Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site with a limited number of hotels and in a limited – but growing – number of cities. It rebates you a potentially large number of miles for your reservations. (You generally won’t earn hotel points for your stays booked through the site.)
You get to choose whose miles you want to earn for your stays.
In addition to the standard bonus they are now offering a 3000 mile bonus in your choice of mileage program for completing your first booking by April 11.
I had thought that the 3000 mile bonus in your choice of program offer for making a first-time booking with Rocketmiles had expired at the end of 2013, but Tim R. pointed out to me that it’s still available.
Key terms:
Qualifying Activity: To qualify for the booking bonus of 3,000 miles, a customer must create a new account on Rocketmiles and complete a booking using this link (www.rocketmiles.com/bonus-3k) between 12:00 AM (CST) on November 26, 2013 and 11:59 p.m. (CST) on April 11, 2014.Booking bonuses are awarded to new customers for their first booking through Rocketmiles (with associated stay) only – all subsequent bookings and associated stays will not qualify for the booking bonus. Base earning rates will range between 1,000 – 5,000 miles per night. Limit 1 bonus per person. Limit 1 promotion per reservation.
This bonus CAN NOT be combined with other offers.
Rocketmiles bookings made after 11:59 (CST) on April 11, 2014, no-show reservations, and bookings cancelled prior to check-in will not be eligible. Rocketmiles reserves the right to reverse any bonus miles that it determines in its sole discretion are wrongly awarded, including but not limited to fraud and technical errors.
Please allow 4-6 weeks for bonus miles to post in a qualifying member’s account after hotel stay is completed and the qualifying member has met the stated conditions. For complete Terms and Conditions of Use please visit www.rocketmiles.com/terms.
You must book through this link to earn the bonus, and since the offer isn’t combinable with other bonuses it presumably means that you will not also get the 1000 mile first-time booking bonus for being referred by an existing member (although there’s no reason not to sign off with a referral).
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Apparently their booking engine is down now. I couldn’t use this yet. Did click your referral link, so we’ll have to see if it adds in or not.
I see no evidence that this is a good site to book your hotel stays on, and I think you should stop vigorously promoting it. It seems to me that their business model is based on their customers PAYING for the miles: every rate I’ve seen quoted is higher than what’s typically available from the other, run-of-the-mill online travel agencies. The up-charge varies, but seems to be about 20 bucks per night. Of course, you can typically use a code to reduce the prices a little from the other agencies. So there’s really nothing to see here, unless your objective is to effectively buy miles from Rocketmiles at a semi-plausible rate (although without the bonus, I think it would be about 2 cents a mile).
I’m kind of in the same decision boat iahphx. I think it’s really only worth it when you get a big bonus, like now.
I tried again and still can’t book a room. Very frustrating…
Brain —
Even with the bonus, I don’t think this is a particularly good deal since the bonus miles will still wind up costing you more than a penny a piece. And given their limited hotel selections, you might have to sacrifice the place you’d really prefer to stay at (and, for a chain hotel, perhaps their loyalty points and elite perks).
That said, given the vagaries of online hotel pricing, perhaps somebody will plug in their city and date and find “a deal.”
Here’s what I’ve seen with Rocketmiles
– prices usually about the same for the same hotels, but not always, sometimes higher and sometimes lower, so always important to price compare
– they’re basically getting opaque pricing from the hotels and marking up from their cost to cover the mileage purchase. they don’t run afoul of hotel best rate guarantee rules, but can rebate a portion of the markup.
Seems pretty lucrative for a one-night stay you actually need to make where you would be paying for a room anyway.
In general though I’ve had better luck with PointsHound — on pricing and because I value the elite nights and hotel loyalty program earning available through their ‘doubleup’ bookings.
Hi all, just used this for the first time for a trip I am taking this weekend. two nights at a new LaQuinta, 5000 AA points (1k per night + 3k bonus) and PLUS 1000 more points for signing up. Thanks Gary for the timely post.
The Crowne Plaza Richmond, VA for next weekend shows up as $342 per night, We typically book it at at less than $100 (I can see on IHG.com it’s going for $114.95). That’s quite a mark up for a couple thousand AA (or airline of your choice) miles…
Mickey,
How do you know that you got the extra 1000 miles for signing up via the referral? I don’t see it anywhere on the page when I go to check out…