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The Expedia Group has announced more details about their new loyalty program and when it comes to Hotels.com, it’s awful news. The new program is called One Key, but it’ll get two thumbs down from many people.
To give a recap of how the current Hotels.com Rewards program works, you get 10% back in rewards based on the pre-tax room rate of your stays, with the ability to redeem those rewards for every 10 nights you stay. For example, let’s say you stay five nights in a room costing $100 per night and another five nights costing $150 per night. You’d get back $10 in rewards for each of those first five nights and $15 back in rewards for each of the next five nights. That would give you $125 in rewards which could be redeemed towards one night; you couldn’t book two nights costing $62.50 per night.
There were a few other quirks to the program such as some hotels not participating in the program, the fact that rewards would expire if you had no activity for 12 months, etc. Seeing as Hotels.com is an OTA (Online Travel Agency), in most cases you don’t earn elite night credits in hotel chains’ loyalty programs, don’t receive elite benefits, etc. That made it a better option for stays at boutique properties, at hotel chains where you had no status or where status wouldn’t get you much (such as brands where free breakfast is included for all guests). Ultimately though, if you knew you’d book a stay through Hotels.com at least once a year (and therefore wouldn’t have rewards that expire), it was easy to mentally account for whether or not it was worth booking with Hotels.com by taking into account the 10% back you’d get on a future stay.
How The One Key Program Will Work
One thing that can be said for One Key is that it’s simple to understand. When booking eligible hotels, vacation rentals, activities, packages, car rentals, and cruises with Expedia, Hotels.com and VRBO, you’ll earn 2% back in OneKeyCash for every dollar spent. For flights booked with Expedia, you’ll earn 0.2% back in OneKeyCash for every dollar spent.
Considering Hotels.com Rewards effectively gives 10% back, One Key will offer 80% less than that. For people who frequently booked hotel stays on Hotels.com, that’s a ridiculous reduction in rewards that will likely have them looking elsewhere to book stays.
You can find full details about the new One Key program here. A few (one) key things to note:
- Tier Levels – There’ll be several tier levels – Blue, Silver, Gold and Platinum – which have increasing benefits and rewards.
- Launch Date –
This will be launched in mid-2023; there’s no exact date provided yet.Update: One Key will be launched on July 6, 2023. - Existing Hotels.com Rewards Earnings – Any existing stamps in the Hotels.com Rewards program will transfer across to One Key at their existing value. That means there’s no devaluation from your past earnings, just your future earnings.
- Redemptions – Every $1 of OneKeyCash you earn can be redeemed for $1 off eligible bookings. However, to redeem OneKeyCash on flights you need to have earned enough rewards to cover the entire cost of the flight.
Positives Of The One Key Program
The most notable feature of One Key is how awful it is when it comes to earnings versus the Hotels.com Rewards program. Having said that, there are a few positives about this new setup.
- VRBO – Earning 2% back on all VRBO stays will be a nice return for people who use the site for vacation rentals and didn’t previously earn anything. I’m also hoping that it’ll prompt Airbnb to introduce a similar kind of program.
- Flight/Hotel Booker Earns All The Rewards – Here’s something that could be huge for someone who frequently books travel on behalf of family and friends. OneKeyCash will be awarded based on all eligible spend to the person making the booking(s). If you book a flight for five people, you’ll earn 0.2% back based on the total cost of all five tickets. If you book three hotel rooms for the same night because you’re traveling with others, you’ll earn 2% back on all three rooms. That’ll presumably be the case even if you’re not flying/staying yourself. Add in shopping portal rewards and you could be looking at a very nice return when booking for others.
- Redeem As You Go – I noted earlier that you need to have enough OneKeyCash to cover the entire cost of a flight if redeeming it for a plane ticket. However, if you’ve earned $13 of OneKeyCash, you could redeem that for $13 off a hotel stay on Hotels.com without needing to have stayed 10 nights like you need in order to redeem in the current Hotels.com Rewards program.
- Redeem Across Sites – Expedia used to have its own rewards program, Hotels.com had its own rewards program and VRBO had nothing. Now, you’ll earn OneKeyCash on eligible bookings across all three sites and can redeem it on any of those sites. If all your OneKeyCash was earned based on hotel stays booked on Hotels.com, you could still redeem it for a flight booked on Expedia provided you’ve earned enough OneKeyCash.
How bad (or good) this new program is will therefore depend on your booking behavior. If you used Hotels.com a lot, the new One Key program represents a massive devaluation, unlike anything we’ve ever seen from Marriott. For VRBO users, you’re now getting something where you weren’t getting anything before. For people who book travel for others, this could prove to be lucrative. I imagine more people will fall into that first category than the second or third categories, but at least there are some silver linings to this cloud.
If you don’t fall into those final two categories though, the new One Key program gives little incentive to pick Expedia or Hotels.com over similar sites. While 2% or 0.2% back is nice to have if you’re going to book with them anyway, it’s not a large enough percentage to move the needle to pick these two sites over any other for me personally. The one thing that Hotels.com does have going for it is the ability to buy its gift cards at a discount which could make it worth picking over other OTAs when it comes to hotel stays.
Question
Are you a current Hotels.com customer who’ll be boycotting the program going forward, or are you among the people who’ll benefit from One Key? Let us know in the comments below.
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@StephenPepper, apparently Hotels . com is “struggling:” https://skift.com/2024/05/02/expedia-bosses-say-vrbo-will-drag-2024-growth/
😀
Who could’ve predicted that?!
Right! By the way, the same article is available on Yahoo Finance, in case anybody has trouble seeing the above Skift article.
The new One Key sucks. Leaving them now. Ant recommendation to new sites?
I have been using Hotel.com for work travel for many years now, even those the hotels are slightly more expensive than can be found elsewhere the ten night get one free offer made it worthwhile for me. Now that OnekeyCash has been introduced this is no longer a viable option for me, I will be looking elsewhere.
I’m seriously going to look to cancel and switch to using the IHG loyalty scheme
This will be a big blow to independent hotels
I’ve switched to booking.com.
I will book through other sites once the rewards program ends. Not even a doubt about it.
Expedia Group is launching two new credit cards in collaboration with Wells Fargo. Ping me for more info 😉
They are bringing to the uk. I stay in hotels at least 100 nights a year and would always use hotels.com. now they have changed it im not going to bother. I think this will kill off any customers who uses them regularly. My company alone is probably 2000 bookings a year.
hotels.com converted my rewards to OneKey in July 2023, and them expire in November 2023 without a single email. Called customer service to reinstate extend considering OneKey are suppose to expire 18 months from last use, they did not reinstate. Feeling irked, what a scummy way to take away years of rewards I’ve saved.
I am now using the French site for Hotels.com and they haven’t switched yet to the OneKey program. You need to be able to understand French and prices are in euro but this way, I can redeem hotel nights. No doubt they will change it at some point, too. In the past, I always used the regular US site until they change their loyalty program early this year.
Looks like this might work on the Italian site, too. I didn’t log in to verify, though. TIP: Don’t forget to stack with a shopping offer from one of the card issuers. (Might even be able to pay with a different, better card and still get the cash back from the one with the shopping offer, too.)
Seems a poor decision. I currently book 20-50 nights per year and have done for many years. No longer though, just not worth it with the new program. Bye HOTELS.COM
How able to extend expiration date of points without actually flying/staying in hotel?
Book a night in a hotel in your hometown, check in, but don’t actually stay there. Return the next day to check out.
(Or search the internet for a much cheaper trick involving certain hostels in certain Asian countries.)
Had over 50 credits under the old rewards program – booked at least 50 nights per year on hotels.com – switching my bookings to Marriott – new rewards system is laughable
Booked c 40 nights per year with Hotels – In the UK because of VAT the reward night value was on the ex vat – so if you booked 10 nights at £100 each you would actually get £80 off as a ” free night” or £80 credit towards one. Either way, it was 8% and is now 2%. So its not worth being loyal anymore and i will just shop where the best deal is. Of course cashback is still available on Hotels and Expedia etc. via cashback sites. ( thought Booking.com has stopped all cashback in Europe in 2024) The cashback is much greater than the rewards but I used to enjoy stacking the savings.
Horrible loyalty program. No incentive anymore to primarily book with them.
Yes, I was using Hotels.com for about 220-270 nights per year and was super loyal to them. Now it’s dissolved and I’m using multiple apps and programs and only have booked 1 room with them since their poor decision. I wrote to their customer service and I was told that this program was much better than anything before and I broke it down and explain to him how it was not. Then I was told that there was so many people that didn’t stay but one or two nights a year and it was not fair to them for it to take so long for them to be able to get points accumulated so this is going to be better for the person who barely books anything apparently. So they just went ahead and severed the heads off of all the frequent users in the name of being fair to the people who barely use them. This sort of reminds me of a time back years ago when all the vegetarian people who don’t even eat in McDonald’s complained about the French fries being cooked in meat fat oil which is what gave them the traditional flavor that people love. And protested and made enough noise to where they change the actual flavor the French fries for people who don’t even eat McDonald’s.
Sir… This is a Wendy’s.
McDonalds also