Update 6/30/22: They’ve added a bonus 3rd night after spending $4,000 within the first 6 months. See this comment for more analysis.
The Offer
- Wells Fargo is offering two free nights up to $125 per night when you spend $1,000 within the first three months
Card Details
- No annual fee
- Collect 1 stamp for every night you stay at any eligible property booked on Hotels.com and collect 1 stamp each time you spend $500 on purchases with your card. (10 stamps = 1 reward night). Stamps earned are valued $110 per night
Our Verdict
This card launched in September 2020, originally this was only one free night. The extra one night makes this a bit more interesting, but still probably a pass for now. Wells Fargo is launching an Active Cash card soon with a $200 bonus soon and two other new cards are coming as well.
It looks like Hotels.com may be done auto-extending rewards/stamps expiration, which they had been doing due to the pandemic. I received notice by email that my rewards would expire on January 1, 2023, if I don’t redeem or stay by then.
So, getting this card just to accumulate at least one stamp through spending by that date is looking attractive now. Then again, Expedia’s One Key consolidated rewards program is set to launch in 2023, so who knows what will happen with the Hotels.com rewards program and this card?
Unfortunately, I don’t really care to travel between now and the end of the year, but we’ll see.
FYI, I applied for this card, it went pending, I was asked to call in, agent could not verify my identity because my phone number is now different from the old one on my Transunion report. :- (As if nobody ever changes their phone number!)
They were totally inflexible regarding other ways to verify me over the phone, and said I would have to send in copies of an identity document and two bills showing my home address. I declined to agree to that, as I’m obviously not going to give a copy of my driver license or passport to some random business waiting for its next data breach to happen.
I even escalated to an agent at the next level, but no help at all.
How stupid…
It’s either you’re a third-party shopper or you’re not. I like the status and customer service of booking directly, so to me putting spend & stays via hotels.com wouldn’t work for me.
Even if you value the 3 nights as $375 cash (you shouldn’t) and the 8 stamps as $110 x 0.8 = $88 (you shouldn’t do this either), the return on spend is 11.575% when you complete the signup bonus.
11% is fairly standard nowadays (10% for signup bonus + ~1% for everyday rewards on spend) for a new credit card.
I don’t think being locked into Hotels.com, etc. is worth the extra 0.575%. Not a bad offer, but still a pass for me.
Oh! Late for the party.ijust got card in the mail.2 nights.i have to call and see if they will match that.anyonr know how long after requirement free nights shows up in hotel.com account?????
If you spend $4k that is 3 nights, but the $4K spend also earns 8 stamps. So you’re 80% towards a 4th free night.
3 free nights less than $125/night is useless.
Maybe not in US, but since I spend good amount of time in SE Asia, this actually is pretty decent for a no annual fee card.
You can still apply the reward against more expensive nights, just have to pay anything over $125.
This is a huge pass. Even hilton cards better than this
Your link is absent. I’d say probably not worth a 5/24 spot but certainly not a bad value proposition if you’re way beyond.
New offer:
In addition to the 2 free nights after $1000 spend, get a 3rd free night after hitting $4000 spend in the first 6 months:
https[:]//creditcards.wellsfargo.com/hotels-com-card/
So, the $4000 spend earns you the 3 bonus nights, in addition to the 8 stamps you get from the spend. (4000 / 500 = 8)
Max 2.2% rate, but this card appears to severely round down your spend and it locks you into Hotels.com currency (stamps) which is subject to depreciation and limitations.
The potential is there, but there are a lot of avenues for f*ckery.
Do you have it? I’ve been thinking about getting it just to keep my rewards nights and stamps from expiring.
How does it round down your spend, specifically? One thing I realized about it is that you have to spend in nearly exact multiples of $500 to achieve the 2.2% return (as I commented about previously).