Expedia Revamps Rewards—Free Lounges After 90-Minute Delays, CLEAR Discounts And Halved Hotel Rebates For Most Members

Expedia’s CLEAR deal can bring a couple’s annual membership cost down to just $35 after an American Express Platinum statement credit. That’s $90 less than signing up at the standard price and adding a spouse. You need Expedia One Key Platinum status for the best price, and there’s a substantial restriction buried in the offer terms: it’s limited to first-time CLEAR+ enrollees. I had to really comb through to see this in the materials they’re promoting. Existing CLEAR members can’t attach their Expedia account and have their renewal priced lower, the way they would with an airline status deal. That surprised me. Expedia is highlighting CLEAR alongside expanded lounge access during flight delays, airfare price protection, and changes to how members earn rewards. The CLEAR partnership was announced in May. How Expedia’s CLEAR Discount Works With Amex A standard CLEAR+ membership costs $219 per year. Adding an adult family member or friend costs $125. That makes a couple $344, against a $219 Amex Platinum credit, leaving $125 to pay. Expedia’s published member prices reduce the primary membership charge: Enrollment option Annual CLEAR+ price Two adults after one $219 Amex credit Standard pricing $219 $125 One Key Blue $209 $115 One Key Silver or Gold $179 $85 One Key Platinum $129 $35 That’s $129 + $125 – $219 = $35 for a Platinum member and spouse. Amex reimburses eligible charges up to $219 as a statement credit. CLEAR lets you add up to three adults at $125 each, and they can use their memberships without traveling with you. Children 17 and under can accompany a member through CLEAR for free; separate PreCheck eligibility rules still apply to PreCheck screening. If you’re only buying membership for yourself, a fully available $219 Amex credit already covers the standard price. The discount is valuable when you have another membership to pay for. United And Delta Still Offer Discounts But They’ve Gotten Worse Both United and Delta – which took stakes in CLEAR – still have preferred pricing. Here are the current United and Delta rates: United MileagePlus Delta SkyMiles Annual CLEAR+ price General member General member $209 Premier Silver, Gold or Platinum; eligible U.S. United cardmembers Silver, Gold or Platinum Medallion; eligible basic Delta Amex cardmembers $179 Premier 1K Diamond Medallion $129 Global Services Delta 360 Free Delta’s cardmember rate applies to eligible primary consumer and business cardmembers. You can qualify for an airline cardmember discount and pay CLEAR with a different card that provides the statement credit. I covered the shrinking airline discounts in 2023. General members used to save $60 and most elites and eligible cardmembers saved $70. Those discounts fell to $10 and $40. The standard price has kept rising, and United 1K and Delta Diamond members have since lost complimentary membership, now paying $129. Alaska and Hawaiian’s Atmos Rewards partnership follows the same paid tiers: $129 for Titanium, $179 for Platinum, Gold and Silver, and $209 for general members. So Expedia Platinum matches the best paid top-tier airline rate. Expedia Silver and Gold match the usual airline elite/cardmember rate, and Blue matches the discount anyone can get by joining an airline program. Expedia’s advantage is another way to qualify for $129 without earning top airline status. Its disadvantage is the new member restriction. The airline partnerships let existing CLEAR members link their frequent flyer number for preferred pricing. There are cheaper options for particular travelers: Military service members and government employees: CLEAR publishes a $125 annual rate, available by enrolling at an airport location. Joining someone else’s family plan: The $125 adult add-on is also cheaper than Expedia Platinum’s primary membership. United Global Services and Delta 360: Complimentary primary membership beats a discount. Which Cards Pay For CLEAR, And How To Enroll American Express lists up to $219 in annual CLEAR+ statement credits on these U.S. products: The Platinum Card The Business Platinum Card The Corporate Platinum Card The consumer American Express Green Card The Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card Centurion has a separate, larger benefit: up to $369 per calendar year for eligible CLEAR+ membership charges, including family members and friends on the same CLEAR account. To use Expedia’s offer: Sign into your U.S. One Key account and visit Expedia’s CLEAR page. Follow the enrollment button for your tier. Expedia sends you to CLEAR’s enrollment site with the partner rate applied. Choose the membership, confirm the price, and pay CLEAR using the eligible Amex card. Add your spouse if you’re using the family pricing. Complete CLEAR’s identity enrollment through its supported app process or at an airport location. One Key is free to join at Blue. Silver requires five qualifying trip elements in a calendar year, Gold 15, and Platinum 30. A trip element isn’t necessarily an entire vacation: two eligible hotel nights and three car rental days can get a new member to Silver. The no annual fee One Key card provides Silver, while the $99 annual fee One Key+ card provides Gold and a path to Platinum after $30,000 in qualifying calendar year spending. Under the offer’s terms, renewal pricing depends on your One Key tier at renewal and the applicable rates then. The discount can’t be applied retroactively or combined with another CLEAR promotion. Expedia also sells CLEAR concierge bundles: Platinum: $199 for CLEAR+ and two CLEAR Concierge Departure Service bookings. Silver and Gold: $249 for the same package. Silver, Gold and Platinum: 20% off additional departure concierge bookings. Both bundles add $70 to the membership price for two appointments, or $35 apiece. The service provides an employee to meet you at the airport, help with bags and check-in, and guide you through security toward your gate or lounge. Included appointments expire after a year. CLEAR Concierge actually comes with Founders Card. Bear in mind that sometimes regular PreCheck is faster than CLEAR. I want the option to choose the shortest line. Free Lounge Access After A 90-Minute Flight Delay Expedia is expanding its flight delay lounge benefit to eligible U.S. One Key Gold members, alongside Platinum. The pilot covers eligible flights booked through Expedia from September 30, 2026 through December 31, 2027. You must register your flight at least 24 hours before scheduled departure. This isn’t a benefit you can first sign up for when the departure board shows a delay. Some airlines are excluded. When a registered flight is delayed by at least 90 minutes, eligible travelers on the same itinerary can receive a pass for a participating lounge or airport experience in the LoungeKey network (a Priority Pass brand) like The Club, Escape, Plaza Premium and Aspire. If the airport has no participating lounge or alternative experience, then each eligible passenger receives $20 in OneKeyCash. For four eligible travelers, that’s $80 toward future bookings. Fare-Drop Protection Comes With Rewards Cuts Elsewhere Gold and Platinum members can get Price Drop Protection on eligible flights booked while signed into the Expedia app. The flight details must say the benefit is included. But you can generally call an airline for a credit when prices drop, and even assign an AI to do this for you, generally for 20% of the savings. Expedia will check the same itinerary’s price on its own site every 24 hours through departure. If a qualifying check finds a lower price, it awards the difference in OneKeyCash after the trip is completed. Members can also initiate checks from the price protection dashboard. Any caps or other restrictions shown before booking apply, and itinerary changes can cancel the benefit. This is future travel credit, not a refund to your card, and it doesn’t match a cheaper fare you find on another site. Expedia says it issued $28 million in price protection OneKeyCash in 2025 to U.S. and U.K. customers. Again, they’re automating for you and not charging you for the service, not getting you something you can’t get on your own (and they only check every 24 hours – while prices can change several times a day). The broader rewards overhaul they’re announcing is already in effect. I covered the cuts in June; the current program took effect July 28. For eligible Expedia bookings other than airfare, the ordinary earning rates are: Blue: 1% in OneKeyCash, down from 2%. Silver and Gold: 2%, unchanged. Platinum: 3%, up from 2%. Expedia advertises member discounts starting at 10% for Blue, 15% for Silver, and 20% for Gold and Platinum on selected inventory. Those are member-price offers, not a blanket percentage off everything Expedia sells. The One Key credit cards separately earn 3% in OneKeyCash on eligible Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo purchases, including flights, plus 3% on gas, groceries and dining. Other purchases earn 1.5% with the no annual fee card or 2% with One Key+. At eligible VIP Access properties booked through Expedia, the announcement describes member earnings of 3% for Silver, 4% for Gold and 6% for Platinum, on top of the card’s 3%—up to 9% combined. One dollar in OneKeyCash buys a dollar of eligible travel through participating brands. It isn’t redeemable for cash. Standalone flights no longer earn the program’s former 0.2% rebate, although an eligible one-way or roundtrip ticket still counts as one trip element toward status. Packages earn rewards only on their non-flight components. Expedia is also retiring its Hotel Price Guarantee for new bookings. The flight rebate was only $2 on a $1,000 ticket. Halving Blue members’ hotel earning is more substantial: a qualifying $1,000 hotel booking before taxes and fees now earns $10 instead of $20. Expedia Rewards isn’t very rewarding, indeed it was already a massive devaluation of their Hotels.com brand rewards, but status can be useful for hotel discounts. And if you’re not a member of CLEAR and don’t have United, Delta or Alaska status they’re offering a good deal there now. Topics on this page