Seattle-based travel giant Expedia Group this week debuted its new unified loyalty program that rewards customers for using its flagship Expedia.com platform, as well as its Hotels.com and Vrbo brands.
The program, called One Key, offers currency called OneKeyCash to members who purchase flights, hotels, vacation homes, car rentals, cruises, and activities on either of the three platforms.
Expedia previously had separate loyalty programs for Expedia and Hotels.com but One Key is the first to bring the company’s properties together, along with Vrbo.
“The program is a key part of the company’s strategy to acquire and engage higher lifetime value customers,” Wedbush wrote in a report Tuesday.
One Key members receive 2% in OneKeyCash for every dollar spent on eligible lodging bookings and 0.2% for eligible flights on Expedia. The currency can be used to save on future purchases. Members also have access to “member prices” for certain offers.
One Key has membership tiers based on “trip elements” earned for a flight, a hotel room night, a one-day car rental, etc. For example, if a member books two nights in a hotel and a three-day car rental, they earn five trip elements, which would qualify for the “Silver” tier. There are four tiers; each provides different discounts and other perks.
The program is live in the U.S. and will roll out globally next year. Expedia says most people who already had membership accounts with Expedia, Hotels.com or Vrbo will be migrated to One Key automatically.
Wedbush analysts praised the program’s simplicity and minimal barriers for rewards redemption but said it is a “step down” from the prior Hotels.com loyalty program, which offered higher rewards value for lodging.
The analysts also said One Key is “purely incremental” to Vrbo customers since the vacation rental platform did not have a loyalty program, and noted that Airbnb does not offer its own loyalty program.
“Given the relatively lower value of the program versus Hotels.com’s existing offering (albeit for the 5% of bookers who use it) and of loyalty programs offered by major hospitality providers, it may be challenging for One Key to stand out among existing alternatives, in our view,” Wedbush said in a report.
Expedia also announced this week that its conversational trip planning feature powered by ChatGPT, released earlier this year for iOS, is coming to Android next month.
Expedia’s first quarter revenue rose 18% to $2.7 billion due to factors including the rebound of international and big-city travel as the industry continues to emerge from the depths of the pandemic.
