# How free nights are redeemed at hotels.com?

Once you stay for 10 nights with hotels.com you get 1 free night.

However, how exactly does it work? Do you just pay for taxes? Or does redeemable value covers just part of the price? Or have limits for certain hotels?

For example, I saw some hotels that are over 900 (in Las Vegas) and that are still redeemable. Do it mean that hotels.com covers $900… and you pay taxes? seems kind of hard to believe. ## 1 Answer It's pretty well explained on the hotels.com website. For each night you book, they record how much that night was. Once you've hit 10 nights, you can book a hotel night for free for the average rate of those 10 nights. If the hotel you want to book is cheaper than the average, it's completely free, but you loose the extra. If you want to book a hotel that's more expensive than the average of your 10 nights, you have to pay the difference It's all done on excluding-tax prices, and you can't put your free night costs towards taxes. So, if your average rate is$75, and the hotel you want is $70 +$10 taxes, if you redeemed for that you'd have have pay the full $10 in taxes, and you'd "loose" the final$5 of your free night.

If you log into their website, it'll show you how many nights you've done towards your 10, and the average rate for them. You'll see something a bit like this, with all the details quite clearly explained:

• And what happens if you don't redeem after 10 nights, but continue just booking normally? Do the nights accumulate up to 20, where you can redeem two? Does the average continue to be recalculating? When you try to redeem, will the system allow you to choose which 10 nights you want to count? I am asking because I am traveling and I must buy the 11th night while staying through the 10th. The system just doesn't let me yet use the pending 10th night for redemption towards the 11th. – mathreader Oct 30 '16 at 11:04
• You don't get the free night until a few days after the completion of night #10, so you have to save it for another booking. If you keep booking, it should start earning a second night with the average just on nights 11-20, the free night is "banked" at the average of those first 10 nights – Gagravarr Oct 30 '16 at 15:44