Earn Miles on Booking.com – The Best Booking.com Airline Partnerships

Recently, my favorite hotel booking platform, booking.com, has started partnering with different Airline Loyalty Brands to offer you the chance to earn miles on hotel bookings made through booking.com via their booking.com airline partnerships.

How It Works

With Booking.com alliances, you have to book through a specific airline-partnership link. I’ve linked each of the programs below. The offer works on every booking on booking.com. You also receive any benefits that you may have through booking.com, such as genius discounts. On even the most budget rooms, you will earn miles. You will also be quoted the exact same price as a normal search on booking.com.

Once you click on the partnership link, be sure to log in to your booking.com profile to also earn booking.com rewards and discounts through their Genius Program. On the last stage of each booking, you will be asked to add your loyalty number for the program that you have chosen. You will then be credited the miles after your stay.

All Direct Booking.com Airline Partnerships

Use the direct links below to enter the booking portal. Be sure to click directly on the link, as you must purchase through the link to be eligible for miles.

Qatar Airways Privilege Club – 3 Avios for every $1

Iberia Plus – 3 Avios for every 1 €

Turkish Airways Miles and Smiles – 2 Miles for every 1€

Air France/KLM Flying Blue – 2 Flying Blue Miles for every 1€

Aegean Miles + Bonus – 2 Miles for every 1€

TAP Airlines Miles and Go– 2 Miles for every 1€

Etihad Airways Guest Program – Up to 6 Guest Miles for every $1 (most budget hotels are 3 miles/$1)

Lufthansa Miles and More – 1 Award Mile for every 1€

Saudia Airlines – 1 mile for every 3 SAR spent ($0.80)

LATAM– 3 miles for every $1

Korean Air – 2 Miles for every $1

EVA– 1 mile for every 25 TWD ($0.77)

Kuwait Airways Oasis Club– 2 Oasis Club Points for every $1

Through independent portals:

A few other airlines offer Avios through Booking.com, but they have to be booked through their own shopping portal.

Aer Lingus – 6 Avios for every 1€
Virgin Atlantic – 5 miles for 1 £
American Airlin es – 1.5 miles for every $1
Emirates Skywards – 1 mile for every 1 Euro (must be logged into Skywards account to see)

How Do I Pick Which Airline to Book With?

For beginners at redeeming miles, I reccomend crediting your account to a very flexible. I personally find that I have the best redemption deals on Qatar Airways or KLM/Air France Flying Blue. They have a lot of partners, and have affordable redemption rates for flights all around the world.

Additionally, Avios from Aer Lingus AerClub, British Airways Executive Club, Finnair Plus, Iberia Plus, Qatar Privilege Club, and Vueling Club can all be transferred between accounts.

For more information for miles, I reccomend checking out the free course from 10X Travel, which teaches you the basics of mile earning and redemption. It is what taught me everything when I first started using miles!

Otherwise, pick the airline that you travel with the most. Do not choose to earn miles on EVA Air, for instance, unless you live in Taiwan and travel with them frequently.

Is Booking.com the Best Way to Earn Airline Miles on Hotels?

There are a few ways to earn airline loyalty miles while booking:

Through the airlines’s travel portal
Through a credit card travel portal (ie Capital One or Amex)

However, both of these options have significantly fewer hotel options than booking.com. They are often considerably more expensive. There are very few low and mid-budget options on credit card or airline travel portals.

Let’s say you did want to book on AMEX travel portal with an AMEX branded card. Booking there, you would receive 5 AMEX points per dollar spent. This may be a good deal if you know you want to book a luxury hotel stay. However, on booking.com, you may receive 20%+ discount if you are a member of their Genius program, plus you will have hundreds more hotels to choose from, including an entirely new range of budget hotels.

Before, you typically had to choose whether you wanted to splurge on expensive hotel stays in order to earn miles. Otherwise, you had to book through booking.com or another hotel portal for a cheaper room, but forgo the option to earn airline miles. Now you can earn airline miles, even on the cheapest hotel stays!

For me, the miles to money ratio of earning airline points through booking.com makes it worth it. I can still book budget rooms, but I can also work towards redeeming free flights for miles.

Comparison between Amex Travel Portal and Etihad Partnership on Booking.com

For this comparison, I have chosen to look the same room that my husband and I stayed at in Reykjavik, Iceland – Thingholt By CenterHotels. I entered the same nights stay and looked for the same room (Junior Suite, non-refundable)

On the AMEX portal, a non-refundable junior suite costs $407 per night. If I were to book it using my AMEX card, I would earn 2035 miles. If I later wanted to transfer these miles to book with Etihad.com, they would transfer at a 1:1 rate, so I would earn 2035 Etihad Miles for my stay.

On the other hand, if I book with the Etihad and booking.com alliance, the room only costs $383 per night and it earns me 2298 Etihad Guest Miles. In this case, I would earn more miles for less money if I was looking to specifically gain Etihad Guest Miles.

Additionally, if I wanted to book lower cost accomodation, there were no options that cost below $200 on the Amex Portal for this search On the other hand, there were many budget options on booking.com that I could use to also earn miles.

In general, booking through an airline or hotel loyalty program may be best for luxury or expensive stays, but booking.com still remains my top choice for all budget bookings!

Can I Earn Through Other Airlines?

It is important to note that the booking program is more limited than credit card miles points. You will only be earning for specific airlines, and you cannot transfer these points to other airline’s redemption portals and accounts.

At the moment, only the airlines listed above have agreements with booking.com. I reccomend picking a favorite airline of these three to begin crediting to your account with. The miles that you earn can then be used to book future flights with these airlines.

Important Things to Note about Booking.com Airline Partnerships

At the end of each booking page, there will be an option to add in your loyalty number for the airline that you are booking with. This is essential to ensure that you miles will be credited to your account. After you have completed your booking, the miles will show up in your account within 50 days!