Miles & More Expands Its Partnership with Booking.com
Miles & More members can now both earn miles on accommodation booked through Booking.com and redeem miles toward selected stays. The expanded partnership gives hotel bookings a larger role in one of Europe’s major loyalty programmes.
Miles & More and Booking.com have taken another step in their partnership. According to TravelTalk, members can now use award miles to book accommodation through Booking.com.
Until now, the arrangement mainly worked in one direction: travellers could earn Miles & More miles through a dedicated Booking.com channel and spend them elsewhere in the programme. The Miles & More partner page currently lists a standard rate of one award mile per euro spent on eligible accommodation bookings.
From earning to redeeming miles
The new option makes Booking.com more than a place to earn miles: members can also use them toward accommodation, one of the largest travel expenses.
Miles & More already lets members use miles for hotel bookings through other partners and Hotels & Cars by Rocket Travel by Agoda. Adding Booking.com broadens the accommodation choice and brings loyalty currency closer to the moment a traveller plans the whole trip.
How to earn miles
To earn miles, start from the dedicated Booking.com page linked from Miles & More and enter your service card number when booking. The standard offer is one award mile per euro spent on an eligible stay, credited after the stay. A booking started outside the dedicated link may not qualify, so enter the card number before confirming.
How to redeem miles
To redeem miles, use the separate redemption offer, choose an accommodation marked as eligible and sign in to your Miles & More account. You can redeem at least 3,000 miles; the maximum depends on your balance and appears during booking. Miles are deducted in real time.
Choose “Pay now” at checkout; deferred payment or payment at the property does not allow redemption. Some local fees and charges cannot be paid with miles, so every booking has a cash balance payable by an available standard method. Genius discounts can still apply. Initially, redemption is available on Booking.com’s desktop and mobile websites, but not in its app.
Loyalty programmes extend beyond flying
For tourism industry the wider trend is more interesting. Airline loyalty programmes are increasingly about more than reward flights and upgrades. They aim to give members more opportunities to earn and redeem miles throughout the trip.
Booking.com gains another reason for customers to book on its platform, while Miles & More increases the practical value of its miles. This is the familiar “earn and burn” model within a much wider travel ecosystem.
What does that mean for hotels and distribution
For hoteliers this development has another side. Loyalty benefits connected with major OTA channels can further increase guests' motivation to make a booking through an intermediary rather than directly with the hotel.
Therefore, the battle for the guest will increasingly be fought on more than just price. The value of loyalty currency, ease of payment, and the ability to combine flights and accommodation are becoming an ever more important part of the decision on where the booking will ultimately be made.
