The following is a sponsored post by OCBC Bank. The opinions remain those of The Milelion |
Travel with OCBC is OCBC’s newly-launched travel platform, allowing customers to book air tickets, hotels and rental cars with their OCBC rewards points or credit/debit cards.
I’ve already covered some fantastic opportunities to book Business Class tickets with Travel$ and VOYAGE Miles (Business Class to Europe for <90,000 miles!), and in this post I’ll go over some Black Friday hotel deals offered on Travel with OCBC.
Booking hotels on Travel with OCBC
Travel with OCBC |
Travel with OCBC offers hotel bookings at more than 550,000 properties worldwide. All bookings must be made at least two days in advance, and before searching, be sure to login to your OCBC internet banking account. This allows you to access cheaper rates that can’t be publicly displayed (it also means you won’t be able to use Travel with OCBC rates as the basis for a Best Rate Guarantee claim, since they’re not publicly viewable).
To illustrate the rates you might find, I did a search for a weekend staycation in January on Travel with OCBC, and compared the results with Kayak (a meta search engine which checks numerous booking sites).
Here’s the properties where Travel with OCBC offered cheaper rates- there are of course instances where competitor sites are cheaper, so be sure to do your comparison shopping.
Hotel | Travel with OCBC | Cheapest Competitor | Diff. |
PARKROYAL COLLECTION Marina Bay | S$304 | S$340 | 11% |
Ritz-Carlton Millenia | S$516 | S$530 | 3% |
St. Regis Singapore | S$370 | S$418 | 11% |
Fullerton Hotel | S$476 | S$601 | 21% |
Four Seasons Singapore | S$381 | S$424 | 10% |
Clan Hotel | S$322 | S$381 | 15% |
Hotel Vagabond | S$317 | S$324 | 2% |
To sweeten the deal further, Travel with OCBC is offering further promo codes for bookings, plus upsized miles/points with OCBC credit cards.
Promo codes
Black Friday: Save S$80 off a min. spend of S$250
To mark Black Friday, Travel with OCBC is offering S$80 off a minimum spend of S$250 on hotels, flights or car rentals with the promo code Ocbc80. This is valid for the first 300 customers or until 6 December 2021, whichever comes first.
First Purchase: Save S$60 off a min. spend of S$400
If you miss out on the Black Friday promotion, you can still save S$60 off a minimum spend of S$400 on hotels, flights or car rentals with the code TRAVEL60. This is valid for your first-ever booking on Travel with OCBC, and for avoidance of doubt, cannot be stacked with the Black Friday promo code.
This offer is available until 31 January 2022.
Earn up to 8 mpd on Travel with OCBC bookings
From now till 15 January 2022, OCBC cardholders who book hotels, flights or car rentals via Travel with OCBC will earn up to 8 mpd as follows:
Card | Earn Rate | Cap |
8 mpd | S$1,000 (first 5K cardmembers) T&Cs |
|
3 mpd | S$1,000 (first 1.2K cardmembers) T&Cs |
|
4 mpd | S$1,000 (first 1K cardmembers) T&Cs |
|
4 mpd | S$1,000 (first 500 cardmembers) T&Cs |
The earn rate applies to the cash portion of your booking. For example, if you paid for your booking with S$100 and 2,000 Travel$, you’d earn 3-8 mpd (depending on card) on the S$100 portion.
All stays, flights and car rentals must be completed by 30 June 2022, and bonus Travel$/OCBC$/VOYAGE Miles will be credited up to two months after booking completion.
Important things to note about booking
Travel with OCBC works slightly differently from traditional OTAs, and as such, there’s a few important points to take note of:
- No changes can be made to hotel bookings, even if flexible. The only way to change a booking is to cancel it and book again
- A service fee of 2.5% applies to all cancellations, even if flexible
- However, there is no service fee for bookings made through the OCBC Pay Anyone mobile app. You can use your OCBC credit card through the app, and earn miles/points as per normal (including the bonus miles/points mentioned in the previous section)
tl;dr: if you plan to use Travel with OCBC, use OCBC Pay Anyone to check-out.
Do note that bookings made through Travel with OCBC are considered third-party bookings, and hence will not be eligible to earn hotel points or enjoy elite benefits (though these may sometimes be extended on a goodwill basis).
Conclusion
Travel with OCBC offers competitive rates for hotel bookings (don’t forget to login to your account to see the best deals), with the opportunity for further savings through promo codes and upsized miles and points on your OCBC credit card.
Whether you’re planning a VTL trip or just your next staycation, be sure to check it out.
Travel with OCBC is developed, operated, and maintained by a third party provider. All products and services made available through Travel with OCBC are provided by third party providers. T&Cs apply. |
Based on user interface and range of hotels offered, this seems like Kaligo in disguise. I did a scan – Kaligo is cheaper for most hotels plus you get 10 miles with Citibank cards. As always, need to compare before booking.
It’s powered by ascendas, which is the same platform behind kaligo. However, don’t forget you can stack promo codes on Travel with OCBC which can bring down the rate even further.
Yes, I just checked Travel with OCBC, its exactly the same interface as Kaligo, which have very least info about the room offered and some doesn’t even have any room photos! and most booking Kaligo booking doesn’t offer 100% cancellation, same as Travel with OCBC except like Aaron mentioned, pay by OCBC Pay Anyone.
What is that hotel in the header image? I want to go there ๐
Six Senses – Ibiza. hopefully one day!