Just made a booking with hotels.com but to start with tried cashrewards. If clicking through from cashrewards it gave about an $80 price increase compared to not using cash rewards. Havent made any bookings for a while but this is what I found some time ago too. If this is the case, wouldnt it be better to not have hotels.com on cashrewards? Is it a glitch or just a very bad deal?
How are you going to cashrewards? It could be that they are tracking you and see that you have looked at the room a few times and put the price up to put some pressure on you.
Try opening an incognito tab, then go to cashrewards and look up your hotel again.
2 separate computers, but might be the same ip address. Id never looked on this computer but used it to test, and its happened before so know its not an isolated incident.
Just tested here and I get the same price with or without cashrewards.
Not cashrewards related but i experienced the same thing if booking was linked to velocity accounts on booking.com from memory..
It seems they price jacked to incorporate the rewards fees.
I only noticed this with Entertainment book links to hotels, was being jacked then 25-50% off
That's probably because the 'discounts' they offer are off the 'Rack Rate' which nobody pays.
Unfortunately this is a known issue on travel bookings in particular. Not all sites, not all the time, etc., but this has come up before.
Many travel websites are very sharp in terms of pricing according to whatever information they can gain from you through your PC.
I've found you need to be very watchful on travel sites.
Turns out it was a family member who was logged in as a sliver hotels.com member. Maybe this is why. I apologise for the error. We did have it happen before with another booking site though.
Sorry for super necro but I had this same question a while ago.
To add some extra details for anyone else searching, Hotels.com provide cheaper "secret prices" for a number of bookings when logged in. The cashback promos (through Cashrewards and some others) are only applicable on the full non-logged in price.
From memory, due to not being logged in, it also won't accrue towards the free night's stay after 10 nights booked.
I have a similar rewards/cashback program through my employer and as an example, I'm eligible for 8% cashback through Hotels.com if I check out as a guest (or without rewards points, as they call it), or 4% if I check out with rewards points while logged in.
I just tried on the Park Hyatt with and without Cashrewards and it came up as the same price for me…