How to earn 5,000 Singapore Airlines, BA, Etihad or Emirates miles with your first Rocketmiles hotel stay

Every so often, there’s a generous bonus for customers of Rocketmiles, offering you 5,000 airline miles when you book a one-night hotel stay. That promotion is back, so we thought we would share the details.

How does Rocketmiles work?

Rocketmiles is an online hotel booking platform, selling rooms at hotels all around the world. Along with their hotel booking, customers can also earn miles with one of Rocketmiles’ airline partners. They include Singapore Airlines, British Airways, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, Eva Air and Malaysia Airlines (among others).

The cheapest rooms on sale offer as few as 100 miles per booking, but more expensive properties come with thousands of miles.

The downside is that, as with other online travel agency bookings, Rocketmiles stays will not usually be eligible for points in the hotel’s own loyalty scheme. Also, you are unlikely to receive status benefits at the hotel if you didn’t book directly with them (though in my experience some will honour your status perks if you make a fuss at the hotel).

5,000 bonus miles on select properties

Periodically, Rocketmiles offers a 5,000 miles or points bonus – an offer that is running at the moment.

ot every hotel will come with the bonus, and you’ll get to find out the rewards on offer at each property when you do a search on the site.

In this example, I will collect a total of 6,000 British Airways Avios (the 5,000 bonus, plus the 1,000 Avios I would usually receive for this stay):

It’s also possible to pay a higher room rate in exchange for an inflated number of miles, and Rocketmiles’ receipts don’t mention any rewards that are credited.

You generally won’t get the 5,000 bonus for cheaper stays (hotels on sale for less than USD 100 per night, or equivalent).

Our friends over at Head for Points note that it may be worth considering selecting Heathrow Rewards as your points currency, seeing as they can be transferred from there to a range of travel partners at a 1:1 transfer rate, giving you greater flexibility. Heathrow Rewards recently offered a 50% bonus when you transferred their points to Avios – meaning your points would get a valuable boost.

Its also worth playing around on the Rocketmiles website, as I noticed additional hotels on sale with the 5,000 bonus when I changed transfer partners (for example, try switching from Qatar Airways to Emirates and you may notice different results).

This offer is limited to new customers who book via this promotional page of the Rocketmiles site, and is valid until December 31, 2020.

To qualify as a new customer, you must ensure you provide an email address, transfer parter account number and a credit card number that Rocketmiles doesn’t recognise.

Summing up

There’s no guarantee that Rocketmiles is selling your chosen hotel for the best rate on the market, so you’ll need to shop carefully.

If you are happy with the price, and you can pick up a 5,000 mile bonus, this makes a lot of sense. I’m planning to sign up with Rocketmiles myself to take advantage of this promotion.

Anyone planning to use Rocketmiles for your next hotel stay?