What is Expedia?
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Expedia Inc is a company that is knee-deep in various businesses. They call themselves an online travel agency which is owned by Expedia Group company. They are mostly of use to consumers and small travelers. Their platform helps people book tickets for airlines and cruise ships, you can also make hotel reservations, car rentals, and vacation packages using their platform. Apart from Expedia Inc, the Expedia groups consist of various other top companies belonging to different sectors. This is a subsidiary company that is registered and active. The company was founded on July 16, 2001, as a division of the company Microsoft. The company products belong to varied ranges like the travel industry, hotel industry, booking industry, car rental industry, etc. As of 2020, their revenue was 5.2 billion dollars. The company currently is the global sponsor of the English Football team, Liverpool F.C. and the deal is in place to run till 2003. When we talk about points, be it Expedia or any business for that matter, it refers to a system wherein your purchase is rewarded with some points that hold some monetary value as decided by the company. Let’s say you spend $100 on a food item and get 5 points for the same. Now, these points can each be worth $2 which means that spending $100 got you $10. In the context of Expedia, the company gives you certain points when you make bookings using their platform. However, the booking you make needs to be eligible to get you points. These points then are stored in your account and can be used when making your next booking. If you become a member then you can double the number of points you earn and you can also opt to be a Silver or Gold member to get further added benefits.
How to Use Expedia Points? A Complete Guide
Before we learn how to use Expedia points, you need to know that you aren’t given points just like that, you have to earn them. You have to earn points by interacting with the Expedia platform and making transactions with them on the eligible stuff. For example, let’s say you are making an airplane booking, in that case, you need to check if the ticket has an offer of rewarding you points in return. If it indeed has points as a reward then on making this transaction you get those points which can be used on later purchases. Once you have earned enough points now comes the time to redeem them. All you have to do to use your Expedia points is head to the website and log in to your account.
- Start looking for hotel bookings, car rentals, air tickets, etc.
- Once you have sorted that out you proceed to checkout.
- Under Use my Points section, select Expedia Rewards points as payment method. You can make the full payment using points if you have sufficient points or you can choose another method to cover the rest of the payment.
Using Expedia Points on App
Expedia has an app on both App Store and Play Store. Simply download the app, create an account and repeat the steps mentioned above. Proceed with making bookings and purchases on the app and head to check out where again under the payments option you need to choose to pay using the points. Similarly, the procedure to earn points on the app is also the same as earning them on the website. Websites and apps are more or less alternatives to each other and not contradictory platforms and so you should be able to use either of them easily if you know your way around the other. The greatest thing about Expedia points is that you can use them to book a hotel, a cruise ticket, an airplane ticket, a car rental, etc. Not only do you get discounts on your bookings but can also lend benefits to your friends and family. Also, you never face a blackout day when using reward points so every day is a savings day. Let us now answer the question, do Expedia points expire?
Do Expedia Points Expire?
You can be forgiven for thinking that you get Expedia points as soon as you make a booking or use the platform. That is not how Expedia points work. You first need to check if the purchase you are making gives away points. Then you proceed to make the booking where you select whatever you were looking for. Next up you get to see the points in your account but as Pending. What this means is that the points have been earned but not unlocked and they shall remain that way until you have used the services that you made bookings for. This means if you booked a hotel and are getting points for the same then the points only get unlocked after you have stayed at the hotel. Until then these points are pending points and cannot be used anywhere making them as good as nonexistent. Once you have unlocked these points by using the booked service the points are now available to use and can be used for booking the next trip, cruise, air ticket, car rental, or any service purchased from Expedia’s website. Do Expedia points expire? Yes. Yes, you heard that right. The Expedia points expire if you left them unused for 18 months. After a period of inactivity for this long, the points are gone forever and cannot be reinstated. You can learn new points but these points are as good as gone forever. To avoid losing points to expiry you just need to make sure to go ahead and make an eligible purchase or redeem the points for something or the other on the platform. If you do not keep doing these every 1 and a half years then you can say goodbye to those points that you might have accumulated. You now have the answer to the question, do Expedia points expire.
How much is 4000 Expedia Points Worth?
You might think what is the matter with the points system and what all the fuss is about? Well, it can be said to be an innovative idea to attract customers to a business or just an idea used to make sure that a customer is rewarded from time to time and is retained by the means of giving them more than what they asked for. My first introduction to the points system was with a food joint and you could use the points to get free food in the future. So, you see how the business keeps pulling you back to itself by offering you such deals and that is exactly why the points system is a thing. As explained earlier you have points pending and if you want to use them, you need to use them on the website again which means the company retains you as a customer. The system exists because it works well. Now coming back to the question, how much is 4000 Expedia points worth? Expedia values each point as 1 cent. A dollar has 100 cents. The simple cross-multiplication math tells us that 1 dollar is equal to 100 points. Be it for an air ticket, an activity, a hotel booking, a car rental, or whatever the valuation is fixed. This means spending or getting 100 points means a transaction worth 1 dollar taking place. So if we were to calculate the value of 2,000 Expedia points then that would come to 20 dollars and similarly, for 4,000 points it would come to a total of 40 dollars. Let us now learn about Expedia Points Calculator.
Expedia Points Calculator
Since you now know how to use Expedia points, you need to learn to calculate such points. As stated above the value of 1 Expedia point is 1 cent so if you put that on your Expedia points calculator and start figuring out conversions then you would get 1 dollar for 100 points or vice versa. The point system remains the same no matter what you spend them on. It can be a hotel booking, cruise ticket, plane ticket, car rental, or anything else, and the 1 point is equal to 1 cent value will remain the same. To earn these points, you just have to make eligible purchases for their website or app. Earlier Expedia also came up with co-branded credit cards which as you can imagine gave you a lot of benefits and points as well but they have now been discontinued. This means the only way to earn these points is by spending money on their platform. However, using certain specific cars with specific offers can help you get added benefits or discounts on your bookings and travels. You can head to the Expedia points calculator official site where you can put in an estimated amount that you think you might spend on flights, hotel bookings, car bookings, and other activities. The calculator will use the numbers given by you and present you with an estimated point tally that you might be able to make from all the money you think you may spend on all this stuff. Let us understand this calculator with an example. Let’s say I need to spend 2 nights at a place. The flights will cost me $500, hotel reservations will be for $700, car bookings will add another $300 and the activities I will do there will cost me around $600.
As you can see from the image above, I’m eligible for blue status and I will get around 4200 Expedia Reward points if I spend the amount mentioned. This status will vary depending on how much you are spending on flights, how many nights you are staying etc. Along with Blue, Expedia also has Silver and Gold memberships with even more benefits. The points earned as shown in the Expedia points calculator will also be an estimate just like the figures you put in. If you purchase more than one item then all of it is treated as package booking. Also Read: Are Teslas Worth it? An Analysis
How many Expedia Points for a Flight?
Expedia changed its point system starting 1st February 2022. They introduced something known as the Trip Elements. Now when it comes to elements the calculation changes to the number of items used or booked. When you book a flight ticket that counts as 1 element, similarly book a car and that is another element. In the case of a cruise cabin or hotel, each night or room counts as a separate element increasing the count for you. Each element brings you varying levels of points. The points you make for booking a hotel are different from the points you make from a flight booking and below we cover the points that you stand to make from each of them. For instance, you get 1 point for every 1 dollar spent on booking car rentals, hotel stays, cruise stays, etc. If you use the mobile app for the bookings then you get 2 points for every 1 dollar that you spend. The points become 3 for every dollar spent in case you book a VIP access property. If you belong to Silver or Gold status then you get bonus points. We hope you now learned all about how to use Expedia points. We also answered questions like do Expedia points expire and showed you how you can use Expedia points calculator. So next time, when you are planning a trip, do make use of Expedia reward points and save some extra cash.
