Hotels.com makes discount scheme more flexible

Members can bank savings to use towards future trips

Hotels.com has launched a new feature offering travellers more ways to use their member discounts.

Business or leisure travellers can choose to apply their discounts at booking or bank the discount for a later reward through the Save Your Way initiative.

Expedia Group’s Hotels.com offers automatic discounts of up to 20% to members who sign up to an account. These discounts can now be ‘banked’ and used against future ‘pay now’ trips, with no restrictions or blackout dates.

The scheme is aimed at business travellers who may not need to save on every trip but want to build up rewards, leisure travellers who want to bank rewards to use on a future tri and ‘loyalty-savvy travellers’ who want flexibility in how they use their loyalty benefits.

Hari Nair, general manager of Hotels.com, said: “Travelers want flexibility and to maximize the value they get out of every trip, whether they’re booking for business or a vacation.

“Until now, loyalty programs have forced a one-size-fits-all approach — dictating where and how you use your member discounts.

“With Save Your Way, our members have choices: save up front with member discounts or bank those savings to use for a future trip.” 

For example, if a room is $200 with a 20% discount, travellers can choose to save $40 now and pay $160 at booking. Or they can pay the full $200 and bank the $40 savings as rewards, which would be deposited into their Hotels.com account upon the trip’s completion. They can then use their rewards on any future ‘pay now’ booking, no restrictions, no blackout dates.