Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I wanted to share my theory about upcoming changes to the Expedia One Key program, but I wanted to preface this post with the fact that I don’t have any information other than the email I received last night and the upcoming changes to the terms and conditions page.  Please take this post with a grain of salt.

I received this boring looking email from Expedia on Friday night after 11pm PT with the super boring subject line “We’re changing our terms.”  I almost deleted the email a few seconds after opening it, but thought I would take a minute to read the email and see what terms were changing.  The email says, “we’re changing our One Key™ terms and conditions. In relation to section 10 ‘Changes to these Terms and Conditions’, we’ll be updating the notification period from 90 days to a period of reasonable notice.”  I always get suspicious when concrete numbers change to an abstract “reasonable” term.  Everyone’s interpretation of what is reasonable is different.  I clicked the link in the email and went further down the rabbit hole.

Here is the landing page for the One Key Terms and Conditions.  I scrolled down to section 10: Changes to these Terms and Conditions.  Here are a few things I noticed.  The date in the email and the date at the top of the terms and conditions page both say January 31, 2025, but the date listed under the Notification Period header says January 24, 2025, which is ~90 days from when the email went out on October 25, 2024.

Under the Change header, it says, “A material change to the Terms and Conditions that substantially limits (a) the way OneKeyCash is earned or redeemed by Members (or any membership tier); or (b) Program Benefits for Members (or any membership tier).”  Currently, Expedia will provide “Members at least 90 days’ written notice” before any changes take effect, but effective January 24, 2025, Expedia can make changes “at any time by giving Members a reasonable period of written notice.”

I wonder what Expedia and their lawyers think is a “reasonable period” of time to notify members of “material changes” to the program.

To be fair, I am an Expedia One Key member, but I never use Expedia, Hotels.com, or VRBO, so the current program does not excite me much and I doubt future changes to the program will interest me enough to earn and redeem One Key rewards.

If I had to guess, I would think that Expedia would probably make changes to the One Key elite tiers – changing qualifying trip elements and the various savings, rewards, and perks you receive at each elite tier.

Usually the requirements for the mid tier and top tier status go up to make it harder to achieve status and reduce the number of members in the top elite tier.

All of this info is just a theory and only time will tell if this theory is right or wrong.  If you have any questions about the Expedia One Key program, please leave a comment below.  Have a great weekend everyone!