Earn 5% Cash-Back and Hotel Points With This Gondola Status Challenge

You know the deal: Generally, booking hotels through a third-party online travel agency like Expedia or Priceline means you won’t earn hotel points or be able to use your elite status benefits. There’s a handful of exceptions like American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts, but these are typically limited to high-end hotels.

But that’s changed with Gondola (also called Gondola.ai or Gondola AI). This free multifaceted points and miles tool has a handful of tricks up its sleeve, like giving you a dashboard to view your current points balances and how much they’re worth. However, one of Gondola’s more interesting features lies in its hotel booking platform.

With every reservation you book through Gondola, you earn cash-back toward a future stay. Plus, you’re still entitled to your elite status benefits and will earn hotel points, so it’s a win-win in most cases.

The standard cash-back rate is 3% on most stays, but we’ll show you how to earn a higher 5% back for a year.

Let’s look at how to earn cash-back on your hotel stays by booking through Gondola.

How To Earn 5% Cash-Back on Hotel Stays With Gondola AI

Gondola has several interesting features for travelers, from a points management dashboard to trip-building tools. In this article, we’ll focus on booking hotels through the platform and how to use it to earn up to 5% cash-back on all hotel stays.

Sign up for Gondola

Unlike booking through an online travel agency like Orbitz, booking through Gondola is treated like a direct booking. You’ll earn hotel points and get all the elite status benefits you’re entitled to, like upgrades and complimentary breakfast. Plus, you’ll earn 3% cash-back on your stay, giving you a way to triple-dip rewards on your stay.

However, if you sign up through our link, you can enroll in a free status challenge that gives you 5% cash-back on your Gondola hotel bookings for 1 year. After you sign up, enroll in the challenge by clicking the 30 Day Status Challenge button at the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

Then you’ll be eligible to earn 5% cash-back for 30 days. To extend the promotional rate, just book 3 hotel stays within 30 days of signing up (for travel anytime), and you’ll unlock a 5% earning rate for a full year.

Cash-back earned with Gondola doesn’t expire. It’s stored in your account and can be used toward future hotel stays. This earning rate applies to all hotels booked through the service, regardless of brand affiliation, and it also applies to independent hotels.

Booking Your Hotel With Gondola

Booking a hotel through Gondola is remarkably easy. Go to the website, sign in to your account, and you’ll be directed to the Search tab. Here, you’ll be shown a handful of recommended hotels alongside their cash and points prices.

If you already have a destination in mind, look at the top of the screen to find the search menu. Here, you can input your destination and travel dates. Click the bronze search button to see available hotels.

You’ll see hotel search results at the center of the screen, with a map view on the right-hand side. The filtering options at the top of the screen let you search by loyalty program, price, room type, and more. You can customize your search using the Sort & Compare drop-down menu.

Click on a hotel for more details and your total earnings, which are calculated based on the credit card points, hotel points, and Gondola cash-back you’ll earn. You can add your hotel loyalty programs and credit cards to Gondola under the Points tab, and Gondola will automatically calculate your earnings.

Then, scroll down to view available room types and their nightly rates. You can book most published rates — the ones you see on the hotel’s website — through Gondola, but you cannot book corporate rates through Gondola. Your Gondola cash-back earnings are displayed below the nightly rate.

Select the rate you’d like to book and follow the on-screen instructions to finalize your room. Once booked, you should see your booking in your hotel loyalty program account, and you can check in as you would with any other hotel booking.

Should You Book Hotels Through Gondola?

Booking hotel rooms through Gondola is, in most cases, a win-win for travelers. It lets you triple-dip your earnings — you earn credit card points, hotel points, and Gondola cash-back. And since you can book refundable rates through the platform, you’re not losing any flexibility.

That said, there are 2 main things to consider before you book a hotel room with Gondola. First, you can’t book corporate or other special discounted rates. This could negate Gondola cash-back earnings, as some corporate rates you may be eligible for often save more than 5% on your nightly rate.

The second thing to consider is that you cannot use a shopping portal when you book your hotel room. Some hotel groups like Marriott, Choice, Hilton, and IHG are on these portals, wherein you can earn bonus cash-back, points, or miles when you click through the portal before you book.

In some cases — often during promotions — this might beat Gondola’s promotional 5% cash-back. However, it’s worth noting that Hyatt isn’t on shopping portals, so Gondola is one of the few ways beyond direct bookings to earn bonus rewards with this hotel group.

Run the numbers before booking hotels through Gondola. In most cases, booking through the service is a good deal, as you still earn credit card and hotel points, plus up to 5% cash-back towards a future hotel stay. On the flip side, you may be unable to take advantage of corporate rates or shopping portals, but this might not be an issue depending on the hotel you’re booking.

Final Thoughts

Gondola’s hotel booking platform makes it easy to triple-stack rewards when you stay at a hotel. You earn with your credit card, hotel loyalty program, and Gondola. The service typically awards 3% cash back toward future reservations, but if you sign up through our link and book 3 rooms in your first 30 days, you can lock in a 5% cash-back earning rate for a year.