hotels.com 10% coupon codes -- to use or to skip?

hotels.com typically has 10% off coupons all the time. you can find them everywhere. sometimes they use individual one-time use codes, other times they have a generic code that anyone can type in. recently, they released one for their e-mail subscribers.

it's clearly a generic code -- i can't imagine that i was so lucky to get a randomized code that spelled exactly CAVACATION. as above, you have to book by september 8 for stays between august 13 and january 31, 2014. the fine print says that this is not eligible for welcome rewards. this is exactly why these codes don't really offer much benefit to me.

welcome rewards is their reward program which gives you a free hotel night after 10 eligible stays. after staying 10 nights, your free hotel night stay is worth the average price paid for those 10 nights. this is a 10% rebate right there. so the choice is between whether to get the 10% up front or whether to hold off and redeem for a reward.

there are two reasons why i don't redeem up front:

1) there are times when i won't have a coupon but still need to book a hotel, and it would take forever for me to reach those 10 nights in order to get my free night reward otherwise.

2) sometimes, those rewards will void your big crumbs rebates since it's a coupon code you're using. sometimes it won't. if you don't use the coupon, you get 4.55% back on your hotels but that one free night won't earn you anything (obviously). sometimes, the coupons will allow you to earn rebates by accident. if that's the case, then you get the rebate on the lower final price. by not redeeming the coupon now, you will get a rebate on the higher total, meaning a larger rebate. that's what i end up going for.

but all that being said, the coupon code is there if you want it. you get the most bang for your buck by using the big crumbs link to purchase through hotels.com (not .ca). make sure you change your currency to canadian dollars and then everything will work as if you were shopping through hotels.ca.