About Trip.com

Trip.com is the global consumer brand of Trip.com Group Limited (NASDAQ: TCOM; HKEX: 9961) — the world's largest online travel group by revenue, headquartered in Singapore and founded in Shanghai in 1999 as Ctrip. The group also owns Skyscanner (Edinburgh), Qunar and Ctrip. In the UK, the consumer brand is Trip.com and flight bookings run through Trip Air Ticketing (UK) Limited — ATOL-protected under licence 11572.

The platform sells flights, hotels, trains, car hire, airport transfers and attractions — flights and hotels are the volume products, and the UK National Rail integration is a relatively new and useful addition for cross-channel travellers.

How the Invite & Earn programme works

This is a two-prong programme — both sides get one thing immediately, and the referrer gets another bonus only after the friend actually travels.

Both sides, immediately:

A 30-day UK Traincard — 4% off any UK National Rail booking made on Trip.com during the 30 days.

Referrer, after travel:

1,200 Trip Coins (≈£10) for each friend who completes a flight or hotel booking.
240 Trip Coins (≈£2) for each friend who completes a train booking.
Cap: 10 paid referrals per period — so up to 12,000 + 2,400 coins earned in a single campaign window from flight/hotel and train referrals respectively.

Important: Trip Coins land after the friend's trip is completed, not at booking. If your friend books a flight in May to fly in August, the coins arrive in August.

What's the Traincard catch?

The 4% only applies to UK National Rail tickets booked through Trip.com itself. It doesn't reach into the LNER, GWR, Avanti, Trainline, Northern, Southeastern or any other train operator's own app. If you primarily use Trainline, the Traincard is academic — it's only useful if you already plan to book your trains through Trip.com.

Within Trip.com, the Traincard stacks with Railcards and other promo codes. Caps: 20 bookings per month, up to £200 saved per month. Season tickets are excluded. Multiple Traincards extend the duration rather than stacking the percentage.

What are Trip Coins?

Trip Coins are Trip.com's loyalty currency — a discount credit, not cashable. The official rate is 100 coins = US$1, which converts to roughly £0.75-£0.80 per 100 coins at typical FX rates. So:

1,200 coins ≈ £9-£10
240 coins ≈ £2

You apply coins at checkout against flights, hotels, trains, car hire, transfers and attractions. Some promotional-rate bookings exclude coin discounts; the rest accept them with no minimum redemption. Coins earned from reviews (a separate Trip.com loyalty mechanic) expire after 6 months; coins from refunded bookings return to your account.

Cancellation, refund and protection

Flights: ATOL-protected (licence 11572) when sold by Trip Air Ticketing (UK) Limited.
Hotels and trains: outside ATOL — pay by credit card for Section 75 protection on bookings over £100.
Refund rules follow the underlying airline, hotel or train operator's policy. Trip.com's customer-service team handles the dispatch.
Trustpilot UK rating: 4 stars over ~183k reviews. The most common pattern in negative reviews is refund handling when flights are changed or cancelled by the airline rather than by the customer. Pay by credit card on big-ticket bookings to keep the chargeback option open.

Trip.com vs the alternatives

	Trip.com	Skyscanner	Booking.com
Flights	Direct booking, ATOL 11572	Meta-search (re-routes to airline / OTA)	Limited
Hotels	Direct booking, large global inventory	Hotels meta-search	Direct booking, vast inventory
Trains (UK)	Yes — Trip.com-integrated booking	No	No
Loyalty / cashback	Trip Coins	None (meta only)	Genius tiered discounts
Owned by	Trip.com Group	Trip.com Group	Booking Holdings
ATOL cover	Yes — licence 11572	N/A (not a seller)	Limited (flights via partner)

For UK customers, Trip.com makes sense when you want everything in one app (flights + hotels + UK trains) with ATOL protection on flights and a loyalty currency that builds with bookings.

Source documentation

Programme terms above reflect the live Trip.com UK Invite & Earn page and the official Trip Coin and Traincard help centre articles. Bonus amounts, the 100-coin / US$1 conversion and the 4% Traincard mechanics are set by Trip.com and may change without notice. HonestCodes re-verifies each programme monthly — the date at the top of this page reflects the last full check.

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