If you don’t care about hotel elite status/benefits or want to book a hotel that doesn’t have a rewards program I’ve found that using Hotels.com and stacking discounts is the easiest way to save money and is my personal preference for hotel bookings. Keep in mind when booking:
- You will not earn elite stay/night credits
- You will not earn hotel loyalty points
- You will not have your elite status recognized (e.g free breakfast/late check out)
Now that we have that out of the way let’s look at how we can save money by stacking discounts.
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Rewards Program – Every 10th Night Free
Hotels.com has their own rewards program and most properties let you earn (and redeem) a free night after every ten nights. For example if you stayed 10 nights and all were $100 per night you’d receive a free night for $100. If 9 nights were $100 and the last night was $1,000 you’d get a free night worth $190 etc). I believe you need one night of activity per year to keep your rewards.
Gift Cards
Hotels.com sell gift cards and third parties often have these gift cards at a discount. The best discounts are usually 20% off (plus any other stacking you can do with that site). You can only use one gift card per booking but you can combine multiple gift cards into a single giftcard. Click here to see if there are any current Hotels.com gift cards on sale.
Not all hotels can be booked with gift cards, the hotel must accept a prepaid booking to be made.
Credit Cards
If you don’t have any discounted gift cards then you can use a credit card to make your booking. Some cards offer a category bonus on travel purchases, the other option is to use a card that earns a 4%/4x+ category bonus and purchase a gift card from a retailer in that category (e.g use Chase Ink Cash/Plus to purchase Hotels.com gift card from an office supply store to get 5x/5%). If you don’t have one of those cards available to you then use a card that earns at a high rate on every day purchases.
Shopping Portals
Most shopping portals offer cash back/points/miles for Hotels.com bookings. You can use cashbackmonitor to view the best current rates. Keep in mind the rate you receive is dependent on the type of booking your making. Currently you get the following via Topcashback:
- 12% cash back for a completed stay (excludes any amount that is paid with a gift card) when you don’t use the rewards program
- 8% cash back for a completed stay (excludes any amount that is paid with a gift card) when you use the rewards program
- 2% cash back for gift card purchases
iBotta is currently working for bookings made with a gift card and is offering 4% cash back as well. If you don’t already have an Ibotta account you can use my referral link and you’ll get $10 for joining (I’ll also receive $5).
Miscellaneous Tips
- Always make sure you’re logged in to see the best pricing.
- They sometimes send out discount codes for 8-10% off. Keep in mind these usually exclude earning free nights and often exclude earning portal cash back as well.
Our Verdict
Let’s see how much you can get by stacking:
- One free night every ten nights (worth ~9% back, but only if you can complete the ten nights)
- Discounted gift cards (~20% discount + plus credit card rewards)
- Shopping portal (~4% cash back)
The biggest problem I usually have is running out of discounted Hotels.com gift cards. Things get even better value when Amazon sells these gift cards for 20% off and you can stack discounts over there for even more value. Even when you’re not using gift cards though you can still get:
- One free night every ten nights (worth ~9% back, but only if you can complete the ten nights)
- Credit card rewards (~2% back)
- Shopping portal (~8% back)
For a discount of 19%. You should always make sure you do a price comparison between Hotels.com, other online travel agencies and also booking directly. In my experience Hotels.com is usually priced the same (apart from when booking with some chain hotels directly with member pricing). It also helps to check rates when you’re logged into your Hotels.com account.
Have I missed any other ways to save? What’s your preference when booking hotels?
