Is BOOKING.COM legit, safe, and reliable?
Wondering if Booking.com is a legitimate, safe and reliable choice? We’ve got you covered.
This review and guide will tell you everything you need to know about Booking.com’s popular online travel agency services.
We’ll cover everything from credit card security to the reliability of booking hotels, flights, and everything in between.
Is Booking.com popular and do they have all the hotels and flights I need?
The Booking.com website and mobile apps are available in more than 40 languages, offer 1,642,073 properties, and cover 126,958 locations in 229 countries and territories worldwide. Every day, more than 1,550,000 room nights are reserved on our platform. So yes, they have a very comprehensive database of places and hotels to choose from. In some cases, we have seen that they have even more international hotels than Expedia.com. If you have a destination in mind, you can fill out the form below and see for yourself.
Is BOOKING.COM safe?
Booking.com is one of the largest, most respected online travel agencies (or OTA’s) in the world and is the absolute safest choice. It has an A+ rating from the BBB and its parent company, Booking Holdings, also owns several other well-known sites, including Priceline.
Over 1.5 million rooms are booked through Booking.com every day, so you can be sure you’re not dealing with a shady, back-alley operation. This site actually has more daily traffic than any other OTA.
Credit card information and personal data are stored in the system. And unlike less scrupulous sites, Booking.com does not sell or rent personal data to third-party companies.
Booking actually works very well with their policies and processes. You can read the full breakdown on their privacy policy page.
He also made a nice video that sums it all up:
Booking.com only collects your information to reserve your room with the hotel (or other accommodation) itself. Booking.com service is basically a very efficient portal to manage your reservation directly with the hotel.
In some situations, reserving a room with Booking.com can often be a safer bet than booking directly with the hotel. This is especially true for international travel when your desired accommodation provider does not have a reliable website or system.
Is BOOKING.COM trustworthy?
Booking.com service is very reliable and efficient. In fact, it is considered one of the best in the industry. Unless you’re dealing with a large hotel with a sophisticated online booking system, if the price is right you’ll almost always be better off using a trusted OTA like Booking.com.
This process is fast and efficient and is almost always very reliable. (We’ve used Booking.com countless times in countless countries and never had a real problem.
While the majority of users love the Booking.com service, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who have had issues with their booking process. Hiccups are possible, no matter which service you use, but we can say with confidence that Booking.com is usually not at fault.
In the rare event that there is a problem with a hotel reserved through Booking.com, it is usually due to a problem on the hotel’s end of the system.
Many people don’t realize that Booking.com is only acting as an intermediary between customers and accommodation. When you make a booking, Booking.com handles it for you and passes your information to the destination hotel.
Hotels, houses, vacation rentals, and other types of accommodation use the site to list their properties and then manage their listings. This is the hotel that sets the price and details to display on Booking.com.
For the easiest process, we recommend that you always call the hotel directly for confirmation after making a reservation through Booking.com. This will give you peace of mind knowing that the hotel has received all the correct dates, payment and additional information for your stay.
How does Booking.com make money?
Booking.com makes money from rates set by hotels and accommodations that use the site to list their properties. However, the booking does not receive a percentage until a guest arrives at the hotel for their stay. Canceled reservations do not result in any benefit to Booking.com.
Generally, the base rates charged by Booking.com to hotels are 15%. Depending on the level of partnership with Hotel Booking, this may vary. Hotels can upgrade their membership to get more favorable rates.
Full Review (Features, Tools & More)
Hotel and accommodation
Without question, Booking.com’s greatest asset is its excellent accommodation reservation service. The large number of hotels, homes, B&Bs and more combined with a huge list of filterable properties make it one of the best in the biz.
Listings are displayed in a column that can be sorted by price, reviews, stats and even distance from their city.
You can also use the map view that we included in the earlier post. It uses the core software of Google Maps and works better than the map view on many other travel sites.
But Booking.com’s best feature for finding the right hotel has to be the huge list of filters available. There are some that make highly specific searches quick and easy.
Here’s a quick guide to all the filters you can apply to your accommodation search:
- Budget: Filter results by price range.
- Star Rating: Filters results according to the property’s star rating.
- Distance from City Centre: Filters results according to the property’s distance from the city center or city centre.
- Online Payment: Filters results to show which properties allow the use of third-party online payment processors (such as PayPal).
- Fun things to do: Filter results to show properties that offer access to additional activities such as fitness centers, bike rentals or hiking trails.
- Availability: Filters results to show only properties available on the dates you select.
- Deals: Filters results to show properties that are currently offering deals or special prices.
- 24-Hour Front Desk: Filters results to display properties that have a dedicated 24/7 front desk.
- Reservation Policy: Filters results by which properties have a free cancellation policy or do not require advance payment at the time of booking.
- Beach Access: Filters results to show which properties have beachfront (or lakefront) access.
- Dining: Filters results to show properties that only serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, or have kitchen facilities to prepare your own meals.
- Accommodation Type: Filters results to show properties by accommodation experience.
- Property Type: Filters results by property type. Hotels, apartments, hostels, guest houses, bed and breakfasts etc.
- Landmarks: Filter to display results that are close to prominent landmarks in the area. These can be parts of the city, attractions, geological features and more.
- Bed Preference: Filters results to display properties that offer a specific type of bed configuration. Especially useful in Europe where beds can sometimes be uncomfortable for outside travelers.
- Review Score: Filters results according to review scores given by real Booking.com users with verified stays.
- Amenities: Click on results to show listings with property features like on-site restaurant, non-smoking rooms, pet-friendly rooms, free Wi-Fi, free parking, swimming pool, room service, and more. Filter.
- Room Amenities: Filters results to show listings that include specific room features such as kitchens, bathtubs, flat-screen televisions, coffee makers, and more.
- District: Filters results to show properties in different city districts and neighborhoods. For example, in New York City you might choose things like “Manhattan”, “Times Square”, “Soho”, etc.
- Facilities for Disabled Guests: Filter results to show features that include disability-friendly features such as wheelchair access, toilet grab rails, lowered sinks, etc.
- Chain: Filters results to show properties belonging to a specific hotel chain.
- Room accessibility: Filters results to show properties with specific accessibility features such as ground floor rooms, roll-in showers, lift-accessible upper rooms, etc.
As you can see, Booking gives you tons of options to laser-focus your search and pinpoint the perfect properties. You really can’t beat this level of detail to find the right type of accommodation you have in mind.
Individual hotel pages are equally intuitive.
Booking.com’s individual property pages do a great job of giving you a lot of information in an easy-to-read way. There are lots of things without too much clutter.
Whether you’re on mobile or desktop, you’ll see a simple layout with photos, descriptions, reviews, points of interest, maps, and more.
Most property listings are very well run. The only time you’ll really encounter a weak list is in the case of a more obscure property.
Keep in mind that these listings are controlled by the property itself. Property photos and travel information are provided to Booking.com. What you see on the screen is usually from the hotel itself.
Also, it’s important to note that pricing on Booking.com is shown as the trip total, not the nightly rate. For example, a 3-night stay at a $100/night hotel would only show as $300.
Be sure to keep this price pattern in mind when you’re shopping for a price on the web. It’s not uncommon for uninitiated travelers to mistakenly reject Booking.com listings as too expensive because they thought the trip grand total was actually the nightly rate.
Price match guarantee for accommodation
Don’t forget about Booking.com’s price match guarantee. Hotels and other accommodation is the only area in which this is offered.
All you need to do is submit a lower-priced listing from a competing site to Booking.com via the “Found this room cheaper elsewhere” link on your confirmation page.
This is a fantastic feature, especially with how flexible it is.
You can submit a price match claim within 24 hours of your check-in date. Just make sure everything matches between your Booking.com reservation and the lower-priced listing you find elsewhere.
The only caveat is that the affordable listing must be readily available for Booking.com to look at when reviewing your claim. So be quick to jump on opportunities when you see them!
Cancellation Policies
Booking.com does not have a standard cancellation policy. Each individual residential property is customizable.
This is standard for most OTAs, so nothing remarkable here.
Just make sure to read the details before booking. You can also filter the search results to only show properties with free cancellations. This will save you some time if you know you need that extra flexibility.
7 Reasons Why We Book Hotel Rooms With Booking.com
With so many travel firms now on the market trying to attract your business, arranging trips can start to get a little overwhelming. It’s often difficult to know if you’re really getting a great deal and if you can trust the booking agent you’ve chosen.
Despite all the competition, we always find that we use one hotel booking website in particular. For its ease of use and consistently good prices, we like to use Booking.com. There is some reason for this.
1. Free cancellation on almost all rooms
One of the main reasons we use Booking.com is that on most rooms, you can cancel your booking penalty for free. We offer ‘free cancellation’ on almost all rooms we book and generally, there is no surcharge.
The flexibility it offers is useful for a number of reasons, but especially if you’re booking last minute. When we start looking for accommodation, we will start by making a short list. We will then make a quick decision as to which of our shortlisted properties meet our basic criteria, and then book.
At this point, we’ve locked down somewhere to live, but it’s not necessarily the best place available. With free cancellation, we are now free to continue our search, this time more selective. If we find somewhere better and/or cheaper, we make a new booking, then cancel our first booking.
It is worth noting that some smaller, independent hotels are not too keen on the ‘free cancellation’ model as it makes it difficult to manage demand. Our advice is to try to limit your use of ‘free cancellation’ bookings as much as possible, especially when dealing with smaller, independent hotels.
Another thing to note is that cancellation policies can change frequently. When making your booking, read everything to make sure you’re booking under the cancellation policy you expect.
2. Clear pricing with no hidden fees
The prices displayed are the prices you pay. Booking.com does not add any reservation or admin fees. In fact, Booking.com rarely charges you anything. In most cases, all charges are payable directly to the hotel upon your arrival.
Of course, there are occasions where Booking.com collects payment, but this is always clearly stated during the booking process.
Please note that sometimes, hotels add tourist tax or additional fees to the bill upon your arrival. This should be clearly written on the hotel listing. If not, let Booking.com’s support team know.
3. Book hotel rooms on the go.
The travel industry is plagued by poor apps that only offer limited features. Booking.com’s app is different though. Everything you can do on their website, you can do in the app. It is really well designed, really easy to use and is updated frequently.
While the app has many neat features, our favorite is the screenshot feature. When taking a screenshot, the app realizes that you are taking a screenshot and instead offers a shareable link that can then be sent via email or posted on a social network.
4. Your loyalty rewarded with freebies, perks and discounts.
Book hotel rooms with Booking.com and become a Booking.com Genius. The program rewards your loyalty with additional discounts, freebies and perks (such as free airport transfers and welcome drinks) and access to a priority customer service line. Program membership is completely free and is automatically activated when you make your fifth booking.
Genius Perks are offered by the hoteliers themselves and not through Booking.com, so the perks you receive will depend on the hotels you interact with.
5. Really good support
Thankfully, I didn’t have to deal with Booking.com’s customer service team very often. Although I have, on occasion, always resolved my issues very quickly.
6. Price Match Guarantee
If you manage to find a cheaper price for your booking, Booking.com will match it. Obviously, you’ll need to provide proof and meet a few other criteria, but it’s good to know that when you book hotel rooms with Booking.com, you know that their prices match. Will be
7. Over 93 million reviews
Reviews are very important when booking a hotel as they provide an unbiased insight into what it’s like to stay at a hotel. Booking.com has an active review system built into it, so you don’t have to scour the internet to find other reviews. They are on the list.
Here are our thoughts on why you should book hotel rooms with Booking.com, our first point of call when booking rooms. We’d love to hear from you if you’ve used Booking.com or if you’ve used a different hotel booking website. Let us know in the comments below.