Everything you need to know
If you are a Hotels. com fan then no doubt you’ll have heard that its rewards programme is changing. So what does it mean for you and will your current rewards be affected?
We’ll tell you all you need to know about your existing rewards and what will be happening to them.
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What is happening to Hotels.com rewards?
Some time between July and October this year, Hotels.com rewards will be changing to a scheme called One Key, which is a loyalty programme for Hotels. com, Expedia and Vrbo all rolled into one.
With the current rewards, when you complete 10 nights, you get a credit towards a future booking for the average cost of those 10 nights (excluding VAT and fees).
This means that you are receiving 10% back on your spend (excluding VAT and fees). Unfortunately, under the new One Key scheme, you’ll only get the equivalent of 2% back.
With the new scheme, however, you won’t have to wait for 10 nights to redeem your rewards, as you’ll be able to use your rewards as you receive them and for more than just hotel stays, including options such as flights and car hire.
How it’s changing
| Reward scheme | Earning rewards | Spending rewards |
| Hotels.com | 1 night free for every 10 booked (worth 10% of spending before taxes and fees) | Have to stay 10 nights before you can exchange for a free night stay |
| One Key | Earn 2% back on bookings at Hotels. com, Expedia & Vrbo (0.2% on flights) | Spend rewards as you earn them on all aspects of travel at Hotels. com, Expedia & Vrbo |
How will this affect my existing rewards?
The good news is that your existing free night rewards won’t expire. They will be converted into One Key’s rewards, OneKeyCash, at their existing value and the expiry date will remain the same.
So if you have a reward night worth £100 this will be converted to £100 in OneKeyCash under the new scheme.
If you haven’t earned a reward night, the stamps you have collected towards a reward night will be turned into OneKeyCash based on their existing value, i.e. each stamp will be worth 10% of the cost of that particular night excluding VAT and fees. So a £200 stay will turn into £20 credit on One Key.
What will happen to my Hotels.com tier status?
Existing Hotels. com members will have their eligible activity counted towards their One Key tier status. To calculate this they will either take your calendar year 2023 activity or your activity from January 1, 2024 to the date you join One Key, whichever is higher.
It’s worth noting, that rising through the One Key tiers will be much easier and require less trips than with the Hotels. com tier system. You can read more about the tiers in our One Key review.
Can I still earn Hotels.com rewards before the change?
Importantly, the reward is earned when you stay, not when you book. So you can make Hotels. com bookings for stays up to the end of June (or until you become a One Key member) that will still reward you a 10% return.
But since we don’t know exactly when the change to One Key will happen, it’s impossible to say whether your future bookings will earn the current 10% or the new 2%.
Once the changeover happens, you will earn OneKeyCash for all eligible nights in a booking, where the stay is completed on or after the date you become a One Key member, including any nights booked beforehand.
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Will I be better off spending my Hotels.com rewards now or transferring them to One Key?
The value of any existing rewards in your Hotels. com account will be worth the same in One Key, although you’ll be able to spend your One Key rewards (OneKeyCash) on other travel options, not just hotel stays.
Earning rewards is obviously worth more in Hotels. com (an average 10%) than One Key (2%) so you are better off building up your rewards before the transfer to One Key comes into effect. So if you are planning on taking a trip in the coming months, you’ll earn more in Hotels. com rewards if you take the trip before the changeover occurs. Any excuse to book a getaway!
Expedia Rewards are changing too
When it comes to Expedia Rewards, these are also moving over to One Key. There’s little change, although you may be better off with the move.
Where you earned 1 point for every £1 spent on eligible stays, car hires, activities and packages (which worked out as 1%), with One Key, you’ll be earning 2% in OneKeyCash for every £1 you spend.
And where Expedia Rewards members earned one point for every £5 spent on eligible flight bookings, with One Key, members will earn the same 0.2% in OneKeyCash per £1 spent on eligible flights – but thanks to the lower spend threshold to trigger the cashback, you’ll likely earn a little more.
Your Expedia Rewards points will be converted to OneKeyCash when you become a One Key member. Until then, you will continue to earn Expedia Rewards points on eligible travel completed before the date you become a One Key member.
Do I need to do anything to my Hotels.com, Expedia or Vrbo accounts?
When One Key launches, existing Expedia and Hotels. com Rewards members will be automatically moved to the new programme. New members will be asked to set up an account or log in to your existing account and to accept terms and conditions.
I now no longer use hotels.com since the new reward scheme was introduced, cancelled an expensive hotel booking and rebooked elsewhere, also to note their support system has gone completely, as a platinum member I used to get a phone number to call someone if I had a problem and the problem was often resolved.
Now their chat with an agent is automated and very frustrating, I had an expensive £350 hotel booked last week in Valencia and needed to cancel it after the devastating floods in Valencia, it was refused even though I cannot physically get to the hotel due to road closures and a national emergency, shame on you hotels.con
I have been using this for years and years. I’m a shop fitter so practically live in hotels. I’ve lost hundreds with this new scheme. Goodbye hotels.com . Better booking direct with the places and not pay your £20 a day fee you add on. . I used to collect the nights for a free accommodation whilst on holiday but now it’s useless. Adios
Well I’ve been in this since day one. Was great, I booked enough to get my holiday paid for each year. So for me it’s bye bye hotels.com as soon as I use the money all up.
👎👋
Hotels.Gone – was a fairly regular booker through hotels.com due almost entirely to their rewards offer which was their USP. Now I am getting significantly less reward – and because the ill-feeling caused by their cost-cutting conversion of outstanding bookings (migrating me the day before I would have earned another reward night) I will actively choose to look elsewhere. Given I am now aware they are part of the wider expedia group I will also actively avoid the whole group as well. I’m sure they will not notice my modest investment, but I doubt I am the only one.
Rubbish, I have been using this scheme for over 10 years and have stuck with Hotels.com for all my business and personal hotel bookings. I am now looking elsewhere…. and will likely now book direct with the Marriot group. This stinks.
I won’t be using hotels any more I just paid and started my stay in expensive hotel in Doha for 11 nights they will see huge drop in loyal customers
Goodbye hotels.com. I have been a loyal customer for over 10 years with over 20 redeemed nights. Let’s see how this new scheme pans out but very likely they will lose my patronage as I will head over to competitors. Hotels has always been a little pricier (but I didn’t mind given the reward) so if they keep that up but slash the rewards I’ll definitely be gone.
exactly right Chris. I always go with hotels.com for the old reward system but now it’s been changed for a lot less rewards so I too will not use them as much now. its going to lose them a lot of loyal customers. I didn’t mind waiting for the 10 nights to accrue a free or nearly free night.
Goodbye Hotels.com.
Was nice whilst it lasted.unfortunately the perk isn’t worth it anymore.
Better rewards direct with the hotel and usually a better price too.
I booked 28 nights for work in the last 12 months with Hotels.com. But now it’s goodbye Hotels.com. It was nice staying with you, but the OneKeyCash rewards programme needs to be more rewarding. I was getting a double bubble with Topcashback and the one free night stamp from Hotels.com
I had the feeling that based on a couple of occasions where we compared the same hotel on hotels.com to other similar sites that hotels.com was significantly more, so it might be the 10% was a reflection of this I.e, you were in part just getting your own overspent money back rather than a true discount. I booked most nights with work but had the free nights for my personal use so wasn’t too bothered about the apparent overspend.
If the prices are now going to be more competitive then what feels lost on the perk will be saved on the booking.. if they are not more competitive then this deal stinks 🙂
Previous reward scheme was excellent. This new one just isn’t worth it. Hotels.com were always more expensive than going direct to the hotel but that didn’t overly bother me as my company paid. Really cannot justify paying 20% over the odds just to recoup 2% back. They’ll lose an awful lot of customers.
They have lost my guaranteed custom. I travel on business 40 days a year. I will contract the bookings out to an agency now.
I had my hotels.com rewards convereted July 2023 to OneKey, and they expired all my OneKey credit in November 2023 without a single notification or email. Called them to at least extend a few months and nogo. Feeling irked, pretty scummy of them to not even notify or extend..
Hotel.com seems to have stopped redeeming rewards nights now prior to the change to the new scheme. Very bad behaviour on their part. Once I have redeemed my points I will delete their app.
I will be cautious in taking that view as currently we do not earn anything until a booking is made but I see your point though! Have you joined the facebook group – this is worth a discussion there!
Hi! Great succinct review. I hadn’t laid attention to the emails from hotels.com and your clear abridged review helped me get a good overview of all important changes. Thank you!
Before we all rush to cancel everything, I wrote to Hotels.com saying:
At present, I have a number of bookings through you before the end of October, the latest date you say will be safe on the current scheme.
However, all of them were made with the booking screen saying that the booking would earn the 1 night value in the current scheme. I assume that my contract with you for those bookings means that you will honour that and not renege on it when your new laughable scheme comes in.
Please confirm that this is the case so that I do not need to cancel and rebook elsewhere those outstanding stays.
Thanking you in anticipation.
They replied:
Secondly, till the launch of OneKeyCash, you will earn stamps for each reservation. After OneKeyCash is launched, all the bookings that were already booked will start to earn OneKeyCash with the value of stamps. Bookings made after the launch of OneKeyCash will earn Onekey with a value of 2% for each eligible booking.
My reading of this is all bookings made prior to the actual changeover day will be honoured at the notional 105 cash value of each of them. So it looks like we should hang on for now. Perhaps this is a cunning marketing ploy to encourage bookings like a closing down sale!
Do you agree with that interpretation.
Looks like this wasn’t true. Booked a stay before the OneKey migration but conveniently migrated before my stay. They are only paying me 2% in OneKey cash instead of the equivalence in value to the reward stamps. I am fighting it though because I received the following email when I challenged them before my stay about the reward stamps, they tried to say I would only receive 2% OneKey cash and I kicked off:
“Thank you for contacting Hotels.com UK.
I apologize for the miscommunication.
I have reviewed your booking with xxxx Hotel and confirmed that you booked this reservation before the migration date. Therefore, you will earn the One Key Cash equivalent to 12 Reward Stamps.
However, your booking with xxxx Hotel is still upcoming. Please reach out to us after your booking is complete so we can manually add the One Key Cash to your account.
Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
Thank you for choosing Hotels.com UK.
Regards,
Vinod K
Delvkumar39
Hotels.com UK Customer Support Team”
I booked for a 9 night stay many months ago, with a total cost of over £2k with hotels.com. I did so on the basis of obtaining the free reward night.
After booking they hve changed this to the cash value of £36… if they were going to honour the 10% it should have been over £200. Disgraceful really.