Editor’s word: This put up was up to date with new data.

Expedia Group has formally unified and expanded the loyalty packages throughout its household of manufacturers, which incorporates Expedia, Inns.com and trip rental website Vrbo. The Seattle-based firm calls the brand new program “probably the most full journey rewards providing within the trade.”

Along with the brand new loyalty program, Expedia Group is starting to roll out new merchandise to make planning, reserving and taking journeys simpler.

Whereas some earlier super-users of the previous Inns.com program could not welcome the adjustments, different customers may gain advantage.

Right here’s what we all know.

What’s Expedia’s new One Key loyalty program?

The brand new loyalty program is named One Key and formally launched Thursday. The unified program is free to affix and has completely different tiers that unlock progressively extra rewarding advantages the deeper you go along with this system.

You will earn factors and tier credit score for every thing from lodge stays and automobile leases to actions and residential leases, and now even airfare.

The brand new program brings collectively present packages — Expedia Rewards and Inns.com Rewards — and can, for the primary time, provide prospects rewards by means of manufacturers like Vrbo that had no prior loyalty program. The corporate says, “It is possible for you to to earn and use OneKeyCash (our rewards foreign money) on eligible stays on Inns.com, plus eligible trip leases on Vrbo, and eligible flights, accommodations, rental automobiles, and extra on Expedia.”

Expedia instructed TPG that Orbitz Rewards members will ultimately have the chance to affix One Key, too, they usually received’t lose the worth of any of their rewards.

Notice that in the event you already had an account with Expedia, Inns.com or Vrbo, usually, you’ll be routinely migrated to One Key. Vrbo account holders might want to settle for new phrases and situations. Not all customers might be transitioned to the brand new platform instantly.

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Expedia’s former loyalty packages had been all very completely different. For example, with Expedia Rewards, you’d usually earn 2 factors for each $1 you’d spend with this system on accommodations (a 1.4% return), automobiles, packages and issues to do, and 1 level per $5 spent on flights (0.14% return).

The earlier Inns.com program supplied a singular (and rewarding) incomes construction: a reward night time for each 10 nights you stayed. It was price a greenback quantity equal to a mean of the ten paid nights it took to earn it.

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How do you earn rewards in Expedia One Key?

The rewards you earn within the One Key program are fairly straightforward to know.

Members will obtain 2% in OneKeyCash for each greenback spent on eligible accommodations, trip leases, actions, packages, automobile leases and cruises, and 0.2% in OneKeyCash for each greenback spent on eligible flights. Whereas that does not sound like a lot of a return, OneKeyCash is on prime of any airline loyalty program rewards and bank card rewards you already earn.

The account holder who makes the reserving earns the OneKeyCash, irrespective of which vacationers are named within the reserving. That is nice for these planning a giant household get-together, as all OneKeyCash, together with these from roundtrip flights for all members of the family, might be deposited in your One Key account.

There isn’t any have to arrange a separate account for every member of the household, so multiple-player mode might assist elevate your rewards-earning and status-earning potential.

Your rewards get greater once you guide stays at what the corporate calls “VIP Entry properties.” In One Key’s Silver tier, for instance, your OneKeyCash earnings go up by 50%. It’s two instances extra once you attain the Gold tier and thrice extra once you attain the Platinum tier.

Notice that almost all “Pay Now” bookings will hit your account inside three days after the journey is over. “Pay Later” and all Vrbo bookings can take as much as 90 days to hit your account.

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How a lot are One Key rewards price?

You get a 1:1 greenback worth in OneKeyCash when redeeming for eligible journey.

Program rewards are known as OneKeyCash, and can be utilized for the partial or full value of any Pay Now bookings at collaborating trip leases and accommodations, in addition to automobile leases and actions. Each greenback in OneKeyCash might be a greenback you may have taken off the worth of a trip rental, lodge, automobile or exercise.

In accordance with Expedia, “To make use of OneKeyCash on a flight, you’ll need sufficient OneKeyCash to cowl your entire value of your eligible flight, together with taxes and costs, and will not add any optionally available extras like checked baggage or seat assignments. You should buy these extras after reserving your ticket.”

You possibly can’t get money in your OneKeyCash, and you’ll’t switch it to different members, however you may redeem your OneKeyCash for journey accomplished by family and friends.

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What are the standing tiers in One Key?

The brand new program has 4 standing ranges which might be reached by attaining a sure variety of “journey parts” in a yr. The extra journey parts you guide, the upper standing you earn. Journey parts are the completely different elements of a visit, although every must be price at the very least $25 to qualify.

One Key journey parts embrace:

• One air ticket (one-way or round-trip)
• One lodge room night time (every night time counts as a component)
• One night time in a trip rental
• One night time on a cruise
• One-day automobile rental
• One round-trip floor transportation ticket (airport shuttles, transfers, and many others.)
• One exercise ticket (a personal tour, a theme park ticket, and many others.)

Blue is the entry-level standing with no account exercise required. You will want 5 journey parts to qualify for Silver standing. For Gold, you may have to have 15 journey parts, and for Platinum, you may want 30 journey parts.

Expedia factors out for example, ” … in the event you booked 2 nights in a lodge and a 3-day automobile rental, you’d earn 5 journey parts, sufficient to achieve Silver tier standing in a single journey.”

What occurs in the event you had earned Inns.com nights or different awards earlier than One Key?

Expedia says any eligible exercise in 2022 and 2023 (as much as the date you turn into a One Key Member) throughout your Expedia and Inns.com accounts counts towards your tier standing.

For instance, in the event you had 100 Expedia Rewards factors, it’s going to turn into $1 OneKeyCash.

In case you earned a free Inns.com $100 reward night time in your account, it turns into $100 OneKeyCash. In case you had lower than 10 stamps and had been engaged on incomes a free night time, you may get 10% of the worth of every stamp collected. So in the event you had three stamps from $100-per-night lodge stays, it will turn into $30 in OneKeyCash.

This is what a present Inns.com account web page reveals, together with the potential worth of 1 stamp within the previous Inns.com program.

That stamp ought to convert routinely to about $29.30 price of OneKeyCash within the new program at 10% of the worth of the $293 lodge night time.

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Who the brand new One Key program is sweet for

“One Key, with its flexibility, reductions, perks and one foreign money, is a straightforward rewards program for the on a regular basis traveler,” Expedia Group instructed TPG. “And we are able to’t overlook Vrbo is (lastly) included, which is a large win for loyalty program fans trying to earn off their trip rental bookings.”

Certainly, the rare traveler — particularly one who books for the entire household — will be the largest beneficiary since they will use one program for all their journey and know they’re going to earn rewards on their journeys that they will flip into extra journey.

Who the brand new One Key program is not nice for

As talked about, energy customers of the Inns.com reward program will seemingly be those most disenchanted with this variation since they’re shedding entry to a virtually 10% rebate on lodge stays. Beneath the previous program for Inns.com, in the event you booked 10 nights by means of the web site or app, you earned one free night time with a price equal to the typical value of your 10 paid nights (excluding taxes and costs).

The brand new program does provide a rebate for lodge bookings, however not practically as beneficiant.

There are shiny spots, although. You can begin incomes rewards after your first lodge reserving as a substitute of ready till 10 stays … or worse, danger having the nights expire on you. Additionally, you possibly can earn as a lot as 6% again on some stays as a Platinum One Key member. Nonetheless, that does require Platinum standing (achieved after 30 ” journey parts”), and it solely applies to sure eligible VIP Entry properties.

Different new One Key options

Along with the brand new loyalty program, Expedia is rolling out new merchandise that ought to make planning, reserving and taking journeys simpler. The brand new program may also have reductions on greater than 100,000 accommodations, together with as much as 20% off bookings completed by means of One Key.

Expedia tells TPG there may also be property credit and reductions out there at many accommodations and resorts, which can embrace free breakfast, vouchers or value reductions on meals and drinks, spa credit and even waived resort charges: “We now have 1000’s of lodge companions, each unbiased and chains, providing members perks.”

Expedia instructed TPG that there are additionally a number of different methods for choose members to save lots of, together with:

• Reserving a member-only deal – One instance? A Gold member (15-plus journey parts) can rating 20% or extra financial savings on some accommodations.
• Reserving “VIP Entry” properties – Expedia has offers at sure accommodations and resorts that provide you with particular perks and mean you can double your incomes price as a Gold member.
• E-book a package deal – In case you guide a trip package deal, together with flights, you may earn 2% in rewards on flights versus 0.2% on stand-alone flights.

The brand new options may also embrace a value match promise for airfare, value monitoring and predictions, journey boards, and self-service for cruise and flight adjustments.

It is too early to say for certain how a lot of a value-add a few of these new options and reductions might be, however we’ll proceed to watch and run some exams within the coming weeks and months.

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Backside line

Those that had been used to what was primarily a ten% “rebate” on Inns.com nights by way of the previous stamps program will seemingly see decreased rewards-earning energy from this program that rewards 2% again on these stays.

Nonetheless, vacationers who did not journey regularly sufficient to have 10 eligible stays with Inns.com and as a substitute booked for big household teams or had a mixture of lodge and Vrbo spending now have a method to pool all of these earnings in a single program. Including to the worth is which you can redeem the rewards you earn as you go as a substitute of ready till you hit 10 eligible lodge stays or danger having them expire earlier than you may get round to incomes or utilizing them.

Nobody program is the proper match for all vacationers. Nonetheless, rare vacationers, those that prefer to hire houses with Vrbo, or those that have a large mixture of bookings now have a method to pool these rewards in a single program.

Further reporting by Benji Stawski.