UPDATE 8/29: Greg recently made a $2K+ prepaid but cancelable reservation on Hotels.com, expecting to earn the limit of 6975 miles for the SimplyMiles offer. Instead, SimplyMiles tracked at just 2,325 miles. It looks like there is a 2,325 mile limit per booking, but you can do this 3 times for a total limit of 6,975. This may be true for Citi as well: a limit of $50 per booking and up to $150 total with 3 bookings. If that’s the case, then this deal is much less appealing than it originally appeared. This would also be extremely frustrating for those who took advantage of the offer, given that it appears to directly violate the 4x earnings that SimplyMiles advertises (and isn’t indicated in the terms anywhere).
There’s a new Citi Merchant Offer that gives 10% back as a statement credit on prepaid Hotels.com purchases, up to a total of $150 cash back. This can be stacked with a SimplyMiles offer that gives 4x AAdvantage Miles on the same prepaid Hotels.com purchases.
Each offer can be used up to three times, making them much more useful than the normal one and done offers.
The Deal
- Earn 10% back as a statement credit on prepaid Hotels.com purchases using a Citi Merchant Offer. Offer valid for up to 3 uses for a total of $150 back
- Stack with SimplyMiles offer of 4x AAdvantage Miles on a Hotels.com purchase of $100 or more. This offer is valid for up to three uses as well.
Term and Conditions (terms are the same for each offer)
- Enrollment limited and can only be redeemed a maximum of 3 times.
- Must first add offer to Card and then use same Card to redeem.
- Your enrollment of an eligible Mastercard for this offer extends only to that Card.
- Offer valid for pre-paid purchases made online on www.hotels.com using the pre-paid option at checkout (“pay online now”) only. Excludes “pay at property” purchases and purchases made over the phone.
- Excludes properties offered by Vrbo and/or HomeAway entities.
- Offer only valid on room rate and room charges. Offer not valid for bookings that are paid for before the promotion start date or after the promotion end date.
- Limit of $150 in total statement credits per Card for Citi Offer
- Limit of 6975 miles in total reward for SimplyMiles
- The enrolled Card account must not be cancelled or past due to receive statement credits.
- Statement credit will appear on your billing statement within 5 days.
- In most cases, you may not receive the statement credit if your transaction is made with an electronic wallet or through a third party or if the merchant uses a mobile or wireless card reader to process it.
Quick Thoughts
We see a lot of 10-15% offers for Hotels.com, but normally it involves purchasing fixed-value gift cards. This Citi Offer gives a straight 10% off for up to three stays, so long as the total for each stay is $100+. The SimplyMiles offer provides another 4x kicker of AAdvantage Miles and, using our reasonable redemption value (RRV) for AAdvantage Miles of 1.3 cents per point, that adds another ~5% in value, for a total of 15% back on $100+ Hotels.com stays.
Both these offers can be used up to three times, which makes them much more valuable than the normal single-use offers. They are only valid towards stays that are prepaid through Hotels.com, not stays that are booked via “pay at hotel.” It’s also worth noting that the stay must be paid for by October 31st, meaning that you should be able to use these for stays after that date provided that the payment is made beforehand.
Miles earned through the SimplyMiles offer will also count as Loyalty Points, for those playing the AA Loyalty Games.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
What has been your experience with foreign transaction fees when booking on hotels.com for international hotels? If you do a prepaid booking, could it ever trigger the fee if the price is in USD?
If you pay through hotels.com in USD, there won’t be any foreign transaction fee. Those only apply to transactions in foreign currency.
If you cancel the reservation will you lose the miles you earned?
I can let you know in 10 months. I made 3 bookings in Sep 2023 at ~$585 each to max out the 4x and the 10%. I figure at worst, the 6975 LPs from SimplyMiles will boost me toward status in this earning year, and then even if they claw back when I cancel I will have been “renting” those for 10 months to give me progress toward higher status. Given I get the 10% bonus from Citi Merchant Offers, I do not feel too bad letting my money sit in hotels.com’s coffers for several months before I get it back as a cancellation.
Yeah got $50 on a $1500+ Hotels.com transaction from Citi. This is so misleading.
Just canceled one But this offer would be pure gold for me.I love both honest places.
UPDATE: The way the limits are imposed on this deal are very weird. I made a $2K+ prepaid but cancelable reservation on Hotels.com to see what would happen. I expected to earn the limit of 6975 miles for the SimplyMiles offer. Instead, SimplyMiles tracked at 2,325 miles. I believe now that there is really a 2,325 mile limit per booking, but you can do this 3 times for a total limit of 6,975. I suspect that the same is true for Citi: Limit of $50 per booking and up to $150 total with 3 bookings.
Wasn’t planning on doing this deal anyway, but for the sake of the discussion, I guess what you’re saying is that the booking has to be $500 or less to maximize the effective % cash/points back.
Yes that’s right
So for a two night stay could you just break it up into 2×1 night bookings to max out the promo for that stay?
I just fell victim to this too. It was supposed to get me to AA Gold in time for an upcoming flight. Has anyone contacted Simplymiles about this?
I am so sick of Simplymiles. They fail to honor half of offers and customer service is non-existent. I’m still chasing miles from last year that they’re “working on.”
I do not see this offer on my account, so I guess it is targeted,
and rakuten 1%, topcashback 2%, United 1%, no?
Anyone up for an uncapped 16X to 20X stack on hotel bookings?