PointsHound Becomes Rocketmiles

PointsHound has been sending out emails to its customers that they should use Rocketmiles from now on.

PointsHounds has been part of Points.com (the company that handles many miles & points sales), while Rocketmiles is part of Booking.com. Both companies started as independent outlets in the early 2010s.

Here’s a copy of the email that PointsHound/Rocketmiles sent:

PointsHound website:

Points.com and Rocket Travel announced last year that PointsHound would become a white label product of Rocketmiles, but something must have changed since late November when they released the following announcement:

Rocket Travel, a Booking Holdings Company, and Points International Will Enhance Travel Booking Experience for Loyalty Members with New Partnership

Points will leverage Rocket Travel’s loyalty travel booking technology for its Points Travel deployments

TORONTO, Nov. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The global leader in powering loyalty commerce, Points International Ltd. (NASDAQ:PCOM) (TSX:PTS), will collaborate with the industry-leading provider of bespoke white-labelled travel booking platforms, Rocket Travel, Inc., a Booking Holdings Company (NASDAQ: BKNG), to enhance the overall booking experience offered to its roster of Loyalty Program partners.

As part of the collaboration agreement, Rocket Travel’s best-in-class white-label loyalty hotel and car booking services will replace the services currently provided by the Points Travel solutions while still leveraging Points’ Loyalty Commerce Platform capabilities. In addition, pointshound.com will become a Rocketmiles.com channel provider, enabling accelerated rewards with even more worldwide loyalty partners in a streamlined user journey.

Bart Welch, CEO of Rocket Travel, commented on the news: “We are thrilled to expand Rocket’s global reach by collaborating with Points and working with their partners. We’ve long admired the capabilities of their Loyalty Commerce Platform and are confident that complementing it with Rocket Travel’s white-label travel solution will create significant value for Points partners and their customers.”

Points’ loyalty program partners and their members will continue to enjoy a robust travel booking platform and leading user experience, while benefiting from an unmatched breadth of hotel and car inventory backed by Booking Holdings’ worldwide network and Rocket’s leading full service, white-label travel booking platform. Points will continue to manage the loyalty program relationships and process the miles and points portion of each transaction.

Christopher Barnard, President and Co-Founder of Points, also welcomed the news: “We are excited to launch this new initiative with Rocket. Establishing a robust travel services offering with clear industry leaders allows us to continue building on our deep and long-standing loyalty program relationships as well as the unique transaction capabilities of our Loyalty Commerce Platform. Seamlessly combining these with Rocket’s leading white-label travel booking offering will significantly add to the value we bring to our current and future loyalty program partners.”

Rocket Travel and Points are committed to seeking additional opportunities to more effectively serve their respective loyalty partners and members by complementing one another’s offerings and core competencies.

For more information on how Points can help loyalty programs unlock their full potential, visit Points.com.

Conclusion

EDIT: Points.com has been downsizing lately; it sold Aeroplan back to Air Canada and Club Premier back to AeroMexico. This part was my mistake, as I confused Aimia and Points.com, which are two different companies, both based in Canada.

They must have sold PointsHound to Rocket Travel or its parent Booking.com, but I have not been able to find a press release about it.

I have used these three services of Rocketmiles, PointsHounds, and Kaligo once or twice each, years ago when they have run signup or other promotions.

The issue is that these stays are never qualifying for loyalty program benefits, points, or stay credits. Also, the price is sometimes inflated to account for the miles awarded for the stay (a big no-no for me but perhaps works for those on expense accounts).