Update: One or more card offers in this post are no longer available. Check our Hot Deals for the latest offers.
Whenever I see advertised hotel discounts I am always skeptical. Those promotional emails you get showing steep discounts are almost always a complete joke. But this time around, these discounts seem to be legit!
This week Google launched their Google One service. It’s just a different name for what was Google Drive. But as a traveler interested in saving some cash, you might want to check out the paid version of this service. Google is advertising 15% to 40% off hotels for a paying Google One member and booking your hotel through Google.
Google One Hotel Discounts
The first thing you’ll have to do is pay for a Google One subscription. The cheapest plan is ~$2 a month for 100 gigabytes of storage.
Then you’ll need to search for hotels through Google. Make sure you’re signed into your Google account when you do this and look for “Google One member price” not the “DEAL” discount that is listed for some hotels.
Here are the results for 3 Google One member discounts I found. These prices do not include taxes & fees. And remember, because the Google One discounts are through a subscription service, they won’t be eligible for a price match guarantee.
Crown Plaza Chicago West Loop
Google One member discount: $88
Hotel’s website: ~$100
Priceline: $88 (after signing into your account $103 before signing in)
Hotels.com: $103
Regent Hotel Singapore
Google One member discount: $133
Hotel’s website: $210
Priceline: $209
Hotels.com: $210
YOTEL New York
Google One member discount price: $57
Hotel’s website: $98
Priceline: $98
Hotels.com: $98
This is a small sample size, but it does look like Google’s One member prices can offer significant discounts. But you’ll also want to factor in what you’ll be giving up. You likely won’t earn hotel points or be able to take advantage of any hotel elite status benefits you may have. And when you’re booking through a 3rd-party site, like Google, your stay isn’t likely to qualify for most hotel promotions.
These discounts are good enough that they’ll be worth looking into for a lot of you. You can easily pay for a year or 2 of your Google One membership with the savings from just 1 or 2 nights booked at the One member price.
The biggest drawback, in my opinion, is that you most likely won’t find a One member price for the hotel you want to stay at.
I couldn’t find a super easy way to search for these prices other than scrolling through the list of hotels that Google brings up. If you click “Deals” in the top menu area, you can at least eliminate all the hotels that have no sale at all. You’ll then just see the One member price and the DEAL prices.
If you’re not interested in hotel elite status and you want big savings at just about any hotel, you can pay with your Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card or Capital One® VentureOne® Rewards Credit Card (you must book through this link) and earn 10 Venture miles per $1 you spend on Hotels.com. This deal is valid until January 31, 2020.
You can redeem Venture miles for 1 cent each as a statement credit toward travel purchases, so you’ll earn 10% back without the hassle of being limited to the hotels Google chooses to discount. Plus, this deal stacks with the Hotels.com rewards program. So you can get every 10th night booked through Hotels.com free on top of the 10 Venture miles per $1.
Have you looked into these Google One deals? Let me know what you think in the comments!
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