The Best Hotel Booking Sites

1. Essentials about Hotel Booking Sites

Celebrate a week with friends in the Maldives, take a short-term city break to Las Vegas or spend a few days in Goa during winter holidays – these are fantastic prospects! Whether summer, spring, autumn or winter, there is always the right destination for most people to quench wanderlust. Planning of such a trip can sometimes be very exhausting and time-consuming, especially if vacationers opt for the more old-fashioned way – a travel agency. Hotel search engines are already far more innovative. They compare offers and suggest attractive hotel deals to travel enthusiasts. Probably the best news about hotel search engines is that users cannot go wrong with them. No matter which search engine travelers use to research a hotel and a long-awaited vacation – the results of search engines seldom differ dramatically. The sobering result: the cheapest search engine for hotels does not exist.

With the large number of tempting offers, however, it is difficult not to lose track. What is more suitable than using a hotel search engine when planning your trip? In a matter of seconds, the services browse through huge databases and then present attractive offers, bargains and dream hotels in a comfortable overview. For many travelers, these online services replace travel agents. But what is really up to the big promises of providers: ranging from best-price-guarantee, the-cheapest-hotel-offer to the-hot-deal? Customers should always try several providers to ultimately find the cheapest price. In our special test, it became clear that a comparison with one of the metasearch engines: TripAdvisor, Trivago and Kayak is advisable. They also include supposedly smaller portals, where one or the other bargain can be found.

ALWAYS FIND THE MOST FAVORABLE HOTEL PRICE

The essentials of hotel booking websites in brief:

• Hotel search engines process huge databases for attractive hotel offers.
• There are rarely very large price differences between the various search engines.
• Apart from the price of the hotel, the filter and search functions as well as meaningful evaluations are especially important.

2. The Best Hotel Booking Sites

We are pleased share with you our TOP10 of the best and most important hotel search engines in the net and give you many useful tips and information about the hotel booking. This is how you make your hotel search easier and save money. We’ll also describe the way these search engines work and inform of the tips that are necessary while using a hotel search engine. In our article, you can find additional information on the price comparison of hotels.

3. The 10 Best Hotel Booking Sites

In the table below we have compiled the most important hotel search engines and meta-search engines for you. With us, it makes it relatively easy to read the popularity of each comparison portal, as we record and rate the frequency and duration of visits to each site. The hotel comparison portals, which specialize in the comparison of hotels and also convince with good or very good results, were added to the list. Hotel search engines compare the offers of hotels and determine for you the cheapest hotel according to your specifications. If you book through a hotel search engine (e.g. Booking.com), a search engine operator is your contact for all questions about the hotel booking.

This is how we rate: learn more the hotel website list here

Grade

Very well: 2

Well: 1

Satisfying: 0,5

Search function on the hotel booking website

SCOPE OF HOTELS

The range of accommodation does not differ significantly in all examined websites to book hotels. Although Booking.com and Expedia stand out with a database twice as big as all other search engines, they do not provide a clear advantage in the search engine test. However, booking of some hotels with a provider is not possible, and hotels are even offered exclusively on a specific page – the rule cannot be derived.

Database on the hotel booking website

CLARITY OF THE WEBSITE

Also, as for the clarity of the web pages, no big differences between the collated websites are detected. There are both more modern (for example, KAYAK, PriceLine) and somewhat outdated approaches represented, such as Travelocity. A weaker clarity is usually accompanied by a larger offer, such as additional flight searches or more consulting options, such as Booking.com or Expedia. On Trivago, a search engine appears to be very clearly arranged.

Clarity of the web pages on the hotel booking website

REVIEWS

It is actually standard among the search engines that only reviews from verified guests appear. There are differences in filter option according to the type of a guest (families, business travelers, etc.). This is what happened in the hotel search Trivago, where the rating indication of families, singles or couples can be seen immediately. But Hotels.com also has the useful feature providing that only certain well-rated hotels are displayed. The hotel search engines from the Expedia Group (Hotels.com, Expedia) additionally offer (very numerous) reviews of the TripAdvisor travel experience platform. However, there is no guarantee that these texts and hotel reviews were really written by guests.

Reviews on the hotel booking website

COSTS AND CONDITIONS

In addition to the comfortable selection of destination from home, this is the second important reason to use a search engine when browsing for hotels. In order to be able to compare the hotel prices, we searched five examples in the search engines and carried out a hotel price comparison of hotel rooms and identical offers. If everything works out smoothly, no one loses any thoughts on the terms of the contract when booking a room. But if a hotel booking did not go right or the price at the end turned out to be higher than agreed at the time of booking, a customer wants to get his way. The jurisdiction in the U.S. and Canada and binding terms and conditions are important for these cases, so that all legal issues can be clarified on the spot.

Costs and conditions on the hotel booking website

BOOKING AND CANCELLATION

If booking and cancellation options are not explained exactly or only awkward payment methods are available for the booking, this fact is considered to be a true disadvantage for a user. He cannot get his money back if a trip is canceled or he faces incomprehensible conditions. A well-structured booking portal with all the important information should be available when paying, so that in the last step the travel planning runs as hoped. Some hotel comparison sites require the immediate payment of the hotel price when booking. This is basically OK, if the comparison portal is one of the top portals – otherwise there could be problems if you want to cancel or the organizer gets into financial difficulties.

Booking and cancellation options on the hotel booking website

PRICE COMPARISON

The result of the price comparison is quite sobering. In most cases, hotel rooms have identical prices on the hotel search engines. There were quite insignificant differences in amounts between the hotel room booking sites. Only very rarely we were able to see clear outliers, which were also not limited to a specific hotel portal. Only in the price range of several thousand dollars, the price differences are larger, but even here – no hotel portal stands out in particular. In individual cases, savings of up to 30% (regardless of the price range) are possible, as long as several search engines are compared with each other when searching for hotels.

Price comparison on the hotel booking website

SERVICE TERMS

The terms and conditions of most hotel search engines are in a perfect order and formulated according to the law to comply with the status of the best hotel reservation site. The only problem is Booking.com and Trivago that act according to the laws of the country of origin. When booking and cancellation, the experience with HomeAway.com was a bit negative, as the booking process of a hotel room is a little harder to understand. But a customer does not have to put up with a real disadvantage when booking a room.

SUPPORT AND ADVICE

Detailed hotel descriptions with enough information on all features of the room and hotel are part of a transparent advice on hotel price comparison. But finding the right destination or planning a stay can also be helped by hotel search engines. Not all functions are mandatory, but if they exist, there is an advantage for a user that is included in this criterion: guides, tips, or a blog are counseling options that work without personal contact. Nevertheless, there are occasions when a contact person is unavoidable for booking problems in a hotel or if questions cannot be answered through the FAQ section or tutorials. We evaluate which options a hotel room booking sites’ offers and how well the help offered by the hotel portals presents itself.

Support and advice on the hotel booking website

HOTEL INFORMATION

In the verbosity of hotel’s information, the best online hotel booking site is generally well equipped. Travelocity somewhat scarcely described some of the listed hotels.

Hotel information on the hotel booking website

CONSULTATION

Very large differences are present in the additional advice: highly recommended are Booking.com, Expedia and Hotels.com. Travelocity offers no additional information.

Consultation on the hotel booking website

PROVIDER CONTACT

The contact is almost the same for all providers, there are only the limited hours of telephone support at Expedia, Hotels.com, and Trivago, which is not available at night.

Contract providing on the hotel booking website

5. Evaluation Portals

The cheapest possible accommodation is important, so money is not wasted up before the trip. If you only look at the price, you will be able to question your economy during your holiday – namely, if the hotel does not meet expectations. Evaluations are therefore very important in the choice of hotel rooms. It is also possible to collect guest opinions from around the world in the leisure and travel sector, who can draw the image of a particular hotel. The most widely used portals include:

PriceLine
Despite allegations that hotel reviews have been manipulated, cases of counterfeit hotel reviews have never been seen in a noticeable number.

TripAdvisor
Behind Tripadvisor stands Trivago and several hotel portals the American tourism group Expedia. In addition to hotels, the website also offers reviews of shops, travel destinations, restaurants and much more.

Registered users can submit ratings for all categories. Depending on the activity of a user and the amount of information (text, images) that he makes available on the website, he will be assigned to one of six ‘contribution levels’. The latter should give information about his interests, his experience and his trustworthiness. Consumer reviews on the Internet should never be taken without hesitation: these are subjective opinions that do not necessarily reflect the actual situation and service of a hotel or a room. Depending on the type (families, couples, age of the guests) or the reason of the night (business trip, relaxation vacation, educational trip) other criteria for the hotel may be important.

Disadvantages
Fake reviews are the biggest disadvantages. These are either written to represent a hotel as beneficially as possible, or to give the worst possible impression and harm the hotel. There is even a whole service industry that deals with writing good reviews for the client’s company on behalf of clients, or spreading bad reviews for its direct competitors through a variety of channels. In the meantime, more and more bots are being used, which take over this task fully automatically and spread fake reviews in blogs and portals. The opinions are written anonymously. Critics are not forced to give evidence of allegations, and the entire process of hotel reviews is not traceable in detail. PriceLine and TripAdvisor also publish all ratings from registered users without being able to control them. However, the review portals pay more attention to the formal review of the submitted reviews and remove dubious-looking texts.

All in all, in order to find an offer tailored to his or her own situation, PriceLine and TripAdvisor will display the reviews with additional guest type information: interests, preferences, gender and marital status will tell you if a rating is relevant.

6. Metasearch Engines

Although there are some hotels that exclusively offer only one hotel portal, the majority of hotel rooms are available from all service providers. However, the prices and the services offered may differ in many cases. Experts advise you to compare the price of selected accommodation on several hotel portals in order to obtain the best offer in terms of cost and rooms scope. The so-called metasearch engines are able to take over the part of this work. These are research programs that can be used online and collects the offers from several hotel search engines. Well-known names in this area are:

Trivago

The search engine Trivago has almost one million hotels in the program. The offers are collected from about 200 booking portals. In 2012, over 60 percent of Trivago’s shares were acquired by online travel agency Expedia which owns two of the largest hotel portals, Expedia.com and Hotels.com.

KAYAK

The owner of the US hotel portal KAYAK is the Priceline Group, which also includes the hotel search sites Booking.com and Agoda. The Priceline Group is one of the major players in the tourism market.

Travelocity

This travel giant is now connected with the hotel search. Although the offer is not yet competitive in all regions with that of the tourism-specialized provider, Travelocity is working ambitiously to expand its position.

The metasearch engines filter out the cheapest hotels among the overall hotel offers of the search engines, whereby a saving of up to 35 per cent is possible. Users are then usually forwarded from the website to the provider, where they can complete the booking. For a customer, the use of metasearch engines is free. The companies make their profit by forwarding customers to the hotel search machines who pay for the brokerage.

Disadvantages
Although this system for hotel search is ideal for a user, it is not completely unproblematic: the search is based on an algorithm the search criteria of which cannot be viewed by a customer. The fact all eligible deals and hotels are searched and the cheapest presented cannot be proven and checked with certainty.

To conclude, metasearch engines for hotel browsing can be a useful assistance in comparing the offers of several hotel search engines. Non-transparent search and affiliation of the search engines to the corresponding hotel portals of the tourism companies lead to several portals in their portfolio; nevertheless, leave behind some doubts about the independence of the service. Again, it is worth comparing several hotel providers before booking.

7. Evaluation Functions of the Hotel Search Engines

The presentation of reviews during the search engine comparison of hotel reservation sites is sometimes very different. For example, while many providers such as Booking.com and Expedia allow only the reviews of verified guests who actually book on the portal, Hotel.com also uses TripAdvisor ratings. In order to be able to view these reviews in detail, a customer is sometimes forced to visit the website of TripAdvisor, Booking.com, Trivago and Agoda offer good functions which in addition to the hotel reviews also show more information about the author. The user can thus see, for example, whether a hotel meets the needs of a couple over 50 or whether it enjoys a good reputation among business people. To get an impression when looking for a hotel, the possibilities of the hotel portals are usually sufficient. Moreover, they generally offer the advantage that many hotel search engines display only opinions of guests, although most of them are also not checked for impartiality and accuracy. For many hotel search engines, guests are only allowed to rate the hotel they have booked. In order to get a comprehensive impression of his vacation home, a user should of course also consult the review portals. However, he or she must be aware of the limitations of transparency and objectivity.

PLEASE, NOTE:

Even if it is obvious to book the rental car or the flight also via the hotel portal, it makes more sense, if you choose a specialized comparison portal, because then you save more. For an overview of comparison portals, see car rental comparison and flight comparison websites. Always keep in mind that the hotel portal also wants to earn the extra services – and you pay for it with a higher price. Make a test to determine the best website to book hotels and other services. If you want to book flight and hotel together, then definitely take a look at the offers of travel portals, as these can make cheap package prices.