Hotels.com Review

Hotels.com has been a trusted hotel booking platform since 1991, now operating as part of the Expedia Group. The platform lists over 1 million properties worldwide and has built a loyal following through its straightforward approach to hotel search and booking. Unlike its parent company Expedia, Hotels.com focuses primarily on accommodation, resulting in a cleaner, less cluttered user experience. The platform's most famous feature was its stamp rewards program, where staying 10 nights earned you 1 night free. While this specific program has been absorbed into the broader One Key loyalty system, the core value proposition remains: frequent hotel guests earn meaningful rewards. One Key integration means your Hotels.com activity now earns OneKeyCash that works across the entire Expedia Group. Hotels.com's interface prioritizes simplicity. The search is fast, filters are comprehensive, and the booking process is streamlined. Secret Prices, available to logged-in members, offer genuine discounts at select properties. The price match guarantee provides an additional safety net, ensuring you do not overpay. While the selection is not as vast as Booking.com, the quality of listings and the overall user experience make Hotels.com a solid choice for straightforward hotel bookings.

Hotels.com's search experience is clean and purpose-built for hotel discovery. The search results load quickly and present essential information at a glance: price, rating, distance from city center, and a brief description. The thumbnail photos are well-curated, and the layout avoids the visual clutter that plagues some competing platforms. The filter system covers all the essentials including price range, star rating, guest rating, property type, amenities, neighborhood, and accessibility features. The "Pay at property" filter is particularly useful for travelers who prefer not to prepay. The map view integrates smoothly and shows real-time pricing, making it easy to evaluate options by location. One nice touch is the "Price drop" indicator that appears on properties whose rates have decreased recently. This helps deal-seekers identify potential bargains without needing to manually track prices over time. The search algorithm seems to balance relevance, price, and guest satisfaction effectively, though like most OTAs, promoted listings do appear near the top of results.

Hotels.com's pricing is generally competitive, though it rarely offers the absolute lowest rates. The platform earns its commission from properties (typically 15-25%), which is factored into the displayed price. In direct comparisons, Hotels.com prices tend to be within 5-10% of the best available rate, sometimes matching and occasionally beating the competition. Secret Prices are the platform's main pricing advantage. Available to logged-in members, these discounted rates typically save 10-15% on select properties. The discounts are genuine and can make Hotels.com competitive with or cheaper than booking direct. However, Secret Price availability varies by destination and season, and popular properties during peak periods are less likely to offer them. The price match guarantee is a useful safety net. If you find a lower price for the same room on another site within 24 hours of booking, Hotels.com will refund the difference. The process requires submitting a claim with evidence, and in our experience, legitimate claims are honored within 3-5 business days. This policy reduces the anxiety of wondering whether you got the best deal.

Hotels.com keeps its feature set focused on the hotel booking experience. The property pages include detailed descriptions, photo galleries, guest reviews broken down by traveler type (solo, couples, families, business), and a clear breakdown of room options with their respective prices and cancellation policies. The mobile app is smooth and well-optimized. It offers mobile-exclusive deals, push notifications for price drops on saved properties, and easy access to booking confirmations. The app also includes a "Near Me" feature that finds available hotels in your immediate vicinity, which is handy for last-minute bookings while traveling. The review system aggregates feedback from verified guests and presents it in an easy-to-digest format. Reviews are sorted by date, rating, and traveler type, which helps you find perspectives relevant to your situation. Hotels.com also shows review highlights, extracting the most commonly mentioned positive and negative aspects of each property to give you a quick summary.

Hotels.com's original stamp program was one of the simplest and most appealing loyalty programs in travel: stay 10 nights, collect 10 stamps, and get 1 night free. The free night was valued at the average nightly rate of your 10 qualifying stays. This program was widely loved for its simplicity and clear value proposition. In 2023, the stamp program was replaced by One Key, the unified Expedia Group loyalty program. While this transition added cross-brand flexibility, many longtime Hotels.com users felt the change was a downgrade. Under One Key, you earn OneKeyCash rather than stamps, and the effective return rate is somewhat lower than the old "stay 10, get 1 free" model for most travelers. The upside of One Key is that your Hotels.com loyalty now works across Expedia, Vrbo, Orbitz, and Travelocity. If you use multiple Expedia Group platforms, the unified program provides more flexibility than the old stamps ever could. For travelers who exclusively use Hotels.com, however, the value reduction is noticeable and is a legitimate drawback.

Hotels.com provides customer support through phone, chat, and a virtual assistant integrated into the app and website. The virtual assistant handles basic tasks like retrieving booking details, checking cancellation eligibility, and answering common questions. It works well for straightforward requests and can resolve many issues without human intervention. For complex issues, the live support experience is average. Wait times for phone support typically range from 10-30 minutes, though they can spike during holiday periods and major travel disruptions. Chat support is generally faster but sometimes routes you through several automated prompts before connecting to a live agent. One recurring complaint is the difficulty of resolving issues that involve the property directly. If a hotel fails to honor a deal or the room does not match the listing, Hotels.com's mediation process can be slow. The platform sometimes defers to the property's policies even when the guest has a legitimate grievance. That said, for cancellations and refunds within policy, the process is usually straightforward and timely.