Hotels.com gift cards can once again be combined online. I’m not sure exactly when this returned, but that’s an awesome development as it means that you can take advantage of various smaller gift card deals and combine them into a larger gift card to save on a more expensive stay.
The Deal
- You can once again combine Hotels.com gift cards via an online merge tool
- Link to Hotels.com to merge gift cards
Key Details
- You can only merge a card once
- You can merge up to 5 cards at a time
Quick Thoughts
This functionality existed for years and then it was disabled on the site a year or two ago. There was a number to call in and combine gift cards, but I got the sense from those who tried that it was a hassle.
It’s great to once again see the ability to easily merge these gift cards into one. That should open up two distinct opportunities. First, you can combine gift cards bought in multiple sales and/or with Amex Offers, Chase Offers, etc. Since we frequently see opportunities to save 10-20% on Hotels.com gift cards in the $50-$100 range, you could now pick up multiple and put them together into one larger gift card to pay for a more expensive stay.
The second benefit I see is in being able to take advantage of buying second-hand cards through sites like Raise.com. While the risk on cards like that is that they could be drained by the original owner after purchase, the ability to immediately combine a second-hand card with a primary card in your possession would mean that the original owner would no longer have access to the gift card. This could make it easier to take advantage of limited-time Raise discounts or portal increases.
However, it’s important to note that per commenters at Doctor of Credit, you can only merge a card once online. In other words, after you have merged Card A to Card B, you will not be able to merge Card B with any other cards online (you’ll have to call to do so). However, you’re able to merge 5 cards at a time online, so you can merge Card A, Card B, Card C, and Card D onto Card E as long as you have all five card numbers at once. While I think it would be better to be able to keep merging future cards to Card E, the ability to do this online at all is a nice improvement.
Overall, it’s great to see this functionality return. Note that in order to combine your cards, you’ll see the link above and then click the button that says “Balance Transfer” under the heading “Combine Multiple Cards”. From there, hit the “balance merge” button and it should be intuitive from that point on.
H/T: Doctor of Credit