Hotel Websites
I didn’t mention the big hotel chain websites yet, such as Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton.
With 68M monthly visitors, the Marriott website attracts a lot of traffic. To compare, Hiton.com attracts 42M monthly visitors and Hyatt.com 20M visitors (data March 2024).
It’s important to note that when booking a Marriott hotel through OTA’s, you won’t get the Marriott hotel points, nor the hotel nights which count towards Marriott Elite status. This applies to all the big Hotel Chains. So, when you’re looking to have your hotel stays add to your Hotel Elite status, it probably doesn’t make sense to book via an OTA. But the OTA’s do have a more extensive range of hotels, including exclusive Boutique hotels, so it’s always good to compare and assess the options.
Please check out Hotels.com yourself to check out the Hotels.com competitive selection and prices! They currently run an Early Summer Sale where you can save 25% or more!
If you want to learn more about Hyatt rewards program and buying Hyatt points, please check out my blog ‘Hyatt Points Calculation Tool – when to buy points‘.
“Hotel.com compensates authors for their writings appearing on this site; such compensation may include travel and other costs. Note: All travel is subject to frequently changing governmental restrictions—please check government advisories before scheduling trips.”
HOTELS.COM is a trademark or registered trademark of Expedia, Inc.
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