Did you know that you can receive year-round 15% to 30% instant discounts on hotels worldwide (plus card miles/cashback) with Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) like Agoda and Expedia?
Key points to note
- Book through each partner’s dedicated links below
- Sign in to your OTA account to get additional site discounts (if any)
- Discounts are applied instantly (before taxes/fees)
- Payment has to be made through the OTA; “pay at hotel” room types do not qualify
- Pay with an eligible bank card (where applicable)
- Discount caps apply per booking, split your bookings to get around this
- No registration required
- No minimum spending
- No minimum nights (unless otherwise stated)
Most of these promotions are applicable to debit and credit cardholders of the respective banks.
Don’t have an eligible card? Check out existing sign-up bonuses to receive cash, miles and other gifts when you apply.
WARNING: Avoid insane Agoda fees
When booking through Agoda, it’s best to:
- Pay immediately at the time of booking
Do not “pay later” or “pay at hotel” to avoid insane FX fees/markups of up to 15% - Pay in SGD
Avoid insane FX fees/markups of up to 15% - Bonus: Pay with a Visa card
Mastercards come with a 1% fee, as SGD payments are processed overseas
Read more about these fees here.
Current offers
Although each offer has a “book by” date, there may be limited redemptions available, offered on a first come, first served basis.
Here’s a quick summary of the OTA partnerships offering at least 15% discount on hotel bookings right now:
| Booking Link | Instant Discount | Discount Cap per Booking | Book by |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSBC x Expedia | $100 off $400 use code: HSBC100 | – | 31 Dec 2024 (limited monthly quota) |
| HSBC x Expedia | $100 off $480 use code: HSBCWOW | – | 15 Oct – 31 Dec 2024 (limited monthly quota) |
| Citibank x Agoda | 20% | S$60 | 31 Dec 2024 |
| Maybank x Agoda | 18% | S$50 | 31 Oct 2024 |
| HSBC x Agoda | 18% | S$50 | 31 Oct 2024 |
| OCBC x Agoda | 18% | S$40 | 31 Dec 2024 |
| HSBC x Expedia | 16% use code: HSBC16 | S$50 | 31 Dec 2024 |
Don’t have any eligible cards for the above offers? Consider the following ones, available to all Mastercard debit and credit cardholders.
| Mastercard x Agoda (Mastercard World or World Elite only) | 12% | US$50 | 31 Dec 2024 |
| Mastercard x Agoda (All other Mastercards) | 10% | US$25 | 31 Dec 2024 |
Eligible hotels
Most non-chain hotels are eligible for these offers.
Click here to view the list of hotel brands that are typically excluded from these offers.
If you are looking to book a chain hotel, you can usually receive around 5 to 10% cashback when clicking through shopping portals like ShopBack or TopCashback, to the chain’s official website (e.g. ihg.com). Besides, if you hold an elite status with a hotel loyalty program, you can only receive status benefits when booking directly through official booking channels.
What about cards with bonus earn rates?
When booking a chain hotel, travellers may also receive bonus earn rates of up to 7 mpd with some Singapore credit cards, through the dedicated links below.
I only recommend this method for hotels that are excluded from the heavy, instant discounts shared above. Remember, don’t be so obsessed with miles, that you forget about value. 🙂
| Booking Link | Earn Rate |
|---|---|
| Citi PremierMiles x Agoda | 7.2 mpd |
| UOB PRVI x Agoda | 6 mpd |
| OCBC 90°N x Agoda | 6 mpd (SGD) 7 mpd (FCY) |
How to find eligible hotels
Eligible hotels on Agoda are clearly marked with a “Coupon applicable” label, as shown in the screenshot below. Discounts will be automatically applied in the payment page when you have entered your card details.
On Expedia, there is no easy way to view eligible hotels from the search results, but travellers can check if the hotel is eligible by entering the promo code at the booking page.
Best cards for online hotel bookings
It’s great to have over 15% instant discount on hotel bookings, and it’s even better to enjoy high earn rates to stack with the discount.
However, not all banks offer credit cards that come with good earn rates for online hotel bookings.
- DBS Woman’s World: 4 miles per dollar
- UOB Lady’s Card: 4 miles per dollar (Travel category must be pre-selected)
Best cards from each Singapore bank
Don’t have an eligible card to take advantage of the above offers? Here are the best overall cards from each bank (not necessarily for hotel bookings):
Best Citibank cards
Best HSBC cards
Best DBS cards
Best Standard Chartered card
Best OCBC card
Best Maybank cards
Best UOB cards
Can you find rates cheaper than these Bank x OTA deals?
Booking a hotel through one of the above offers gives you the best rates, in most cases. However, sometimes, travellers may find even lower rates elsewhere.
Once you’ve seen a hotel that you like, it’s a good idea to compare the hotel’s discounted rate on other platforms like Google Hotels and Trivago.
These deals are best for busy travellers who want to book their hotels quick, knowing that they would pay close to the lowest possible rates, if not the lowest.
Bottom line
Getting 15% to 25% discount plus credit card miles/cashback on hotels all year long is fantastic. These deals should be the first that you look at, when booking a non-chain hotel. In fact, you can even apply these discounts to some apartments that are also listed on Airbnb.
Getting to apply a discount instantly makes these deals even sweeter, as you do not need to wait for cashback or pray that a certain hotel that you’ve booked is “eligible”.
HSBC will be nerfing the Revolution card so OTAs will no longer earn 4mpd on hotel bookings from January 2024 (reported by Milelion).
Another point to note, when booking on Agoda with Mastercards (tested with the UOB Lady’s card), you’ll be charged at additional 1% fee. It’s abit insidious because at the point of booking, the pending charge may not show the 1% fee, but eventually the final charge will include a 1% fee.
If you book with Agoda and opt for the pay later deal, I would like to caution you to think twice. When I booked my Tokyo hotel on May 4 for ¥25920, Agoda stated that “You will be charged the SGD equivalent of JPY 25,920 on Thursday, October 26, 2023, using Agoda’s currency exchange rate under our Terms of Use”
I was shocked that I was charged SGD275 when the prevailing credit card exchange rate was S$243.
Agoda has yet to give me an answer for the exorbitant exchange rate.
That’s awful. Thanks for sharing. Will leave a note in the article.
I had a similar experience with Agoda, so this is not an isolated incident.
I think “Citi Rewards” won’t provide 4 mpd for travel-related bookings, so maybe it’s not a good choice here. Is my understanding correct?
That is right. The list above consists of the best cards of each bank, not the best cards from each bank for hotel bookings.
but Citi premier provide 1sgd = 7miles for agoda
Through a dedicated link, yes. However, >15% discount beats 7 mpd any day. 😛 Plus, you’d still get miles from certain cards, on top of the discount.
“Did you know that you can receive year-round 15% to 25% instant discounts on hotels worldwide (plus card miles/cashback)”
You can get both creditcard discount and cashback? 😮
Unionpay has a promo with Agoda – https://www.unionpayintl.com/sg/info/
15% off capped at SGD 60 per transaction. Booking Period: Now till 31 December 2023 Stay Period: Now till 30 June 2024
HSBC has a 20% off promo with Agoda until the end of 2023: https://cardpromotions.hsbc.com.sg/travel/agoda-staycations
The booking period ended last month. Only 7% for worldwide hotel bookings now. But I’m sure we’ll see another one soon!
Thanks, I didn’t realise the booking period and the effective period are actually different!
HSBC now has 16% off for Singapore hotels (Discount capped at SGD80 per booking, for the first 50 bookings per month), and 7% off for worldwide hotels – not enticing to make the list.