Covid caused significant upheaval in the travel industry, just as it did in a great many other spheres of business, but that won’t stop Frommer’s from investigating the various major hotel booking websites to see which ones still offer the most competitive prices and the widest range of available accommodations.
Even though travel is always evolving, our findings continue to take us by surprise. After doing our most recent in-depth investigation into the effectiveness of hotel search engines, we discovered that certain formerly dominant search engines, such as Hotwire and TravelPony, are no longer in contention. On the other hand, we have witnessed several heavy hitters come up from behind to rise higher than they were previously.
Now is the time to determine the newest members of the Frommer’s Top Ten list.
There are three distinct categories of hotel search engines.
To begin, it is helpful to have a general understanding of the playing field. We primarily make use of the following three categories of websites when looking for hotels: aggregators, also known as meta-search engines, do not actually handle reservations; rather, they trawl both OTAs and hotel sites to return a compendium of results, then send you to the site of your choice for booking. online travel agencies (OTAs), hotels’ own websites, which may offer deals that OTAs can’t match (and you should always double-check yourself before booking), and aggregators.
We evaluated online travel agencies as well as aggregators that search such agencies. When there are aggregators that already check the smaller OTAs, there is no reason to include them. However, not all aggregators are up to the task of searching through the many booking engines to the extent that they should be. In point of fact, according to the most recent findings of our investigation, the website that led to the discovery of the greatest number of hotels was an OTA, and not an aggregator that purports to search the entire web. However, we discovered that their outcomes were not even close to being as satisfactory as our own.
Caution: A number of aggregators are going to find a lot of booking sites that have astonishingly low pricing, but their track histories are frequently questionable. Before you hand over any of your hard-earned cash to a company that you aren’t familiar with, make sure you conduct a fast search for the company’s name along with the phrases “review” and “scam.” Additionally, you should investigate the firm’s standing with the Better Business Bureau (BBB.org).
As a side point, it is worth noting that membership occasionally comes with certain benefits, at least at some OTA websites, where logging in can frequently result in discounts of between 4% and 6%. The discounts offered to aggregator members are much less consistent and range from just 1% to 2% of the total purchase price. For all of our testing, we made use of the standard “non-member” pricing.
How We Came to Our Conclusion Regarding Position
To evaluate which of the major booking websites offered the best combination of low prices and a wide variety of accommodation choices, we used sixty different reservation scenarios.
We began by tallying the number of options that could be procured by each competitor in seven of the world’s most popular tourist destinations: Orlando, New Orleans, San Francisco, Rome, London, Bangkok, and Buenos Aires. These cities include:
After that, we conducted a search for the lowest rates that each site could locate at four distinct downtown hotels in varied price ranges for a stay three months in advance during the shoulder season. This search was performed for each location. We attempted to achieve the most normal base prices possible by avoiding price increases brought on by the high season or the holidays as well as last-minute discounts.
We used a complicated weighted system that awarded points for finding the lowest rates on a specific hotel and deducted points for returning higher prices than other sites. This system was designed to determine which website would save you the most money on a consistent basis and was intended to determine which website would save you the most money.
Who had the most success, and who fell short of expectations? Keep reading…
#10: Hotels.com
OTA
Hotels.com has been absent from the top 10 for the past five years, but it has now made a comeback by cracking the top 10 for the first time since adding vacation rentals and apartments to its results in the United States. Its comeback causes us to remove Hotwire, which occupied the tenth spot on our list the previous year, entirely. On the other hand, Hotels.com was, at best, below average when it came to pricing, and it struggled the most in locations outside of the United States.
Using the filters on Hotels.com allows you to arrange the results in a variety of different customizable ways, making them the best and most robust filters in the industry. In fact, they are tied for second place with our #2. If nevertheless Hotels.com wishes to go up in the rankings, it will need to demonstrate better price performance.
The pros are a very quick refresh, a comprehensive array of filtering and sorting options, including one for accessibility, a wide variety of hotel possibilities, and pricing that are acceptable but not the best available. honest regarding the fact that it takes its own commissions into consideration when ranking the search results (sure, it warns you about this in very fine print that you have to click to read, but at least it’s honest).
Cons: Internationally, it does not perform particularly well, particularly in the lower price ranges.
#9: Priceline.com
OTA
Priceline used to be the dominant booking engine in the middle of the pack; however, it is currently stuck in position 9, the same place it was in the previous rankings. It did an adequate job in terms of price in the United States (and was able to locate the greatest number of hotels in Orlando), but it did only an average job in Europe, and it was completely ineffective in Asia and South America.
Priceline is able to stay competitive because to its three innovative ways to save money. Blind booking Express Deals will save you anywhere from 18% to 60% on your hotel stay, but you won’t find out the hotel’s name or address until after you’ve paid for the reservation. Pricebreakers are comparable, but the discounts are lower (up to 50%), and at least you are informed that you will be staying in one of three distinct hotels. Members can save anywhere from 5% to 15% on listed hotels by signing in and taking advantage of the VIP Deals.
Express Deals blind bookings and Pricebreaker semi-blind options both provide discounts of up to fifty or sixty percent, and the website is updated quite quickly.
The map view on Priceline only displays 30 hotels per page, therefore it does not show all of the results; It does not make sense that private rentals are shown separately from hotels on the available accommodations list. filters of poor quality make the sorting process more difficult; rounding down price quotes and waiting to disclose taxes and fees until the final booking page are both negative features (a minor annoyance, but it feels sneaky)
#8: Expedia.com
OTA
Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia are all sister sites owned by the same parent company and produce the same results. Expedia was the one that best met our needs, but the results should be quite comparable across the board.
Now the last time we did these tests, Expedia fell out of the top 10 totally, but it has since worked its way back up to the #8 slot with a performance that is only slightly above average. It was virtually as poor as Kayak in turning up a big number of motels; however, we believe it’s wonderful that Expedia does now offer apartments and other rental units; Expedia fared a bit better than they did the previous time on pricing.
Expedia had the same amount of results that were the greatest as it did that were the worst, but for the most part, it was securely in the middle. It’s interesting to note that it fared significantly better in other countries than it did in the United States (on most websites, the opposite is true).
Pros: Now offers a large selection of apartments; relatively good filtering options; displays full pricing, including all applicable taxes and fees right off the bat (in smaller print beneath the lead price used by its filters)
Cons: Prices are consistently just average (except for some reason in London); every apartment or condo unit is listed separately, even when there are multiple ones in the same building, which artificially inflates results; “The compensation which a property pays us for bookings made through our sites is also a factor for the relative ranking of properties with similar offers” (that’s bad, but kudos for being upfront about it); “The relative ranking of properties with similar offers is also a factor for the relative ranking of properties
#7: Kayak.com
Aggregator
Kayak, the first name-brand aggregator, has a habit of hovering around the top of our ranking. The time before, it finished in third place. This time, it manages to secure the seventh spot by being basically mediocre in almost every category, including pricing, selection, and filters.
The only cities in which Kayak offered prices that were significantly different from the industry standard were London (where it was successful) and Buenos Aires (it did not). Kayak does provide a good selection of filters, including one where you can type in any location or landmark so that it would appear “nearby”; this is a very great feature. However, it also put some kind of cookie on our browser, and that cookie seemed to have stored travel searches that we had conducted on other websites; when we first signed on, the cookie automatically filled in the places and dates. This is unsettling, and we do not approve of it.
Pros: Searches directly on some hotel websites; offers the option to include taxes and fees (but you have to select it); provides a “Price Alerts” deal tracker; offers the option to include taxes and fees. nice filters
Cons: Doesn’t always lead with the lowest price; sometimes listed fewer hotels than its corporate sister site, Booking, which it claims to canvass Cons: Doesn’t always lead with the lowest price; often listed less lodgings than Booking (as always, this gap in results mystifies us)
#6: Booking.com
OTA
When it comes to the sheer quantity of city-center accommodations that it can find, Booking is still head and shoulders above the competition, especially for prices lower than $200 per night. The price is where it has suffered the most decline throughout the years (falling from first to fourth to sixth place, respectively). It used to be the case that Booking found the best or near-best rate approximately two-thirds of the time, if not more. Never again in this case Its price performance was much above normal, and for the first time in the past seven years, it actually returned the highest price on two separate occasions.
It is still one of the most trustworthy websites, which is something we would like to point out. Each hotel contains a large number of user evaluations, all of which, in contrast to crowdsourced sites, are guaranteed to be from actual guests (in order to publish a review, you must first have booked through the site and then wait until after you’ve finished your stay before you can submit your feedback). It does not take into account taxes on North American rates; however, it does take into account European VAT and Asian taxes (ranging from 3% to 20%) in the base prices, and it displays these taxes alongside the first results that you see. The majority of other websites bury the costs in the fine print, hide the filter option entirely, or wait to disclose them until after you have gone through to the booking page and attempted to make a reservation.
In most cases, it is able to find considerably more homes than any other site, whether it be an OTA or an aggregator, particularly in the lower price ranges. Cons: Taxes are not included from the beginning (except in North America); a sufficient number of filters and sorting choices to choose from
Cons: Sometimes provides prices that are lower than average; like its corporate cousin Agoda, it employs irritating and condescending high-pressure sales tactics, such as marking search results with a red lettering that says “Only 3 rooms remaining on our site!”
#5: Tripadvisor.com
Aggregator
Tripadvisor does, in fact, now aggregate hotel costs, allowing you to book a room with just the click of a button, in addition to cataloging complaints about strange scents, rude staff, and faulty Wi-Fi connections. It was particularly strong in London and Orlando, where it identified the most costs that were at least average or better, and it was the only site that could beat Booking in terms of finding the most accommodations that were under $75 regardless of location.
Even though Tripadvisor’s variety of filters appears to be quite robust, not all of them are functional all of the time. Even after all these years, “user” reviews on the website are not necessarily reliable; some industry experts estimate that between one-third and one-half of all crowdsourced reviews are false, paid for, or written by friends, staff, or competitors. Although the website does have “user” reviews, they are not necessarily reliable. (The business contests the accuracy of that estimate.)
Pros: Convenient user reviews, some of which are true; good at finding the cheapest lodgings; occasionally discovers lower prices direct from a hotel’s own site Pros: Handy user evaluations, some of which are real; good at finding the cheapest lodgings
Hinky filters, largely average ratings, and doubtful user reviews are some of the negatives.
#4: Agoda.com
OTA
Agoda has steadily moved up the list to become the online travel agency (OTA) that performs the best in terms of both pricing and selection. It was the only website on this list (including the top three) that never presented a price that was lower than the industry average, and it sometimes offered “Secret Deals” of $10–$40 off a mystery hotel. You are only told the star rating (three to five), and neighborhood, after you have paid for your reservation at the hotel in question.
Now for the terrible news, which is quite bad. When problems arise with reservations made through Agoda, customers give the company very low ratings for customer care; the negative reviews that are posted on the website of the Better Business Bureau might be enough to convince you not to use this website. In addition, Agoda does not disclose any taxes or other costs until the very last page of the booking process, and the distance filter on the website sometimes did not work for us. In addition to this, its estimates of its inventory appear to be grossly exaggerated. It asserted that it could find 2,130 rooms in Rome for less than $75, yet we could only discover 235 of those accommodations. Finally, some third-party aggregators were able to locate better deals on certain hotels booked through Agoda than we were able to find by conducting our own searches directly through Agoda.
Pros: Consistently finds some of the lowest prices, particularly in Asia; excellent filters; offers “Member Rates” that seem to shave off approximately 10% off some properties’ pricing;
Cons: Customer complaints; only fair-to-poor results in the United States; you can only search by city (most other sites permit you to search a region or state as well); omits taxes and fees until the very last moment, which makes its results look artificially cheaper than competitors’ results that include them; you can only search by city (most other sites permit you to search a region or state as well); you can only search by city (most other sites permit you to search a region or state as well); clogs up the price window with contentious marketing strategies that imply scarcity (“86% off today!” “Only 3 Left!” “Mega Sale!”); sprinkles 4% of the results, skillfully positioned, with “Just missed it!” hotels that are not available on your dates #3: Trivago.com
#3: Trivago
Trivago experienced some growing pains following its early success, but it seems to have found its footing again since the last time we put it through its paces. It was on par with our number two site when it came to unearthing excellent deals, but it was not quite as successful as our number one site in locating hotels for under $200 (and considerably less successful for rates under $75). In point of fact, Trivago discovered a smaller number of hotels than any of the other websites on this list, with the exception of Expedia (number 8) and Hotels.com (number 10). Trivago did occasionally come out on top in the pricing competition by locating a rate directly from the hotel (although our #1 also knows this trick), and it also occasionally uncovered lower rates at an OTA than you would have been able to discover if you looked for it directly.
However, using Trivago was a far more frustrating experience compared to using other leading sites. It was the only website on this list that never provided an indication of taxes and fees in the results; instead, you had to click over to the booking site to find that information. Because of this, its “lowest rate” may actually have hidden fees that make it significantly more expensive than it initially appears to be. Trivago provided a “wow” quote of $121 for a hotel in Orlando that practically every other site had listed at $199; however, when we clicked over to the site offering the deal, Bedsopia, the total amount that you would actually pay was $246. Is it of any assistance, Trivago?
It also has a limited number of filters, which is a deficiency that is made worse by the fact that it only displays the top 125 results based on any specified criterion (price, rating, distance from landmark; however, the distance from landmark filter has some bugs). It was not always the case that the price that was highlighted in large letters was the best price (which was displayed either in smaller print or shown only after clicking the “More deals” tab). Even worse, there were times when we clicked through to the featured booking site and found that the pricing wasn’t truly available. Finally, Trivago has formed a partnership with a third party in order to offer direct booking on a select number of hotels. However, this third party has received far too many online complaints for us to advocate using it.
The user interface is straightforward, and it does direct searches on the websites of individual hotels.
The stated prices are not always available, come with hidden taxes and fees, or are from a dubious online travel agency (OTA); the number of available options is far lower than those offered by most other sites. The formerly robust filters have been streamlined, and the page now only displays the top 125 results depending on the parameters specified.
2) The HotelsCombined.com website
Aggregator
HotelsCombined has repeatedly demonstrated that it is capable of securing the lowest prices in the industry; to tell you the truth, it was only just surpassed by our #1 choice. Only once did HotelsCombined return a quote that was lower than the average on our moderately priced hotel in London, and it wasn’t alone in that failure; even the number one website made a mistake and beat it by only $2.
HotelsCombined provides, in our opinion, the most comprehensive collection of filters available in the industry. They are all checkboxes, sliders, or fill-in text boxes; there are no radio buttons among them. This difference enables you to choose several options from inside a single category. You can also enter a specific address or landmark to narrow your search to that geographic region (only sister site Kayak shares that perk).
HotelsCombined does have the option to view costs that include all applicable taxes and fees; however, selecting this option has the potential to reduce the number of results displayed. Another intriguing peculiarity is that although the website did a good job in general, we discovered that it did not always canvass as many websites as its competitors did. For instance, it only found a single estimate for the Disney Pop Century Resort, whereas Tripadvisor obtained thirteen estimates, all of which were lower in price.
Pros: Quick to refresh; gives the best filters; occasionally discovers hotels that offer reduced “book direct” rates; provides a “Price alert” tracker; provides the option to view prices with or without taxes
Cons: Less variety than many other competitors; sometimes the price quoted was not actually available once we clicked over to the vendor; has inexplicably removed some small but handy features that made it stand out, such as the ability to exclude specific hotels from your search results. Pros: Ease of use and the ability to compare prices with other sites.
#1: Google.com/travel/hotels
Aggregator
Yes, we were under the impression that this position would be held by a tiny startup company with its beginnings in the travel sector; nevertheless, as part of Google’s unrelenting quest to dominate every form of Web search, the company has quietly constructed the greatest hotel aggregator in the market. You can always Google the name of a hotel to see some rates from other sites, but if you go to Google.com/travel/hotels, you will see the interface for Google’s full-fledged aggregator. The outcomes are available in a flash, the user interface is straightforward, and the outcomes were the most impressive of their kind. Google was the only website on the list that never offered a price that was lower than average and only had one instance in which it offered a price that was lower than average. It even recognized when to hunt for a cost that beat the online travel agencies (OTAs) directly on the hotel’s own website.
Having said that, there were times when the price listed in Google’s results ended up being somewhat more after we went through to book it, and the option to examine rates that included all applicable taxes and fees wasn’t readily apparent at first glance: You were required to click on a particular lodge rather than on the page displaying the results list. Its filters also have room for improvement. The essential ones are there, but there is no neighborhood or “distance from” filter. However, given that the results are based on a map inset, you can cheat that system by centering the map over your favorite location.
One thing that is truly peculiar and also a drawback is that Google, which is meant to be the King of Search, has never found the most options. In almost every category, Booking and Kayak were faster than it, with the exception of hotels costing less than $75, where Google came out on top. Despite this, Google was able to find more than enough places to stay, and in terms of cost, it was the clear winner. What a blow for the poor little fellow!
Pros: Very fast; great at finding the best prices; decent filters; sometimes finds lower prices directly from the hotel; offers the option to see the rate with taxes and fees included Pros: Very fast; great at finding the best prices; decent filters; sometimes finds lower prices directly from the hotel Pros: offers the option to
Cons: Fewer results than on some other sites; unnecessary division of search results into hotels and vacation rentals; prominent placement of “Ads • Featured Offers” results from partners at the top of the page; however, these results are labeled as being sponsored, which is a plus.