Expedia to Launch Loyalty Programme

Hotelchatter.com have just covered the fact that Expedia are moving away from just offering Thank you points and are developed a specific loyalty programme, interesting development! Below is the Hotel Chatter article…

Expedia to Launch Their Own Loyalty Program in Early 2011

Currently, Expedia is linked up with Citigroup’s ThankYou network which allows you to earn ThankYou points for your bookings as well as use ThankYou points to make your bookings. (ThankYou points can also be used/earned for other things aside from travel.) But Expedia is terminating that relationship on December 1.

Fortunately, your hard-earned ThankYou points will still be valid after this date but you can only earn ThankYou points on Expedia until December 1st. If you have a Citigroup credit card, you can still use the ThankYou network on Expedia to earn points but instead of three points for every dollar, you will only get two.

Expedia is now promising to roll out their new program in early 2011 which has us excited but also a teensy bit concerned

But we’re also concerned because it looks like there will be at least a month where you won’t earn anything for your Expedia bookings. (Remember, ThankYou is dunzo on Expedia after Dec. 1 but the new program doesn’t start ’til early 2011. Again, Citigroup credit card holders are the exception.)

The FAQ section on Expedia about the changes is pretty comprehensive but as for whether your existing Expedia ThankYou points will be worked into the new Expedia loyalty program, Expedia doesn’t have an answer for that just yet.