And now they’ll require $700,000 in airfare spend for a $1000 hotel rebate. They changed to a $1000 hotel rebate for $100,000 in airfare spend. Put a different way, the program started offering a $1000 hotel rebate for $50,000 in airfare spend. They kept me on the treadmill and I have nearly 42,000 points (unfortunately nearly 2000 of them are “pending” as they can’t be spent until period of time after a trip has been completed).Īnd now my stash is about to get far less valuable, since I won’t be able to get up to the higher tiers nearly in time to take advantage of old rates. I only reproduce the hotel award chart here because hotel redemptions have been a much better value than airfare, because as noted hotels are a higher margin product for Expedia and it’s not nearly as costly to them to offer these credits. That value of points goes up dramatically the more points you have. It turns out that there’s a new award chart for hotels that’s “effective immediately” but aren’t they kind to offer a “grace period” through October 15th to allow redemptions at the older rate.Ĭurrently, the following point values buy coupons as follows: I logged into my account and saw that my redemption rates hadn’t changed, so assumed incorrectly that the redemption portion of the program wasn’t changing - just the earning. But to members who use the program and site they way Expedia wants them to (hotels are much higher margin products for them), it seemed like it could even be a positive change. I don’t really use Expedia for hotels, but that just means the program is worse a lot less to me. Supposedly they make up for that by doubling points earning on hotel stays. Now they will only give you one point per five dollars on airfare. They also shifted the award chart at that time so lower point balances were worth less. A year and a half ago they dropped that down to one per per two dollars. To re-cap, I explained that Expedia used to give you one point per dollar on airfare purchases. I’ve now concluded that Expedia Rewards is a program that I believe is not to be trusted, and also is no longer worth bothering with, since the cuts to the value proposition are actually worse than I reported yesterday. keeping the goal forever just out of reach. Programs that let you earn with a redemption goal in mind and then change the earning rules after you’ve invested time and money in their program are like Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football. Programs that simply make your points worth less one day are not to be trusted. And both times the changes were implemented with no notice whatsoever. I recited the history of the program, that this is the second set of major devaluations for a program that is only two and a half years old. Yesterday I went through the devaluations to Expedia Rewards points earning.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |