PointsHound: 100 Free Miles in Your Choice of United, Delta, Hawaiian, or Aeromexico

by Gary Leff

PointsHound is a website that will give you frequent flyer miles for making hotel bookings.

They will give you 100 miles just for signing up (this is my referral link — the 100 miles comes from being referred by an existing member, and the referrer only gets points when a new member actually makes a booking through the site — if you’d like feel free to add your own referral link in the comments).

You can choose earning miles with United, Delta, Hawaiian, and Aeromexico.

And while many websites like TopCashBack and eBates will offer cash back for the hotel bookings you make through the hotel’s own website, PointsHound rebates you in the form of miles and has you book through their own system.

The downside to making bookings through third party websites is that some chains do not allow accrual of elite stays and nights for those reservations, some do not allow points-earning, and still some do not even offer elite status recognition. That’s why I’ll almost never make hotel bookings through Expedia or Orbitz, for instance. Still, the rebate value here (paid out in miles) looks reasonable overall.

The more bookings you make through the site, the more miles they’ll pay you per booking. New customers earn “around 4x” miles while after booking 5 room nights you earn “around 6x” and after 20 nights you earn “around 9x”

I don’t expect to use this site often, but for non-chain hotels (since I’m less concerned with status) it could be very useful. And it’s certainly worth 100 miles for signup since they require just your name and email address to enroll.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. Who would use this over Priceline, Travelocity or Expedia? There are links to Big Crumbs and TopCashBack that pay a lot better than this to the “booker”

  3. The initial use doesn’t sound great as I typically get 5 or 6% back with topcashback but if the miles ramp up it could be a good deal if the hotels will recognize elite status.

  4. Their inventory seems to match hotels.com.
    If anyone wants to support my link – I’d be honored:
    https://pointshound.com/xzcqvr

    @Mileageupdate: I guess it depends, if you need UA miles or not. I think there can be defintely some good value in it. Let’s say you value UA miles at 1.8 cents each. Depending on the PointsHound Level you are in – you will get 4 , 6 or 9 UA miles for each dollar spent.
    Doing the math:
    4 x 1.8ct = 7.2 ct
    6 x 1.8ct = 10.8 ct
    9 x 1.8ct = 16.2 ct

    So based on 1 dollar its a cashback of 7, 10 or 16%.
    In my opinion that’s better than TopCashBack etc.
    However, if you don’t need miles – a direct cash back is always better.

  7. Attempted to churn using old and new UA MP# – was worth a shot given it’s a site I’ll never use otherwise.

  8. Was able to sign up two accounts with two different emails and set up points for Delta and United. Lets see if they post

  13. This is great for me, as I’m a big fan of independent hotels and not a lover of chains. They also have a best price guarantee. I’ll be trying it out!

  14. “Not taking new members right now, but will contact” me shortly. I got an immedate email asking me to confirm my signup. Which allowed me to log in and select United as my preferred program. “My Account” says I’ve gotten my 100 mile bonus, now just have to see if it actually posts in my UA account.

  17. Sign up bonus is now 250 miles with your first reservation; NOTHING for just signing up.

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