In the past couple weeks, I've posted a couple times about Expedia Rewards. I won't rehash everything here, but now you can book flights with Expedia Rewards points. I made a few sample bookings today, and it didn't take me long to figure out exactly how it works. Want to head to the Maldives for a weekend and not pay for it? Me too. I tried to use my Expedia points to do so. Here's the result I got:
219,400 points eh? Well, that sure is a lot of points to spend at Expedia. I don't think I'm going to the Maldives, courtesy of Expedia, anytime soon! My first thought was, "How do they get that number?" I priced out a few other itineraries and they all fluctuated. I then tried to see how much it would cost me to do my weekend in the Maldives with cash. I got the following:
The paid fare is 1/100th the price in points of the award fare. 100 of your points are worth a buck: 1 cent per point. If you redeem for hotel coupons, you can get that value all the way up to 2 cents per point.
I'm not going to complain too much about the valuation, because this is a rewards program that I get for free, without changing any of my current travel habits. I do have one outstanding question, though, and it's a biggie... I don't think Expedia has negotiated a deal with pretty much every carrier out there, but they are showing results for every carrier. So does that mean that when we redeem our points for a flight, they're just buying it from the airline? And if that's true, does that mean that we would earn frequent flier miles on award ticket? Does that mean we'll be able to use a SWU on a ticket purchased through Expedia? Somehow, I doubt it, but maybe there's a chance. I've e-mailed Expedia for an answer, and I'll report when I hear back
Comments
Leave a Comment