Organizing your vacation has never been easier, as you can take care of every step of your journey online, without ever leaving your comfortable home. You can book your flight without having to go to the actual airport, and you can even do your check-in online so you won’t have to spend hours at the airport before you take off. Not only that, but you can reserve a spot for your favorite attractions to make sure there will be enough room for you – this also allows you to skip most lines.
While saving time on your flight and reserving tickets are good tips to remember, booking your hotel online can save you some serious money, and there are plenty of websites to choose from. Some of those websites will just search through offers, but some of them allow booking on the spot, and offer feature discounts. We always recommend checking multiple booking sites for hotels when searching for your dream accommodation, which makes it easier to find the best price. However, there are just so many of them that it can get quite overwhelming! That is why we have prepared this list of Top 15 Best Booking Sites for Hotels, which lists some of the most reliable online booking services out there!
TripAdvisor
Without a doubt, you have already heard of TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor is a website which not only ranks attractions, places, and hotels, but also helps with the accommodation process in an immense way. First of all, after you put in all of your search preferences, including location, price range, date of stay, length of stay, etc., the website will provide you with a list of ranked locations that match what you're looking for. You can browse reviews, see additional information, and directly contact the hotel. Moreover, TripAdvisor additionally checks on its own which site has the best price on your hotel! You can easily save some money without searching through countless other sites.
Trivago
Similarly to TripAdvisor, Trivago specializes in searching and comparing prices of hotels all over the world. While TripAdvisor is used for all kinds of attractions and accommodations, including natural landmarks, Trivago deals with hotels specifically. Trivago actually closely works with booking sites for hotels to create the most expansive database of hotel information available on the market. The data also comes from the hotels themselves, and user contribution is a huge part of Trivago. Whether you are looking for a hotel, a summer resort, a forest lodge, or a simple bead and breakfast, you will find it on Trivago. Trivago will allow you to find the hotel you want, and it will show you the best available price, taking you to the most money-efficient booking site.
Booking.com
Booking.com is a favorite among many tourists who choose to book their accommodation online. One of the most important advantages of Booking.com is its variety of choices, which include every type of accommodation from hostels to cozy inns. While the search engine of Booking.com can at first overwhelm with available options, once you get accustomed to the interface you will be able to fully customize your search to your liking, choosing price, rating, location, and even what amenities or services you might want. Moreover, Booking.com is also known for having some of the lowest prices available between all booking sites for hotels. Finally, Booking.com does not charge you anything for their service – all prices you see are raw accommodation prices, and every cent you pay goes straight to the hotel owner! That's what the site is more attractive to travelers than most of its competitors. Usually, to use such a service, you need to pay a fee. Even if it's not too high, it's still much better to save money whenever you want when you plan a trip.
Expedia
If you're looking for an alternative to hotel booking sites which will also take care of your airline tickets, car rentals, cruises, and even attractions, Expedia might be the perfect choice for you. More of an online travel agency than a booking site for hotels, Expedia brings together a wide range of services to help you organize your entire trip in one place. Booking hotels through Expedia is easy and quick, and your payments get some of the best security offered. You can also check verified hotel reviews, which are certain to come from people who have really visited your accommodation of choice. Expedia also negotiates the prices of accommodation with hotels, and even has its own reward program, which allows you to further save money. It means that when you choose Expedia more than once you can count on lower prices and better traveling solutions.
Hotels.com
Hotels.com is an established service with positive reviews and a loyal base of customers. While in principle Hotels.com works just like all the other booking sites for hotels, they do provide a couple of additional bonuses that might convince you of using their site. First of all, you can pay in your own currency, which will allow you to avoid paying exorbitant taxes that come when exchanging currency during a transfer. Furthermore, Hotels.com provides a wide range of discount coupons for simple tasks, such as subscribing to their newsletter. You can even find the coupons on Google, and they will allow you to save anywhere from 10% to 15% on your first reservation. They also have an amazing loyalty program, where you get 1 night free for every 10 nights at eligible hotels. It's an amazing tool for people whose lifestyle demands spending many nights away from home. It's usually very complicated itself so there's no point in making it even worse. That's why using dedicated websites and applications may be a blessing.
Kayak.com
While Kayak.com is not an online travel agency per se, they are a useful metasearch engine, which looks all over the internet for favorable travel deals and presents to you the most money-saving results. Whenever you search for a hotel on Kayak.com, you will be presented with a list of top choices of travel agencies, where you can see the price comparisons. Afterward, with just a single click, you will be the website with the best price. Furthermore, Kayak.com is fitted with many useful tools, such as the Flight Tracker or a wide arrangement of various guides and tips. All of these make Kayak.com a great assistant website when planning your trip – a feature which not many hotel booking sites have!
Priceline
Whether you are searching for airline tickets, car rentals, or just simple accommodation, you will definitely find it on Priceline, which is one of the more prosperous online travel agencies out there. However, Priceline puts quite a significant twist to the regular formula of similar websites. Priceline has a unique, “opaque” service, which allows you to place a bid for a service you are looking for. However, you will not be able to see the specific service you get, and you are never sure whether your bid will be accepted or not. The downside of this is that you may not always get what you want. With airline tickets, for example, you may be assigned a flight anywhere between 6 am and 10 pm on the day of your choice. On the other hand – there aren’t many places with better prices out there.
HotelsCombined
HotelsCombined is an Australian registered booking site for hotels, established in 2005. Even though HotelsCombined does not employ as many works as some of the bigger competitors, it is still regarded as one of the world's leading travel search engines. Similarly to many other booking sites for hotels, HotelsCombined is not limited to hotels, as its name might suggest, but also provides services when it comes to flights and car rentals. Whenever you search for accommodation using HotelsCombined, the website looks through hundreds of travel agencies to find the best results. You can then compare the available options for yourself, or you can let the website pick the best one for you. There are no additional fees on HotelsCombined – all of the prices are taken directly from travel sites.
Orbitz
With an overabundance of various online travel agencies and metasearch engines available, a lot of them have to find something unique that will distinguish them from the rest. Orbitz, which is one of the leaders of booking sites for hotels, offers a very promising loyalty program and a flawless search engine, which can be fully customized to your liking. Moreover, Orbitz regularly updates their website with prices lower than other competitors, and they even publish discount coupons which can be used to further save money. You can also choose from a wide variety of services, not only hotels, including attractions, packages, flights, and more!
Agoda
Agoda has one of the most user-friendly search engines among all booking sites for hotels, which can easily be adapted to your desires and budget. After you input all the relevant data, you will be taken to a list of matching hotels. You will be able to see all the information pertaining to the hotel, including amenities and services, and you can even inspect specific hotel rooms. There are also customer reviews and online ratings from other customers, which are often helpful to get a better grip on the quality of the hotel. Finally, Agoda provides a useful reward points system, which accumulates points every time you book a hotel with Agoda. The points can be spent later on, granting free nights and other rewards!
Hotwire
Established in the year 2000, Hotwire began as a small startup. Now, twenty years later, Hotwire is one of the leading hotel booking sites available, and provides services for flight, car, and hotel booking. However, Hotwire works a bit differently than most other websites, as it sells last-minute unsold flights, rental cars, and hotel rooms at a discounted price. While you won't be able to know the details of your accommodation until you've paid for the reservation, the prices are much smaller than normal bookings. Apart from that, Hotwire functions similarly to any other booking site out there, allowing you to search through lists and read customer reviews.
Travelocity
With a handy phone app and one of the cheapest prices among all online booking sites, Travelocity is loved by tourists due to its ease of use and functionality. Moreover, Travelocity guarantees their lowest prices, so if you happen to find a better offer anywhere else online, contact Travelocity – they will not only match the better price but refund you an additional $50! Travelocity is also famous for its renowned customer support, which is always ready to resolve any doubts and problems you might have with your order. Most online booking services do not provide dedicated customer support, instead relying on hotels’ own ones, but Travelocity has employees always ready to help your case. Travelocity also provides member discounts, which accumulate the longer you use the website!
Getaroom.com
While Getaroom.com is not as popular as some of its competitors on the market, they still provide a worthy alternative to other online booking sites. Getaroom.com was actually founded by the CEO and presidents of Hotels.com, who both have years of experience in the field. Getaroom.com offers low prices all around, and there is even a special tip you might want to use – if you call the toll-free call center of Getaroom.com, you might get access to unpublished hotel prices, which are usually even cheaper than the actual ones! However, the online reviews of Getaroom.com often criticize the mediocre customer service and convoluted policies, so make sure you read through Terms and Conditions carefully!
Oyo Rooms
Oyo Rooms is actually an Indian chain of hotels, the third-largest in the world in fact. They are also the fastest-expanding hotel chain in the world right now. They provide good quality of service, clean rooms, plenty of amenities (like WiFi or even backup power), and all of that at an affordable price. However, unlike most traditional hotel chains, Oyo Rooms does not build its own hotels – instead, they cooperate with existing hotels and creates a unique online platform for booking their accommodations. While Oyo Rooms only lists their brand hotels, their overall quality of service and prices are still worth checking out!
Trip.com
The Chinese-based online travel agency, Trip.com, features prices much lower than what most Western companies have to offer. However, there is a downside to such low prices – the refund and change policies are almost nonexistent, so be sure before you book anything, as you will have to pay it. Many reviewers online describe their problems with Trip.com, ranging from short-term cancellation without notice, to mismatched tickets. The company’s customer support is also often criticized. While you may find some of the best deals on Trip.com, be cautious – it can be quite tricky to use right!
