Earn 75% more Avios on hotels: why we're booking through Rocketmiles, not Avios Hotels
If you want Avios from a hotel stay, the usual move is Avios Hotels. Book through it and you collect 10 Avios per pound on a standard booking, which is usually very good.
Until 15 October there's a better option. Book through Rocketmiles with a Qatar Airways Privilege Club account and you'll get a 75% Avios bonus, pushing it above the earn rate of Avios Hotels.
We've got a London hotel we need to book this month, so I ran the same room through both for the dates we need, and Rocketmiles wins by a good distance.
What is Rocketmiles?
Rocketmiles is a hotel booking site, much like Booking.com or Expedia (it's owned by the same group as Booking.com). The difference is instead of discounts or its own reward scheme, it pays you in airline miles and points.
You pick a loyalty programme when you search, and every hotel shows how many points you'll earn alongside the price. Qatar Airways Privilege Club is one of the options, which means you can earn Avios.
Two things to know before you use it:
It's a third-party booking, so if you're booking a Hilton, Marriott, Radisson etc, you won't earn your hotel points.
Points arrive after your stay, not when you book.
The 75% bonus
Qatar Airways Privilege Club members get 75% bonus Avios on eligible Rocketmiles bookings, and remember that just because your Avios are in a Qatar account doesn't mean they're stuck there. Simply transfer your Avios between your BA and Qatar accounts for free and instantly on avios.com.
Anyway, these are the dates you'll need to know:
Book by: 15 October 2026 (11:59pm Doha time, so 9:59pm UK)
Stay between: 2 October and 31 December 2026
To qualify use this Qatar landing page. Not every hotel is included, but eligible ones are marked in the search results and the bonus shows on the room rate before you pay.
You'll need a Privilege Club account, but if you don't have one, it's free to open and takes a couple of minutes.
Same room, two prices
The hotel is the Guild Hotel at Marble Arch, a Superior Double Room for two adults, one night, non-refundable rate. Not the fanciest of hotels, but it's roughly the price we want to pay for a one-night somewhat functional stay.
Avios Hotels | Rocketmiles (Qatar) | |
Price | £194.75 | £205 |
Avios earned | 1,950 | 5,250 |
Avios per £1 | 10 | 25.6 |
Cost after Avios at 1p each | £175.25 | £152.50 |
Rocketmiles is £10.25 more expensive. For that, you get 3,300 more Avios, which works out at about 0.3p per extra Avios.
We value Avios at 1p each, so that's roughly £33 of Avios for a tenner. Once you count the Avios, Rocketmiles comes out about £23 better value.
What about booking elsewhere?
Sites that pay out lots of points aren't always the cheapest, because someone has to pay for those points, and that someone is often you and I. So I checked Google for the same night.
Booking.com, Hotels.com and Expedia all came in at £205, the same as Rocketmiles, but booking direct is the real competition. The Guild's own website charges £174 for the same room on its member rate, which you get by joining Radisson Rewards for free.
Booking direct doesn't mean missing out on Avios, either. Click through to the Radisson website from the Avios eStore and you'll earn 4 Avios per £1, but only on the room price before VAT. That's about £145 of the £174, so you'll get around 580 Avios.
Because you're booking direct, you'll also earn 2,300 Radisson Rewards points on the stay, which valued at around 0.33p each, that's about £7.60 of hotel points.
So in total, booking direct costs £174 and earns 580 Avios (worth £5.80) plus 2,300 Radisson points (worth about £7.60). Take those off and the room effectively costs you £160.60.
Rocketmiles costs £205 and earns 5,250 Avios, worth £52.50. Take those off and the room costs you £152.50.
That's £8.10 in Rocketmiles' favour, even after counting everything booking direct can earn you. And that assumes you'll use the Radisson points. You're most likely here for Avios, and a small pile of Radisson points isn't worth anything if you're never going to use them. Count the Avios alone and Rocketmiles is £15.70 ahead.
We got there eventually!
Skip the "Best value for Avios!" rate
Rocketmiles will put a green banner over a second rate on the same room, labelled "Best value for Avios!". On the Guild Hotel it's £229 and earns 6,250 Avios, thanks to an extra 1,000 "boost" Avios.
That's £24 more for 1,000 Avios, meaning you're effectively buying Avios at 2.4p each, more than double what you should be aiming for.
Book the cheaper rate. That one is actually the best value.
The small print
Three bonuses per person. The 75% is capped at three bookings per Privilege Club member.
Allow two weeks after checkout for the bonus to arrive.
No retrospective bookings. If you've already booked a stay, the bonus won't apply to it.
I would usually say cancel and rebook, but they've thought about this, "Rocketmiles and Qatar Airways reserves the right to retract a bonus at any time if it detects technical errors, cancel/rebooking activity (defined by identical search criteria), or any deceptive behavior attempted to circumvent the limits expressed above", boooo.
Final thoughts
Rocketmiles won't always beat Avios Hotels on Avios earned depending on what deals are available. Nor will it always be the best value, so check Avios Hotels, Google, and the hotel's own website before you book.
An easy summary for you: take the price, knock off 1p for every Avios you'll earn, and if that's lower than the cheapest rate elsewhere, it's the better deal.
Remember, book by 15 October.
Sam
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