Hotels.com adds a business travel mode, going after the self-booking work traveller

Unmanaged business travel — the work trips people book themselves, without a corporate booking tool — has long been a segment hotels largely captured direct or through negotiated rates. Hotels.com is now building a product specifically for it, which changes how that demand reaches properties and what it filters on.

The Expedia Group brand launched a business travel experience on 1 September 2026, rolling out globally across the Hotels.com website and app. Travellers can switch into a personalised "business mode" that applies saved work-trip preferences to search results, and can earn rewards on eligible business stays.

What the product does

Saved preferences drive pre-filtered results. Travellers set their preferred property features once — fully refundable stays, breakfast included, gym, star and guest rating thresholds, and a maximum nightly rate matched to company policy. With business mode on, Hotels.com shows results already filtered against those criteria.

Quick Rebook. Travellers returning to the same destination can rebook a preferred hotel in a few clicks, aimed at repeat work trips.

Rewards carry across. Eligible business stays earn the same member rewards, usable on future personal travel. Through the brand's Save Your Way scheme, members can either take the member discount at booking or bank it as rewards for a later trip.

Flexibility and support. Travellers can filter for fully refundable rates — Hotels.com says cancellation windows typically run 24 to 48 hours before check-in, though terms are set by each property. Customer service is available 24/7 by chat and phone.

Perks without status. Members receive benefits at VIP Access properties, including room upgrades and food and beverage credits, without a high loyalty-tier threshold. Member discounts run up to 20%, with deeper discounts for Platinum members.

Business and leisure trips stay in a single Hotels.com account, with a checkbox at the start of a search switching between modes.

The demand case

Hotels.com is framing the launch against its own research. A survey of 2,000 US adults who have travelled for business in the past three years, fielded 4–12 July 2026, found 37% travel more frequently for work than before the pandemic. The company identifies June and September as the busiest months for corporate travel.

Asked what they value in a hotel on a work trip, respondents named complimentary breakfast (49%), loyalty rewards (39%), and early check-in or late check-out (37%).

"Business travellers book differently than leisure travellers. They book last-minute, decide in minutes, and need flexibility above all else," said Hari Nair, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Hotels.com. "For years, they've been quietly choosing Hotels.com anyway for the flexibility, the property selection and the rewards. Now we've built an experience that's actually designed for how they travel, not just tolerant of it."

Why it matters for operators

The mechanics are the interesting part. A business-mode search is filtered on refundability, breakfast, gym, rating and a rate ceiling before a property is ever seen. For hotels, that means the attributes that qualify a property for corporate demand on Hotels.com are now explicit and machine-readable — and a property without a fully refundable rate loaded, or with thin amenity content, drops out of the result set before the traveller compares anything.

It also puts an OTA loyalty currency directly against the hotel loyalty proposition for a segment where points have traditionally been the main reason to book direct.