Hotel Engine has shut down it’s consumer website, this bonus is no longer possible!
This post contains a referral link. If you use our link you will receive a $25 credit on sign up, we will also receive a $25 credit after you make your first hotel booking. We appreciate you using our links whenever possible.
Hotel Engine looks to be a new hotel booking website, similar to sites such as Agoda, Booking.com and others. To help get more people to use their website they are offering $25 in free credit when you sign up for an account. The credit is applied instantly on sign up and can be used straight away, you can apply the discount to your first hotel booking to reduce the room rate accordingly. You must use a referral link to get this $25 in free credit, otherwise you’ll only receive a $5 credit. It’s important to note that the person that refers you will also receive a $25 credit after your first booking is made.
At the moment they seem to only have hotels located in the United States, I was planning on using my $25 credit towards a relatively cheap nights stay for an upcoming trip to Bangkok but unfortunately I won’t be able to do this. When looking at different hotel booking sites, being able to use the site internationally would be right at the top of my list.
I found the site to be quite cumbersome, sometimes they’ll show a footer with links to more detailed information about the website and other times they don’t. Sometimes they’ll show the header bar with your account information (including how much you have in member rewards) and other times they don’t. Hint: If you redirect back to the referral page (e.g hotelengine.com/r/will) it should show this again.
There are some advantages to this site though:
- 5% cash back on all bookings, some hotels also have a 2x symbol which means that those properties earn 10% cash back (although it seems as if they have a tiered system in the past where you only earned up to 3x cash back)
- No booking fees
- Each hotel is given a walk score
There are also some disadvantages:
- Only has hotels in the United States
- Best rate guarantee sucks. If you find a better rate somewhere else, they’ll match it. Sorry, but if I find a better rate somewhere else I’m going to book it elsewhere just so I don’t have to deal with filing a BRG. At least offer a discount/free night.
Our Verdict
I decided to do a search for hotels in NYC on September 2nd for one night and then compared it to existing hotel booking websites out there.
| Number Of Properties | Cheapest Property | Most Expensive Property | |
| Hotel Engine | 222 | $85 | $1,096 |
| Agoda | 452 (344 with availability) | $38 | $1,095 |
| Booking.com | 725 (485 available) | $48 | $1,095 |
As you can see, there seems to be more choices with other hotel booking websites and the prices are also cheaper.  This is definitely not going to be my hotel booking portal of choice any time soon, it doesn’t have any differentiating features to separate it from the rest of the hotel booking sites out there. That said I’d recommend signing up for an account now, that way if you have a relatively cheap hotel stay you can use the credit towards it to help offset the cost.
Expect to see a lot more written about Hotel Engine in the coming days/weeks, just keep in mind the $25 referral bonus being offered. Don’t feel obliged to use my link, feel free to use either of the sites listed as a hat tip or alternatively you can start a conga line in the comments section below (if you do share your link, you must provide something of a value – e.g a cheap hotel that is available or something that I overlooked in this review).
If you would like to use our link, here it is:Â http://hotelengine.com/r/will
Hat tip to Extreme Hotel Deals Via Miles To Memories
did someone get the $25 referral bonuses ?
I’ve received some, they don’t come through until a stay is completed though (e.g booking doesn’t trigger the bonus, it’s after stay is completed).
Thanks for the information.
How long does it take after the completed stay, till they come through?
Not sure as I never know when people’s stays are.
I just signed up using your referral link. Do you know how soon you’ll receive the $25 bonus after I book a room?
I ask because I had my wife sign up for an account using my referral link, and I would like to book a 2-night stay and get $75 off the total (her $25, plus my $25 from your link and another $25 from the referral to my wife).
No idea how quickly the $25 posts. I haven’t had any $25 bonuses post yet, but I don’t know if that’s because nobody has actually booked a hotel room or not yet.
Just read through the site’s FAQs. It looks like the $25 referral bonuses post after that person has completed his/her stay. So look out for the $25 from me after the first weekend in October!
Ah, thanks for the heads up Dan. I was wondering why nothing had posted yet even though lots of people had booked properties already. Thanks for using my link. I’m going to talk to the guys at hotel engine and see if it’s possible to give away my credit to my readers some how.
I joined yesterday and here’s my link:
http://hotelengine.com/r/elainep
What I couldn’t find is how long the $25 can sit in your account. Does anyone know? That would be a useful piece of info with which to update the above. Thanks.
No expiration date on your $25 or any money earned through the reward program.
I agree that this site has a long way to go. Being able to use the credit with no minimums is a good deal though. As usual, it can be one of many tools used when booking hotels, but there is a lot of competition.