Nice deal for HOTEL rooms at a discount via Orbitz - up to 20% (plus $25!) off travel through 6/30/15 (booked by 1/4/15)

I tend to not use a lot of 3rd-party travel websites (like Orbitz or Travelocity), but this is a pretty good deal that I used a few times recently.  Read on ...

Get this out of the way first, if you sing up at Orbitz through THIS LINK, you will get a $25 Orbitz credit towards your first hotel stay (think it has to be for over $50 before taxes) and after your first booking I get $25.  (And then feel free to refer your own friends/family!)

Besides the $25 sign-up deal, their current hotel promo is to use the promo code "GIFTME" (which you enter into the "promo code" box when you are searching for a hotel - right below where you put in the city and dates) to get 15% off your total hotel stay costs (before taxes/fees).  That's a pretty good deal, considering that they have a "low price guarantee" (although you may still be able to do better for the same or similar hotel through a service like Priceline or Hotwire).

In addition, you can get 3% back on each hotel you book in the form of future Orbitz hotel credits, or 5% back if you use their mobile app.  Thus, 15% + 5% = 20% off.

Two KEY ITMES to know about.  First, this will not work on all hotels - only ones that show up as "promo code eligible" when you search for hotels in a particular city and date.  But I've found that it works on many hotels.  Second, be sure that you look for "free cancellation" if that's important to you.

You can read more about the details of the 15% off code ("GIFTME") HERE (but please consider signing up via my link, up above, first - as you and I may not get the $25 credit unless you click on that link first and sign up).  You can also read more about Orbitz hotel rewards HERE.

While I don't use websites like Orbitz a lot (tend to just search for the best deal on a website like Kayak.com - and then book it directly with the hotel; or use a service like Priceline or Hotwire), this is a pretty good deal.  And I've used it a few times in the past couple days to book upcoming trips. Sorry to tell you about the "deal you missed out on" (!!!), but they had a smoking-hot "$100 off any room" deal on Cyber Monday (but it didn't last very long) and a 20% off code (instead of 15% off) that expired yesterday.  Sorry to be late to tell you, but the 15% off (plus 3-5% and the $25 credit) is still a nice deal.