Agree with this completely. Agoda seems to be better for Asia and Booking.com is where I usually end up booking European hotels (but only after checking with the hotel direct and Trivago, just to make sure!).

One of the most important factors for me, because I often travel on my own is how easy it is to find a single room, not a hostel dorm, on the site. Some of the aggregators don’t even give an option for a single person, others you have to skip though pages of hostels before finding a single room.

THEY REFUSED TO FIX THE PROBLEM SO I CANCELLED THE BOOKING AND GOT A DIFFERENT HOTEL – WHO WERE FAMILIAR WITH EXPEDIA ISSUES AND OFFERED ME A REALLY GOOD RATE – BETTER THAN EXPEDIAS .

I AM STILL WAITING TO SEE IF EXPEDIA WILL REMEDY AND GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK . THE PROBLEM IS EGYPTIANS ARE NOT AWARE OF PRICES HERE AND ARE LIKELY RIPPING OFF TOO – JUDGING FROM THEIR ABJECT REFUSAL TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY CONCERNS AT BEING GOUGED ,

I AM SURPRISED – AS PRIOR EXPERIENCES WITH EXPEDIA WERE MORE FAVORABLE . ANY THOUGHTS ?

Ask and ye shall receive — https://toomanyadapters.com/finding-best-flight-search-site/ 🙂

It’s a couple of years old now, so I’ll probably take another look at it later in the year to see if anything has changed, but it’s a good place to start.

Yup, the Asia/Agoda and Europe/Booking thing has definitely been the case. I’ve noticed recently that Booking.com inventory is also being shown on Agoda (although not listed as such until you actually make the booking and get an email with a Booking logo). Since they’re both owned by the same company, that’s probably not a huge surprise. It happened with a couple of recent bookings I made in Europe.

Absolutely agree that not all rooms are shown on all sites, so if you’re looking to stay somewhere in particular but your preferred site(s) aren’t showing rooms available, it’s definitely worth looking on the hotel site or mailing them directly.

It is up to the hotel to manage room availability on each site that they list on. If a hotel lists on multiple sites, or through their own website, they may not list ALL available rooms to help prevent over-booking. The problem for a hotel is managing availability when they list on multiple sites as it constantly changes – so they play it safe and list fewer rooms. This is why if there is a hotel that I am particularly interested in, and they show no availability, I always contact the hotel directly. Often the still have rooms.

Sites like booking.com also charge hotels up to 20% commission for each booking, and of course they pay credit card transaction fees too. This is another reason I contact the hotel directly to ask about their cash price. Even though they are not supposed to offer a price lower than what they list on booking.com (according to their contract), they sometimes do.

I tend to use booking.com but will have to give agoda a try next time.

Yeah, the real test with any online company is always when things go wrong. I’ve only had to deal with Agoda customer service once, over a small matter (the number of people staying in the room wasn’t correct) and they fixed it quickly. Airbnb has always been good to deal with for me as well, but there are plenty of news reports suggesting that’s not always the case. I guess your mileage will vary — but if you find a company that you’re happy with, definitely keep using it!

Thanks Wayne, that’s useful (especially for me personally, since I still have a Velocity membership that I never use… but might start doing now!)

Absolutely agree about the interface — Agoda’s desktop site desperately needs a revamp (the mobile site is much better). Booking.com looks great; it’s just a shame its prices are higher.

Agoda does disclose which taxes are included and which aren’t (at least in the countries I’ve tested in), but it’s overly-complicated and in small text that’s not beside the main payment amount. It’s said something like “10% hotel tax included, 5% city tax not included” or something similar. It absolutely needs to be improved, though.