A couple of days ago I wrote about booking website PointsHound increasing the airline miles they’ll award you for making hotel reservations. I surmised that, their having been acquired by Points.com, they likely have access to better pricing on miles and the economics now let them provide a greater incentive to you to book through them.
What I like best about PointsHound is that they offer ‘DoubleUp’ rates. You can book through them and earn airline miles for the reservation, and as long as you’re booking one of these rates you will still:
- Earn points in the hotel’s program as well.
- Get recognition for your elite status in that program.
- Earn credit towards elite status with the hotel chain.
PointsHound’s competitor Rocketmiles has historically offered more miles, but since Rocketmiles is offering only third party rates those don’t also earn hotel points and credit towards status. DoubleUp rates, to me, are PointsHound’s unique selling proposition.
Several commenters, though, noted that they haven’t been able to find any DoubleUp rates on the PointsHound site recently. I haven’t either. So I reached out to see what’s going on.
The site’s founder got back to me quickly, and let me know that they’re having technical issues with the provider of those rates.
We continue to have a technical issue with our integration partner. Since we still don’t have an ETA for resolution, the team has disabled Double Ups for now to avoid confusion around the “no availability” messaging that has been showing up on for Double Up rates over the past few months.
They’re working both on a fix with their current partner and to integrate new rate partners. They’re hoping for a short-term fix, but are preparing for a longer term solution if it doesn’t work.
So… please stand by. In most cases I’m not interested in rates for myself that don’t allow for recognition of status (although Marriott and Hyatt generally recognize status on third party rates though do not allow earning of that status) and points accumulation.
That said, booking hotels for other people who aren’t hotel program elite members or especially concerned with hotel points, you can earn miles for your own account. I know that many readers are the primary travel bookers in their family or circle of friends and these sites provide a nice reward for playing that role.
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Thanks Gary.
Like you I probably won’t be booking any rates through them until they get the issue resolved. But its possible there’s a one off somewhere I’d consider. We’ll see.
The “not available” thing needed to be fixed though since it basically made the “Double Up Rate Available” flags and filtering useless, so I hope they resolve this soon.
It’s a big feature that is missing. Its very useful for the times when maybe you have the leeway to stay at a property that is more out of the way, and “double up” perhaps would entice you. But without it I would rather just stick with more convenient location and earn my status.
Just to clarify – do you get Marriott and Hyatt points atheir locations in addition to the points earned on Pointhound?
Any news on Double Up rates?
The Pointshound website still refers to them in a few places, but it doesn’t look like any are offered.
And, while the Pointshound team may be fast to get back to you, it seems like they don’t respond to emails from “normal” users.
@David I’ve emailed to ask
Any news on double up rates?
The website still mentions it, but I’ve never seen one offered in a search