Best hotel rewards scheme now Hotels.com has closed free nights

JSTR5

I’ve been using the Hotels.com reward scheme for years and found it great. The new scheme is nowhere near as good in my opinion. My nights have been converted for less value and the new reward values for hotel bookings are very low.
Anyone found any good alternatives? Not a fan of Hilton or Marriott. Really liked the flexibility with Hotels and the choice to book with the reward nights. 

Doshwaster

Booking.com and Expedia.com are probably the closest alternatives (hotels.com is actually owned by Expedia). Both have increasing level of rewards. Agoda  useful for Asia where they have more coverage.

Kayak and Trivago are comparison sites but will direct you elsewhere to make the booking.

I also also often book direct with the hotels as you can get member discounts and will pick up points in their loyalty scheme which you typically don't get when using 3rd party sites.

Travelodge and Premier Inn typically don't appear on other search sites.

jbrassy

I'm up to Level 3 Genius on Booking and think it's pretty good. You can get up to 20% off and I sometimes get free room upgrades or breakfast. I also get 10% off car hire which I use quite a bit. You used to be able to get additional cashback through Top Cashback or Quidco, but Booking hasn't appeared on these websites for a while. However, I still value the ease and flexibility that Booking provides. Booking is also the biggest hotel website globally so will probably have the most options available compared to rivals.

Agoda is part of the same group as Booking so offers a pretty similar user experience.

bagand96

It apparently hasn't gone well and Hotels.com has seen a big fall off in bookings https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/08/13/expedia-halts-the-roll-out-of-one-key/

michele-p

I have a booking.com account, with a genius level discount, but I'll always shop around when booking a hotel. Often it's better to go to the hotel direct, we certainly found this for our recent USA trip, I booked 11 hotels, only 1 through Booking,com. The hotel will often have its own offers, and usually flexible rates are similar to non-changeable via a booking agent. I have a hotel.com account, but very rarely found them to be any cheaper than the others, so I never managed to get to 10 reward nights, it just wasn't worth the extra!