Get an extra Hotels.com Rewards free night stamp on your next stay

Hotels.com has been running a special offer this week (it ends on Tuesday) to get an extra free night stamp in Hotels.com Rewards.

The minimum stay required is 2 nights, and your stay can be completed at any point up to 5th July 2021.  This means that the offer isn’t necessarily a write-off if you live in a Tier 4 area …..

If you book a stay of two nights, it will count as three nights towards the ten you need for a free night. A stay of three nights will earn four credits etc.

If you are working your way towards a free night but are a little short, this offer could push you over the line quickly and release the ‘locked in’ value you have built up.

Hotels.com Rewards works well for some people

A lot of people end up, by choice or by default, splitting their stays across a number of different hotel chains and vacation rentals. They do a lot of nights, but never enough to build up status or a decent number of points.

For these people, Hotels.com Rewards is a better way to go.

Hotels.com will be familiar to most readers. It is a huge hotel and vacation rentals booking portal covering pretty much every corner of the planet.

Hotels.com Rewards (their home page is here) is their idiot-proof loyalty scheme:

You earn 1 ‘stamp’ for every night you stay, whatever the chain and even vacation rentals

When you have got 10 stamps, you get a free night

The value of the free night is the average price you paid for those 10 nights

Your stamps don’t expire as long as you collect or redeem at least one night every 12 months

There are no blackout dates and you can pick any property on Hotels.com that takes part in Hotels.com Rewards (ie most of them).  You can pay the difference if you want to book a hotel which is more expensive than the value of your free night voucher.

You do have to pay taxes and fees, and there is an annoying £4 booking fee which is waived if you book via their app.

There is a lot of upside here:

ALL of your stays (assuming the hotels or vacation rentals you book are in Hotels.com Rewards and most are) will count towards free nights. No more ‘wasted’ stays.

Your free night can be used to book any room on Hotels.com. Most reward schemes restrict the ability to book club rooms, suites, family room etc. That is not a problem with Hotels.com Rewards.

When travelling, you are free to stay at the hotel which is most convenient for where you need to be – no need to mess around with badly reviewed properties or out of the way hotels purely to find one in your favourite chain.

If you book multiple rooms, you get credit for all of them. Most hotel loyalty schemes restrict you to earning points on one (IHG), two (Hilton) or at most three (Marriott) rooms per night. 

The only snag is that Hotels.com bookings do not count for points or stay credit in the loyalty scheme of the chain where you are staying.

If you are booking independent hotels, or hotels chains where you do not collect their points, Hotels.com could make sense.

How do you get your extra stamp?

You must log into your Hotels.com Rewards account before booking.

Your room must be:

• a pre-paid one
• for a TWO-NIGHT or longer stay
• completed before 5th July 2021

The last day to book is Tuesday 22nd December.

IMPORTANT:  Promo code needed

When booking, you need to add the code RWD1DEC20.  The box to add the code appears on the screen at the end of the booking process on the page where you need to enter your name and address.

Once you have entered the code, the screen will automatically change to show that you earn the higher number of stamps from the booking.

Do NOT proceed with your booking if the code is not accepted or the screen does not show the higher number of stamps.

What is the value of your bonus ‘stamp’?

The value of the extra night stamp will be average value per night for your stay.  If Night 1 was £90 and Night 2 was £100, excluding taxes, you will receive three stamps in your Hotels.com Rewards account for the value of £90, £100 and (£90+£100/2) £95 for the 3rd bonus stamp.  When you’ve reached 10 stamps, the value of your free night is the average of the 10.

You can find the full T&C’s on this page of the Hotels.com website and you can book here.

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).