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Why hotel loyalty schemes are now the cheapest way to book
If you use the likes of Booking.com and Hotels.com to book accommodation, you’re almost certainly missing out on the best price, Which? Travel has found.
Most chain hotels now have loyalty schemes, which are free to join and promise instant access to discounted room rates.
Our snapshot research found that it was cheaper to book as a member, versus going via Booking.com and Hotels.com, nine out of 10 times.
We saved a whopping £40 a night on a Dubai hotel with the Hilton Honors loyalty scheme compared with the Booking.com price. Stay for a week and you’d save almost £300.
The discounts were equally impressive in the UK – a night’s stay with Novotel London Waterloo, booked via the Accor ALL loyalty scheme, was £41 cheaper than with Hotels.com.
This article first appeared in full in the September edition of Which? Travel magazine
Hotel reward programs compared: IHG, Hilton and Accor
We selected hotels from 10 different chains, which all belong to a master franchise. For example, we looked at Mercure, Novotel and Ibis - three of the 53 sub-brands of Accor. Similarly, IHG has 19 sub-brands, which include Holiday Inn, InterContinental and Hotel Indigo.
Booking sites also offer loyalty schemes. Hotels.com has OneKeyCash, which operates as cashback that can be used against future bookings. This depends on the cost of the hotel, but it typically saved us between £2 and £10 for a one-night stay.
Booking.com’s equivalent is Genius. This instantly unlocks 10% discounts on the standard Booking.com rates at some properties when you sign up. Once you reach Genius Level 2 (five bookings) and Level 3 (15 bookings) you can also earn room upgrades and free breakfasts on selected stays.
But even when we checked prices of our hotels with the booking site loyalty scheme discounts applied, we only found one instance where this was a better deal – and that was with Booking.com Genius Level 3.
The Mercure Manchester Piccadilly was the same price on Booking.com, when booked on a mobile phone, as it was via the Accor loyalty scheme, but the highest tier of membership on Booking.com got a better room upgrade.
We have previously found that you can save money on hotel rooms by booking with a smartphone instead of a laptop or PC.
The price of loyalty
The loyalty schemes may be free, but you’ll still have to hand over your personal details and agree to the T&Cs to register. Log in via a social media account and Accor warns in its small print that this authorises it to ‘access and store the public data’ on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn as well.
Hilton’s privacy statement is a colossal 18,500 words, which is longer than most university dissertations. Here, it says it can share and sell member names, emails, home addresses and phone numbers to third parties (although, Hilton told us that it doesn’t sell customer data).
Hotels are also a prime target for hackers because of the amount of data they hold. In 2023, Hilton Honors’ customer info was put up for sale on the dark web after a huge data breach.
Although, there are risks whichever way you book. We’ve regularly reported on the scam crisis on Booking.com.
How many benefits can I get as a hotel loyalty member?
Hotel loyalty scheme offers also get better the more you book, with tiered membership offering more perks. After 10 nights with Accor you move up to silver status, which includes free late check-out and a welcome drink at some properties.
Members who reach the highest tiers can really cash in, but it’s very expensive. For example, with IHG’s diamond elite status you get early check-in, free breakfast, and complimentary drinks and snacks on arrival. The bad news is that you need to amass 70 nights to qualify.
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Is it cheaper to book directly with the hotel?
Even if you’re booking with an independent or family-run B&B, going direct is still likely to get you the best price.
Some booking sites only list hotels on the condition that they don’t advertise lower rates on their own websites. But they can offer a better rate if you call them.
Even if the hotel can only match rather than beat the price, they may throw in an extra sweetener, such as a bottle of wine or free parking.
We know this because we tried it ourselves. See how many times we got a better deal by contacting the hotel directly.