Hotels.com Has Become One Key

In the past month, I have been seeing a number of e-mails in my inbox about One Key. Apparently, this is a new rewards program that is lumping the rewards for Hotels.com, Expedia, and VRBO all together.

As a moderately enthusiastic user of Hotels.com for over a decade, I thought it might be a good idea to see what all of these changes mean for an occasional traveler.

Hotels.com Rewards

To recap what I liked about the old program:

  1. Booking hotels through the site (or app) got you credit for nights, or, later, stamps. After 10 nights, you had a credit for 1/10th of the average price of those 10 nights. So, basically, you got 10% back to use for a free (or greatly reduced) hotel night in the future.
  2. You can buy discounted gift certificates to Hotels.com using the rewards with Discover card.

To clarify my plan: I can use $90 of cash back rewards to buy a $100 certificate to Hotels.com. Then, staying at a $100 a night hotel, I can get $10 back towards a future hotel stay (only redeemable once I have 10 nights).

I don’t get to travel that much, but in a busy year, 3 weeks of hotel stays can lead to 2 free nights, plus a head start on the next year’s rewards.

Looking at my redemption history, since 2010, I have redeemed 8 nights, for a total savings of $1387. That’s roughly $100 a year–though I tend to save up the rewards for a particular trip. For example, I redeemed 3 of those nights for our trip to Greece, which made the trip a lot more affordable.

A painting of a Venice canal, with boats and gondolas, bounded by buildings on the right and left. The canal curves, so that only buildings and part of the Rialto bridge are seen in the center of the painting.
Can I find a deal on a lovely hotel here?

One Key

Under the new One Key program, as a casual traveler, I would get 2% back on my hotel stays.

If I really gamed the program to hit the top tier (Platinum), I could get 6% back on my hotel stays. I’d need to book 30 or more ‘travel elements’ to get there, though. These don’t all need to be through Hotels.com; travel through Expedia and VRBO (though, apparently, only for US stays) also count as ‘travel elements’ under that program. I’d get a percentage back on those purchases as well.

I notice that 2% (and 6%) are a lot lower than 10%. If I use this program only for hotels, I’d have to stay somewhere between 17 and 50 nights to earn enough points to pay for one (free-ish) night in the future. Blergh.

I don’t currently use Expedia, preferring to book directly with the airlines; nor VRBO in the States. I suppose I could reconsider, to play along with the new system. If the rewards system were more generous, I might reconsider sooner.

For now, I suspect I will still use the program for trips–at least while I can still get an instant 10% discount using the Discover Card system.

However, I suspect my days of traveling on free hotel days through One Key are over.

Do you use rewards programs for lodging? If so, which are your favorites?