Best Hotel Promos with Singapore Cards (Jan 2025)

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:

1. 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%}
2. Pay in SGD
   ^{Avoid insane FX fees/markups of up to 15%}
3. 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:

Don’t have any eligible cards for the above offers? Consider the following ones, available to all Mastercard debit and credit cardholders.

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 7.2 miles per dollar with some Singapore credit cards, through the dedicated links below.

But these deals should only be treated as a last resort — when you can’t take advantage of other offers shared above. This is because, hotel rates through these links are inflated, and bonus miles may not be awarded automatically. Cardholders should monitor if the bonus miles are awarded correctly and call the bank to “investigate” each transaction. Way too much work for just an okay value, if you ask me.

I only recommend this method for hotels that are excluded from receiving the instant discounts shared above (mostly chain hotels). But keep in mind that chain hotels are often cheaper when booked directly with the loyalty program, plus, indirect bookings do not get to enjoy loyalty perks and points.

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 in SGD.

Here are your best options:

• 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? Find out the best cards from each bank (not necessarily for hotel bookings):

• Best Citibank cards
• Best HSBC cards
• Best UOB cards
• Best DBS cards
• Best Maybank cards
• Best Standard Chartered cards
• Best Trust cards
• Best AMEX cards
• Best OCBC 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”.