There are a great number of sites you can use to book travel on the internet. Which site or sites you use depends on your style of travel, how much in advance you are booking, and where you are going. Below or some sites you should know about and how to use them.
There is no best hotel booking site. One site will have a deal this week and a different site will have a deal for next week… at the same hotel. Knowing some alternative hotel booking sites can save you on lodging, which is one of the biggest expenses in travel.
Hotel Booking Sites
- HotelsCombined.com – This is a meta-search site (that means it searches a lot of the other sites all at once and lets you compare them). My wife was stuck trying to find a place in Kyoto for a recent trip on Hotels.com and I got on a meta-search site and literally found something great in 5 minutes.
- Hotels.com – One of my favorite hotel booking sites. Book 10 nights and get a night free.
- Booking.com – The leading hotel booking site worldwide but mostly used outside the United States. Strongest in Europe.
- Expedia.com – The leading hotel booking site in the United States.
- Priceline.com – One of the leading booking sites. Priceline still does their “Name Your Price” but you can also book hotels without the auction process.
- tingo.com – Tingo is a newer hotel booking site from TripAdvisor that allows people to book early for their vacation then get money back if the hotel rates drop.
- Agoda.com – Good booking site when you book internationally, especially in Asia.
- TripAdvisor – the leading hotel review site, but now also supports direct booking for a growing number of hotels.
- Trivago.com – This is another meta-search site that Expedia bought. It started in Germany. They search Expedia certainly but also 199 other hotel sites for deals.
- Roomkey.com – Roomkey is only recently on my radar but I like what they are doing. They will find cheaper rates for hotel rooms, but the catch is that you have to be in the hotel’s loyalty program. But since joining the loyalty program is free you should join anyway.
Hotel Deal Sites
- Jetsetter.com – Hotel deals
- Groupon.com – Deals for hotels and all-inclusive vacations.
Hostel Booking Sites
- Hostelworld.com (US) – the leading hostel booking site since it merged with hostelbookers.com.
- Hostelz.com – Offers hostels in more than 54,178 listings in 9,534 cities
Last-Minute Timeshare Rentals
-
SellMyTimeshareNow.com – offers high-end resort timeshare rentals available to book online at up to 70% off. Check-in dates are within 60 days.
Last Minute Hotel Deals Booking Sites
- Laterooms.com – last-minute bargains at international hotels
- HotelTonight.com – Great iPhone app for finding hotel rooms tonight where you are
- Last-Minute Deals with Expedia
Vacation Home and Room Rental Sites
Vacation Home and Room Rental Sites- Airbnb (get a $40 credit) – Rent a room or an apartment instead of a hotel room
- VRBO.com – Vacation Rental by Owner
- Villas International – Rent a villa or luxury accommodation
- Homestay.com – Paid hosted stays with a local
Cheap or Free Accommodation Bookings Sites
- Homeexchange.com – Swap houses with someone else
- Couchsurfing.com – Sleep on a spare couch for free
- Staydu.com – Staying with locals for help, money or free
- Trusted Housesitters – Stay in someone’s house in exchange for feeding the dog or watering the plants.
Other Helpful Sites
- Biddingtraveler.com The site helps you know what to bid on Priceline if you use the “name your price” feature
- TripAdvisor.com – Best site for reviews of hotels other accommodations
The Best Websites for Booking Tours
Best Internet Travel Sites – Hotels – Episode 3
Free eBook – “How to Save Money Booking Your Travel Online”
6 Things to Know When Booking Travel Goes Wrong
by Chris Christensen
Chris Christensen is the creator of the Amateur Traveler blog and podcast. He has been a travel creator since 2005 and has won awards including being named the "Best Independent Travel Journalist" by Travel+Leisure Magazine.+Chris Christensen | @chris2x | facebook
25 Responses to “27 Websites for Booking Hotels and Alternate Accommodations”
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Tags: article, best, budget travel, hotel, travel 101
AmateurTraveler
Says:December 27th, 2013 at 9:31 am
25 Websites for Booking Hotels and Alternate Accommodations http://t.co/2S2onhTnZ8 #travel
TopTravelPosts
Says:December 30th, 2013 at 8:00 am
25 Websites for Booking Hotels and Alternate Accommodations: There are a great number of sites you can use to … http://t.co/2Fd503zPTs
FamilyTravelers
Says:December 30th, 2013 at 8:00 am
25 Websites for Booking Hotels and Alternate Accommodations: There are a great number of sites you can use to … http://t.co/2WqknlCE6D
meg_martin
Says:December 30th, 2013 at 11:35 am
25 Websites for Booking Hotels and Alternate Accommodations: http://t.co/Jo9zlKX1TC via @chris2x
EpicureCulture
Says:December 30th, 2013 at 11:36 am
Great resource! “@chris2x: 25 Websites for Booking Hotels and Alternate Accommodations http://t.co/AD5mCfk9M6 #travel #hotels”
Nascothornet
Says:December 30th, 2013 at 11:48 am
“@AmateurTraveler: 25 Websites for Booking Hotels and Alternate Accommodations http://t.co/pFnz3dX1oQ #travel #hotels” @alex_j789
Paul P
Says:December 30th, 2013 at 10:07 pm
Pretty comprehensive list. Oyster is good for hotel content I find.
Alvian Rahardjo
Says:February 5th, 2014 at 9:13 pm
Great list Chris! but i prefer to use Agoda or Wego
ventcorpmi
Says:January 28th, 2015 at 1:01 pm
Wow, didn’t know about Tringo, very cool! I enjoy bed and breakfasts as well and have found http://www.selectregistry.com to be a good source for high quality b&bs.
Pamela Sarner
Says:March 15th, 2015 at 9:13 am
I would also suggest http://bedandbreakfasteuro.com/.
It will help you finding the best B&B in Europe.
Siddharth
Says:September 15th, 2015 at 9:16 pm
Nice article Chris 🙂 I personally use http://hotelhike.com for hotel searches.It’s pretty great,I found some good deals with them.
admin
Says:January 9th, 2016 at 4:07 pm
great hotel catalogue for austria, germany, switzerland
Johnhenny
Says:February 4th, 2016 at 8:38 pm
thanks for posting about hotel accommodations.thanks for posting.
johnhenny
Says:February 29th, 2016 at 8:40 pm
alternate accommodation is very important in case of any emergency . Thanks for posting.
chris2x
Says:March 3rd, 2016 at 6:01 am
you are welcome
Sebastien Gint
Says:July 13th, 2016 at 1:14 am
Very complete Article. I would add alternatives website such fairbooking. org for french hotels and BookBedder.com for independent hotels all around the world.
Kishan Nathawat
Says:July 31st, 2017 at 10:20 am
Thanks for sharing this valuable information about hotels or accommodation booking sites. After reading your article, I used laterooms website for last minute hotel deals and I found very useful because I got really cheap price on it. Really impressed with your deep knowledge about hotel or accommodation booking sites.
Robert Jackson
Says:November 2nd, 2018 at 2:51 am
Hello,
great article and very useful thank you for share.
David
Says:January 9th, 2020 at 5:08 am
HI,
I have been reading through your back catalogue of posts and I just had to add a comment to this one…
My wife and I prefer VRBO but I would recommend making sure that the host is not also advertising on AirBnB or other sites. Some hosts will post ads on multiple sites but at a different rates. If you book at $$ on one and they get request on another site at $$$, they will cancel your booking and go with the one at the higher rate.
If I see an advertisement on the another site I always contact the host to let them know that I know that they are posting on multiple sites and ask them to set my dates to “not available”. If they won’t, I usually move on – it’s safer than risking a last minute cancellation.
Your post has made me rethink this and add the other sites that you listed here.
Thanks!
Chris Christensen
Says:January 9th, 2020 at 9:12 am
We just stayed in a place in Virginia that was advertised on VRBO and AirBnB. It not only had different rates but different information. It did help to look on both sites.
John
Says:August 5th, 2020 at 4:11 am
All these sites are pretty much the same, so while booking a hotel stay you can compare the prices on all these sites and book your stay from the site that offers the lower rates. Another simpler approach is to download a chrome extension called PricingBlocker which will give you the lowest rates available. You will definitely save a lot.
Brian Limpan
Says:August 5th, 2020 at 7:37 am
These are some popular websites which occasionally offer the same prices more or less. I had booked a vacation using Mituri Travels last year and I saved a lot as compared to the popular websites since I was able to book both my accommodation and flight at the same time.
John
Says:July 18th, 2023 at 12:22 pm
Hotels.com Rewards has been changed to OneKey. Reward stamps already earned are converted to cash at 10% of value! 10%! I let them know that is considered a rip-off in any currency.
Liam
Says:September 19th, 2023 at 8:59 pm
Thank you for your services
Andrew Moran
Says:November 13th, 2023 at 8:02 am
Interesting article. I’d also recommend checking out to see if the accommodation has a direct booking option. Quite often you’ll avoid paying fees and most probably get direct booking benefits !