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Update: Deal is dead. Hope you got in on it.
Today only, until 10 PM ET, Rocketmiles is offering its biggest bonus ever on hotel bookings: 5,000 bonus miles or points on any of its airline partners for stays that have a check out date before December 31, 2013.
This bonus is open to new and existing customers.
This bonus is large enough that on many Rocketmiles bookings made today, the miles earned will be worth almost as much as the price paid for the hotel room.
For those who don’t know, Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site. Hotel booking sites have huge margins, but they can’t usually undersell the price on the hotel’s site, so most simply offer the same price without differentiation.
Rocketmiles is totally different. It takes those huge margins and rebates as much as it can to its customers in the form of frequent flyer miles on any of the following airlines:
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- Etihad
- Air France/KLM
- Hawaiian
- JetBlue
- United
- US Airways
- Virgin America
For a general intro post on Rocketmiles, see my first post on Rocketmiles.
What is today’s deal? How would I maximize the value of today’s promotion? How do you make a hotel booking on Rocketmiles? Plus a full Rocketmiles FAQ.
The Deal
- New reservations
- with checkout dates before 12/31/13
- booked on Rocketmiles today before 10 PM ET
- will earn their normal frequent flyer miles plus 5,000 bonus miles
- in any Rocketmiles program of your choice.
The reservations must be new. Cancelling existing reservations and rebooking them will not receive the bonus.
Existing reservations will not get an extra 5,000 bonus miles added today.
Each customer can only get one 5,000 mile bonus.
Maximizing the Deal
The miles bonus will be proportionally larger on shorter stays and by choosing the most valuable miles partner.
Stays You Need
If you need to book a hotel stay, you should check Rocketmiles and Kayak.com to see which offers a cheaper price on the hotel you want. Most of the time, the price is the same–which is Rocketmiles‘ goal–but sometimes one is cheaper–usually Kayak.
If the stay is the same price or Rocketmiles is cheaper, book with Rocketmiles and pocket the miles. If Rocketmiles is more expensive, figure out whether the miles are worth the extra cost. Since you’ll get at least 5,500 miles from a booking today, the Rocketmiles price would have to be at least $100 more before I’d consider not booking on Rocketmiles today.
Which Partner?
Theoretically any of the nine Rocketmiles partners could be the best one to credit your miles to, depending on your upcoming travel goals, but I think there are four main options:
1. Virgin America
Virgin America has some absolute steals on its charts like:
- 20k Virgin America points is a roundtrip between the mainland and Hawaii on Hawaiian Airlines
- 3k Virgin America points is a one way interisland flight on Hawaiian Airlines
- There are tons of other great deals on Hawaiian flights to Asia and Australia
- 35k Virgin America points + $1,100 is a roundtrip from New York, Newark, Boston, Washington DC, or Chicago to London in Virgin Atlantic Upper Class
- There are other great deals on Upper Class flights from Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, and Vancouver
These low prices are the reason that 2 Membership Rewards normally transfer to only 1 Elevate point. I’d value 5,000 Elevate points at about $100.
The normal miles earned when selecting Virgin America is lower than all the other airlines on Rocketmiles in my experience. For instance, it’s common to be offered 500 Virgin America points or 1,000 US Airways miles on a Rocketmiles booking. Today, though, that would be 5,500 Virgin America points or 6,000 US Airways miles.
2. US Airways
US Airways is the most valuable mile on my Mile Value Leaderboard. You just cannot beat its award chart, which consistently has lower miles prices than its competitors.
3. United
United miles are super valuable now if you need to top up your account to make a booking before February 1, 2014, when the massive United devaluation kicks in.
4. American Airlines
If you want to book an ultra-luxury award like Cathay Pacific, Etihad, or Qantas First class, you want American Airlines miles.
How to Book
Follow this link to Rocketmiles, specify a type of miles to earn, and perform a search by city and date. The results will display a room price and the total number of miles you’d earn for the booking including today’s 5k bonus.
You can choose to have the results displayed from cheapest to most expensive or from most to fewest miles.
My Plan
I wasn’t planning on staying in a hotel the rest of this year. But some of the prices are tempting. I could snag one night in a Waikiki hotel for only $180 after tax and get almost $120 worth of US Airways miles for the stay.
That means if I would get $60 of value out of the room, it’s a good deal. I don’t know if I can get that much value out of a room, but I will try to make the numbers work.
Rocketmiles FAQ
For Rocketmiles‘ explanation of itself, see How It Works.
Terms and Conditions
Earn 5,000 bonus miles/points for new reservations booked between 8:00AM (CT) and 9:00PM (CT) on November 5, 2013 with a check-out before December 31, 2013. Limit 1 bonus per customer. All miles/points displayed on the site are inclusive of the bonus and will be awarded after completed stays. Existing reservations that are cancelled and rebooked do not qualify for bonus miles/points. This promotion can not be combined with any other bonus mile/point offers. Promotion ends November 5, 2013 (9:00 PM CT). See full terms & conditions here.
Qualifying Activity: To qualify for the Rocketmiles Anniversary Promotion, a new reservation must be made through www.rocketmiles.com/anniversary using this special promotional link on November 5, 2013 between 8:00 AM CT and 9:00 PM CT, and have a check-out date no later than December 31, 2013. The reward offer you see when searching Rocketmiles using this link will show the 5000 bonus miles if eligible. Limit one (1) bonus per customer. Any subsequent bookings will not qualify for the miles/points bonus, but will still earn the standard reward amounts. BONUS MILES/POINTS CAN NOT BE ADDED RETROACTIVELY TO EXISTING BOOKINGS. THIS PROMOTION CAN NOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER BONUS MILE/POINT OFFERS. ROCKETMILES RESERVES THE RIGHT TO DISQUALIFY AND ADJUST ANY BONUSES RESULTING FROM THE CANCELLATION AND REBOOKING (SAME SEARCH CRITERIA) OF AN EXISTING ROCKETMILES RESERVATION (OR IF IT DETERMINES, IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION, THAT ANY CUSTOMER HAS APPLIED BONUSES TO MORE THAN 1 PURCHASE). Bonuses can be disqualified and reversed at the sole discretion of Rocketmiles for any actions that breach these terms, including but not limited to fraud, deception, and technical errors. Please allow up to 4 weeks for bonus miles/points 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.
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Do you know if bookings through RocketMiles still count for programs like IHG’s Big Win? I need a Chicago stay and want to make sure it would count.
Thanks
I do not know for sure. They claim you usually get the benefits, but depending on the size of your Big Win you might not want to risk it.
I just called and talked to an IHG Rewards Club specialist who said they were 100% sure that in order for a rate/stay to be “qualifying” for Big Win you have to book through an IHG website. I should have confirmed that they weren’t only speaking about the “Book with us” offer, but they did say that that applied for all IHG promos.
I actually think they’re wrong, but I am not implying that a Rocketmiles booking would count.
I’m in the same boat as paul to Rocketmiles stays count towards IHG bigwin promos, etc?
Same here. I did a quick read through of the T&C’s of both Big Win and RocketMiles and found nothing pertinent. On the BW side, it only matters if a RM (3rd party) booking constitutes a qualifying stay/rate (“which include most business and leisure rates”). Also on the BW side, it is obvious your RM booking will not count as a booking made via an IHG website/app (the “Book with us” offer). On the RM side there should be no issue, since RM and the 5000 mile bonus has no awareness of your participation in BW. Without knowing anything about the RM booking process, I would highly recommend calling the hotel at least 1-3 days in advance of the stay to put your Rewards Club number on the reservation. With that you can be sure any elite privileges are applied. Usually bonuses like BW are assessed well after the stay, so, again, as long as it’s a qualifying rate/stay we should be able to double dip here.
How long does it usually take for the miles to post?
@turgutbey Rocketmiles says that the miles typically post in 2 weeks, but mine posted w/in a day of my checkout!
Aqua palms Waikiki at $129 night well worth it with this bonus!
[…] Biggest Rocketmiles Bonus Ever! 5,000 Bonus Miles on any Hotel Booking Today Only Author admin Date November 5, 2013 Comments: Leave a comment […]
Anyone found a deal that’s profitable? No need for a hotel at all, but would totally do one where I don’t even show up.
I don’t think there is one because I think they programmed the results to exclude the cheapest hotels on one night stays during this promo.
I would only participate if you can get some value from the hotel room.
How do you define “value” for a hotel room? Do you do a calculation or is it a subjective evaluation based on how much a clean room/bed is worth to you?
Yes, it’s subjective.
[…] doubt that booking hotels earns fat commissions, consider that Kayak defaults to hotel searches, Rocketmiles can afford to give you thousands of airline miles out of its commission and still make money, and […]