Rocketmiles just came out with a limited time offer for new users for making a hotel reservation through their site. Through July 13, 2014, you earn 5,000 bonus miles! The great thing about this promotion is the 5,000 miles is on top of the miles you typically earn (anywhere between 1,000-5,000 miles). With this promotion you can also select the loyalty program you want the points to be credited to (within the participating programs).
What is Rocketmiles?
Rocketmiles is a third-party hotel reservation site were you earn airline miles for your stay. While they do not have every hotel on their site, if you are able to book through them, you can earn thousands of airline miles. The one caveat is that since you are booking your hotel stay through a third-party site typically you will not earn hotel points (although sometimes it slips through the cracks and you will earn the points). Your experience will vary.
Participating airlines include: Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Air Canad, Delta, Ethiad, Frontier, AirFrance/KLM, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue, Qatar, United, Turkish Airlines, US Airways, Southwest, and Virgin America.
Hotel rates are typically the same as the best available rate if you were to book directly with the hotel. However, this doesn’t account for other discounts – AAA, Corporate Rates, Specials, etc. So ALWAYS ensure that you are getting the best rate possible. And also calculate out what you’d prefer – the airline miles or the hotel points. Rocketmiles states that you’ll earn stays/nights towards status with the hotel (assuming they have a loyalty program), but since this is a third-party site, there is no guarantee. You’d have to call the hotel and ask.
5,000 point promotion
For new users, you’ll earn 5,000 points for your first reservation made by July 13, 2014 at 11:59pm CT. Your hotel checkout date must also be before January 15, 2015. You can search and make reservations here.
For example, I searched a random date in October and saw that at the Grand Hyatt I can earn 3,000 miles for the stay (one-night stay), plus the 5,000 bonus miles for a total of 8,000 miles. I compared the rate to the Hyatt website and did see that it was the same as the advance purchase rate and $20 cheaper to the refundable rate. However, the refundable AAA rate on the Hyatt site directly is $19 cheaper. You need to calculate what you’d prefer (assuming you can use the AAA rate), a cheaper rate (with the hotel points) or the miles for $19 more. In this scenario I’d happily “purchase” 8,000 miles for $19. With the non-chain hotels you’ll probably get the same exact rate when booking through Rocketmiles, so it is a no brainer to get the airline miles when hotel points aren’t even an option.
If you can find a super cheap hotel, this is also a great way to earn miles on a deal! Earning this number of airlines miles for a reservation is amazing, so I highly suggest looking into it for your next hotel booking. Just be sure you are getting the best (or equivalent rate) and calculate out if the miles is better than the hotel points you might be missing out on.
Anyone have any luck getting a great rate with a lot of miles tacked on?!,
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I am considering doing this. Book 1 night in my name and then other night in my husband’s name, so that we would both get the promotion. I would want to be able to transfer my husbands miles into my airline account though.
Any suggestions for the best airline program for husband to wife transfers? Was thinking US Airways. Thanks
Your link only shows 1,000 bonus miles, not 5,000.
@MarkD – After you sign up it should say the 5,000 miles. It is underneath the white popup box.
“The promotion requires a promotion code” ?
@NalDe – I saw that as well, but when you go to search for a reservation it adds the 5,000 bonus points. I emailed Rocketmiles to inquire about this.
Here’s the answer I got from Rocketmiles:
“This promotion has specific, one-time-use promotional codes associated with it, and they were sent to specific users. Your email was not on that list as you were not signed up with us when we released the promotion. “