Hotels.com Launched a New Credit Card — Should You Sign Up?

This article may contain references to some of our advertising partners. Should you click on these links, we may be compensated. For more about our advertising policies, read our full disclosure statement here.

Travel rewards are a big reason Greg and I have been able to follow our dreams and visit more than 40 countries in the last few years. With the help of points and miles, we have stayed in some of the nicest hotels and resorts in the world, and we have visited destinations ranging from Saudi Arabia to Croatia, Greece, Italy and Anguilla. 

When it comes to our rewards strategy, we absolutely love airline miles since they help us cover the cost of airfare for ourselves and our kids. However, we have used hotel points sparingly up until now, mostly because it can be difficult to find award availability for the dates and locations we want, let alone a regular hotel room that sleeps a family of four.

That’s why I was excited about the new Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card. This new hotel credit card lets you redeem rewards at more than 500,000 hotels, resorts, vacation homes, bed-n-breakfasts and other properties around the world.

Better yet, you can use the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card to earn rewards on everyday spending and not just on hotel stays. This card also comes with a generous initial bonus, and there’s no annual fee. 

Should you sign up? I absolutely think you should if you want to travel but you’re worried about being stuck with hotel points you can’t use. I’ll explain why below, as well as the main card features you have to look forward to.

Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card Highlights

• Earn a reward night worth $125 when you sign up and spend $1,000 on your card within three months of account opening
• Earn a “stamp” worth $110 for each $500 you spend on your credit card; earn a reward night worth $110 when you collect 10 stamps
• Also earn a “stamp” for each paid night you book through Hotels.com
• No annual fee
• No foreign transaction fees
• Silver membership during your first year as a cardholder, which can help you qualify for elite perks like free breakfast and airport transfers at select VIP properties
• Cell phone protection worth up to $600
• Qualify for cardholder benefits such as auto rental collision damage waiver, roadside assistance, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, travel accident insurance and more
• Click here to apply

How to Use the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card 

First off, it’s important to know you don’t have to sign up for the Hotels.com credit card to join their rewards program. The Hotels.com rewards program has been around for a while, and it works separately or in conjunction with the new Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card. 

If you don’t have the credit card, you’ll earn one stamp for each paid night you book through Hotels.com, then you’ll qualify for a reward night when you earn 10 stamps. The value of the reward night will be equal to the average cost you paid for your stay. You’ll only pay taxes and fees.

When you sign up for the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card, however, you’ll begin earning stamps for this program when you use your credit card for regular spending and bills. In fact, you’ll earn a stamp worth $110 for each $500 you spend on your credit card, and after you collect 10 stamps, you’ll qualify for a reward night worth $110.

This means the card is slightly better than a cash-back credit card that lets you rack up 2 percent. Why do I say that? With a cash-back credit card that lets you earn 2 percent, you would only get $100 in rewards for $5,000 in spending, whereas the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card gives you $110 in value for every $5,000 you spend on your card.

When you add in the other perks you get with this card — like Silver membership for a year, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, cell phone coverage, and no foreign transaction fees — then it’s easy to see why you would want to use this card. There’s no annual fee, either, so you don’t have anything to lose.

Why I Love the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card

I have had a long love affair with travel rewards cards, but the pandemic has made travel super weird for the time being. With that being said, I think the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card is basically the perfect travel credit card for the world we live in right now. Here are a few reasons why:

You can use your reward nights virtually anywhere you want 

If you have dealt with other hotel credit cards or hotel loyalty programs before, you already know that their options can be extremely limited depending on where you live and where you want to travel. With the pandemic limiting our options and forcing people to plan trips closer to home, it’s nice to know that the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card lets you redeem reward nights at more than half a million properties worldwide. 

No need to worry about complicated hotel loyalty programs

I don’t know about you, but I get tired of dealing with complicated rewards programs, blackout dates, and capacity controls. The Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card lets you earn stamps toward reward nights based on your spending, then you can redeem them for any property available on their site. 

You won’t have to worry about running short on points or not finding any award availability over peak dates.

Use your rewards for rental condos and vacation homes

Also be aware that, unlike hotel programs like Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy, the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card lets you redeem your reward nights for all different types of properties. I love this since I have a family of four and regular hotel rooms can be kinda tight. 

On Hotels.com, you’ll find all-inclusive resorts, vacation condos, rental homes, bed-n-breakfasts, and other types of properties you won’t find with a regular hotel program.

No rotating categories or messy reward schemes

I like the fact the Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card gives you a stamp for every $500 you spend on your card, meaning you won’t have to worry about missing out on bonus points or using the wrong card for the wrong category. Just use your Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card for all your regular spending and bills, and you will begin racking up reward nights in no time.

This card is from Wells Fargo

This rewards credit card is offered with Wells Fargo, so you won’t have to worry about rules from Chase or Citi that limit new credit card signups based on cards you have had in the past. This is a new credit card altogether, so nobody has ever had it before!

The Bottom Line

The new Hotels.com credit card is available already, and you can go ahead and click here to apply. With a reward night you can earn right away and no annual fee, I believe this card is a good value for almost anyone, but especially for people who want to travel but need some flexibility.

Nobody knows where the pandemic will go from here, but we do know that travel may not be the same for quite a while. The Hotels.com^® Rewards Visa^® Credit Card makes it easy to earn reward nights you can spend however you want — even if you just want to earn travel rewards for next year and beyond. 

Hotels.com Credit Card: Apply Here >>