Nectar launches a hotel booking site – is it any good?

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Nectar has launched its own hotel booking site, which you can find at hotels.nectar.com.

As you will see, it is a white lable version of Rocketmiles, which is itself part of Agoda. Annoyingly it is not part of the main Rocketmiles website, which means you can’t use any of the generous Rocketmiles ‘first stay’ bonuses such as this one which is worth 5,000 Avios.

With no ‘first booking bonus’, you are reliant on the base points for your return. You will earn 1,000 to 2,000 Nectar points PER NIGHT. This means £5 to £10-worth of Nectar points.

Nectar launches a hotel booking site

All hotels cheaper than around £25 seem to have been removed from the site, so you can’t book a £3 hostel in Bangkok and come out on top!

There is no direct correlation between price and points. In general, you should expect 2,000 points per night when spending £200+ per night but this is not a strict rule.

Is Nectar Hotels a good deal?

It’s OK, but you can do better. For a start, remember that you won’t earn hotel points or receive status benefits on hotels booked via Nectar Hotels.

Secondly, your return is unlikely to exceed 5% assuming 0.5p per Nectar point. Hotels.com Rewards will give you 10% of the ex-VAT price back, although you need to do 10 nights before it pays out. Even the main Rocketmiles site would probably give you more than 5% back if you took Avios, Virgin Flying Club miles or Heathrow Rewards points.

There are also some very aggressive direct booking offers at the moment. Radisson is offering £17-worth of bonus points, on top of base points, per stay. Hyatt is offering triple points, equivalent to a 23% return on your spending.

The one upside is that it is simple. You aren’t messing about with joining a new loyalty scheme and you don’t need to do any further nights before you can redeem. You can cash out your reward on your next visit to Sainsbury’s.

The Nectar Hotels site is here. If they do run a generous ‘first booking’ bonus at any time we’ll let you know.

Hotel offers update – December 2021:

Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Want to buy hotel points? There is currently a special offer running with IHG Rewards (80% bonus to 4th January 2022) and World of Hyatt (30% discount, equivalent to a 43% bonus, to 30th December 2021).