Independent Hotel (i.e. Not Chain) Booking Options for Maximum Perks / Cashback / etc.

I thought it might be useful to have a central repository of hotel booking options for those rare occasions when a chain hotel isn't available and you need to choose between a few independent hotels.

1. Hotels.com - you can either chose 10+% cashback or low cashback and the 11th night free Welcome Rewards.

2. Rocketmiles / Kaligo / Pointshound - inflated room rates but earn miles

3. Booking.com - sign up bonus (£15) and the occasional promotion on top?

4. Lufthansa M&M Hotel Booking - earn miles. Occasional promos. Inflated rates?


Hoping you guys have some other ideas I've not come across or have forgotten about...

 

I tend to use Agoda PointsMax for Asia hotels

If you collect star alliance miles you can collect them for Agean and TAP victoria via booking.com on the relevant airline portal

 

Great idea!

RocketMiles signup bonuses can be excellent (and remember you can transfer Miles to whoever you want...)

The Miles&More hotel portal can be good sometimes, 5k+ Miles first time bonus pops up fairly frequently.

I earned a decent stack of FlyingBlue Miles (basically worth more than what I paid for my hotel) from a Pointshound promo last year, so keep an eye on the bonuses there.

Hotels.com is very solid, but always worth comparing against the cashback for other sites.

SLH and LHW have some interesting properties and loyalty schemes (not technically independent I guess, but the hotels are).

Virtuoso travel agents (and/or Amex FHR if you have a Plat) can get some excellent deals on high-end places.

That's it off the top of my head, but I'll add more as and when I think of them

 

Very interesting - it's one I remember looking at a while ago and then not properly following up on for some reason. As an aside, are TAP Victoria Miles worth looking into? (I know Aegean can be great!)

 

Last time I checked TAP had BY FAR the worst reward chart of a European Star Alliance carrier. But maybe I'm missing something like potentially low surcharges since I never took it further...

 

Interesting. Are Agoda rates inflated when you choose to earn miles?