Online travel agencies (OTAs) like Expedia provide a reliable source of bookings, bringing more visibility to your property than you could reach alone. While many travelers prefer to book direct, others choose to use trusted OTA sites to compare prices and book travel because of the convenience and perks OTAs offer, including loyalty programs.

Expedia Group’s loyalty program members gain access to member prices and earn Expedia Rewards points on each purchase, whether that’s a hotel, flight, rental car, activity, or package. Points can be redeemed across the board too—not just for stays. That’s an attractive incentive.

Expedia Group member travelers tend to spend more, stay longer, and book more often than non-members. You can target these high-value guests by using Members Only promotions to offer exclusive deals to over 100 million members across all Expedia Group sites.

Drive ROI with Expedia Members Only Promotions

According to Expedia Group research, travelers are greatly motivated by discounts as travel rebounds.

• 65% of travelers said they use a pricing filter when searching on a travel booking website.
  
• A room discount would make 50% of travelers more likely to book an extra night.
  
• 30% of travelers contemplating their first trip after the global pandemic will consider promotions and discounts when choosing their lodging options.

While travelers are hunting for discounts, it is more important than ever to design a promotional strategy that delivers a strong return on your investment. Using a Members Only promotion is a great way to target your promotional offer to high-value guests (frequent travelers who stay longer) and improve your visibility in search.

Target high-value guests

Expedia Group members, on average, book twice as many nights and spend twice as much as non-members. These guests typically drive more total revenue through higher ancillary spending—and they travel more frequently too. Over 60% of travelers in Expedia Group loyalty programs stated that they expect to travel several times a year.

Increasing your ratio of high-value guests helps you to improve profits and earn loyal guests.

Stand out in search results

Members Only promotions receive an exclusive badge that helps you stand out in traveler searches. Drawing more eyes to your listing (and away from your competitors), the Members Only badge brings additional visibility to your property—among both members and non-members searching on Expedia Group sites.

How to Run an Expedia Members Only Promotion

It’s easy to set up a Members Only deal in Expedia Partner Central. There are three ways to integrate Members Only promotions into your Expedia promotional strategy:

1. Create a new Members Only promotion
   When creating a promotion, you can choose your audience, the minimum length of stay, and booking window restrictions to maximize returns. You can even limit your audience to members searching from specific countries or using mobile devices.
   
2. Add a Members Only deal on top of an existing promotion
   Make an existing promotion even sweeter with an additional discount for members.
   
3. Apply Members Only discounts to all existing promotions
   Offer members a better deal on all your rates by stacking an extra discount across the board.

Managing Expedia Rates and Promotions with WebRezPro

Managing your Expedia inventory and reservations is much easier when your Expedia account is integrated with your WebRezPro property management system. 

If your integration supports a two-way connection, WebRezPro sends pricing and inventory updates directly to Expedia, and Expedia delivers reservations (and modifications) straight to WebRezPro. Even a one-way connection saves time; while automatic pricing and inventory updates are not supported, the integration delivers Expedia reservations directly to WebRezPro so that you don’t have to enter them manually.

In either case, it’s important that your Expedia rate plans and room types are correctly mapped in WebRezPro to ensure Expedia bookings are attached to the correct rate plan in WebRezPro. (Whenever you make changes to your rate plans within Expedia Partner Central, please contact WebRezPro Support, so we can update your mapping.)

When adding a promotion (such as a Members Only discount) on top of an existing rate or promotion in Expedia, re-mapping is not required—as long as the base rate plan remains unchanged. Expedia bookings on promotional rates will come into WebRezPro with the appropriate discount applied to the mapped rate plan.

While promotions are set up in Expedia Partner Central, the WebRezPro connection allows you to view your Expedia promotions within WebRezPro, so you can review your Expedia strategy at any time without having to log in to Partner Central. 

If you have any questions about your WebRezPro-Expedia mapping, please don’t hesitate to contact WebRezPro Support.

If you haven’t yet connected your Expedia account to your WebRezPro PMS and would like to learn more about how this integration can help save time, avoid double bookings, and increase revenue, your WebRezPro account executive can help!