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  • Hi New York City - Hostel $58+
  • West Side Ymca $113+
  • Central Park West Hostel $161+
  • Radio Hotel $174+
  • Pod 51 $186+
  • Pod Times Square $191+
  • The Washington by LuxUrban, Trademark Collection by Wyndham $191+
  • OYO Times Square $195+
  • The Gallivant Times Square $197+
  • The Manhattan At Times Square $197+
  • Pod 39 $197+
  • Paramount Times Square $205+
  • YOTEL New York $213+
  • DoubleTree by Hilton New York Downtown $215+
  • The New Yorker A Wyndham Hotel $223+
  • Flight Miami - Newark (MIA - EWR) $51+
  • Flight Chicago - New York (ORD - LGA) $59+
  • Flight Atlanta - New York (ATL - LGA) $60+
  • Flight Fort Lauderdale - Newark (FLL - EWR) $66+
  • Flight Atlanta - Newark (ATL - EWR) $75+
  • Flight Dallas - New York (DFW - LGA) $78+
  • Flight Fort Lauderdale - New York (FLL - LGA) $88+
  • Flight Miami - New York (MIA - LGA) $88+
  • Flight Orlando - New York (MCO - LGA) $90+
  • Flight Orlando - Newark (MCO - EWR) $97+
  • Flight Dallas - Newark (DFW - EWR) $109+
  • Flight Chicago - Newark (ORD - EWR) $125+
  • Flight Chicago - New York (ORD - JFK) $133+
  • Flight Los Angeles - New York (LAX - LGA) $140+
  • Flight Fort Lauderdale - New York (FLL - JFK) $167+
  • Monumental Movieland Hotel $49+
  • Grand Hotel Kissimmee At Celebration $54+
  • Ramada Plaza by Wyndham Orlando Resort & Suites Intl Drive $68+
  • Flight Cleveland - Orlando (CLE - MCO) $53+
  • Flight Philadelphia - Orlando (PHL - MCO) $65+
  • Flight Baltimore - Orlando (BWI - MCO) $66+
  • Book A Bed Hostels $25+
  • Generator London $36+
  • Ramada London North M1 $64+
  • Corbigoe Hotel $68+
  • Flight New York - London (JFK - LGW) $322+
  • Flight New Windsor - London (SWF - STN) $380+
  • Flight New York - London (JFK - LHR) $417+
  • Flight Los Angeles - London (LAX - LGW) $421+

Fort Lauderdale

  • Red Carpet Inn Airport Fort Lauderdale $65+
  • HomeTowne Studios by Red Roof Fort Lauderdale $67+
  • Days Inn by Wyndham Fort Lauderdale Airport Cruise Port $68+
  • Flight Raleigh - Fort Lauderdale (RDU - FLL) $37+
  • Flight Philadelphia - Fort Lauderdale (PHL - FLL) $47+
  • Flight Atlanta - Fort Lauderdale (ATL - FLL) $50+
  • Green Tortoise Hostel Seattle $59+
  • Travelodge by Wyndham Seattle By The Space Needle $125+
  • Coast Gateway Hotel $136+
  • Flight Ontario - Seattle (ONT - SEA) $83+
  • Flight Phoenix - Seattle (PHX - SEA) $83+
  • Flight Denver - Seattle (DEN - SEA) $93+
  • Fabhotel Royal Residency Lakdikapul $18+
  • Katriya Hotel & Towers $25+
  • The Altruist Business Hotel Hitech $33+
  • Flight Chicago - Hyderabad (ORD - HYD) $472+
  • Flight New York - Ahmedabad (JFK - AMD) $558+
  • Flight New York - New Delhi (JFK - DEL) $581+
  • Best Western Sapporo Odori Koen $28+
  • Smile Hotel Premium Sapporo Susukino $31+
  • Nest Hotel Sapporo Ekimae $33+
  • Flight Los Angeles - Tokyo (LAX - NRT) $631+
  • Flight San Francisco - Tokyo (SFO - NRT) $640+
  • Flight Seattle - Tokyo (SEA - NRT) $750+
  • Royal Grove Waikiki $113+
  • Kuhio Banyan Club $122+
  • Ohia Waikiki Studio Suites $133+
  • Flight Los Angeles - Honolulu (LAX - HNL) $249+
  • Flight San Francisco - Honolulu (SFO - HNL) $255+
  • Flight San Jose - Honolulu (SJC - HNL) $260+
  • Super 8 by Wyndham Dallas Love Field Airport $53+
  • Dallas Love Field Inn $55+
  • Wyndham Garden Dallas North $64+
  • Flight Atlanta - Dallas (ATL - DFW) $58+
  • Flight Minneapolis - Dallas (MSP - DFW) $58+
  • Flight Chicago - Dallas (MDW - DFW) $60+
  • OYO Hotel And Casino Las Vegas $27+
  • The STRAT Hotel, Casino & Tower $32+
  • Four Queens Hotel and Casino $44+
  • the D Las Vegas $46+
  • Flight Los Angeles - Las Vegas (LAX - LAS) $29+
  • Flight Burbank - Las Vegas (BUR - LAS) $35+
  • Flight Dallas - Las Vegas (DFW - LAS) $47+
  • Flight Oakland - Las Vegas (OAK - LAS) $52+
  • Freehand Chicago $36+
  • Chicago Getaway Hostel $52+
  • Travelodge by Wyndham Downtown Chicago $105+
  • Flight Atlanta - Chicago (ATL - MDW) $49+
  • Flight Atlanta - Chicago (ATL - ORD) $49+
  • Flight Dallas - Chicago (DFW - ORD) $56+

San Francisco

  • Hi San Francisco Downtown Hostel $48+
  • The Mosser $74+
  • BEI San Francisco, Trademark Collection By Wyndham $123+
  • Flight Ontario - San Francisco (ONT - SFO) $46+
  • Flight San Diego - San Francisco (SAN - SFO) $48+
  • Flight Los Angeles - San Francisco (LAX - SFO) $64+

Washington, D.C.

  • Generator Hotel Washington DC $64+
  • Days Inn by Wyndham Washington DC/Connecticut Avenue $121+
  • Georgetown Residences by LuxUrban, Trademark Coll by Wyndham $148+
  • Citizenm Washington DC Noma $160+
  • Hotel Harrington $164+
  • Hyatt Place Washington DC/US Capitol $166+
  • Beacon Hotel & Corporate Quarters $172+
  • Motto by Hilton Washington DC City Center $174+
  • Arc Hotel Washington DC, Georgetown $180+
  • Morrison Clark Historic Inn $185+
  • Henley Park Hotel $186+
  • Citizenm Washington Dc Capitol $186+
  • Flight Atlanta - Baltimore (ATL - BWI) $51+
  • Flight Boston - Baltimore (BOS - BWI) $61+
  • Flight Dallas - Baltimore (DFW - BWI) $77+
  • Flight Houston - Baltimore (HOU - BWI) $80+
  • Flight Houston - Baltimore (IAH - BWI) $80+
  • Flight Chicago - Baltimore (ORD - BWI) $99+
  • Flight Boston - Washington, D.C. (BOS - DCA) $123+
  • Flight Los Angeles - Baltimore (LAX - BWI) $124+
  • Flight Houston - Washington, D.C. (HOU - DCA) $133+
  • Flight Dallas - Washington, D.C. (DFW - DCA) $138+
  • Flight Minneapolis - Washington, D.C. (MSP - DCA) $138+
  • Flight Boston - Washington, D.C. (BOS - IAD) $149+
  • Hotel Boutique Casa Mallorca $68+
  • Suites Malecon Cancun $68+
  • Avani Cancún Airport Hotel $82+
  • Flight Chicago - Cancún (ORD - CUN) $180+
  • Flight Fort Lauderdale - Cancún (FLL - CUN) $181+
  • Flight Houston - Cancún (HOU - CUN) $181+

United States

  • Flight Newark - Miami (EWR - MIA) $61+
  • Flight Newark - Fort Lauderdale (EWR - FLL) $68+
  • Kauai Palms Hotel $189+
  • Tip Top Motel $194+
  • Kauai Beach Villas $223+
  • Flight Los Angeles - Hawaii (LAX - USHI) $213+
  • Flight San Francisco - Hawaii (SFO - USHI) $257+
  • Flight Ontario - Hawaii (ONT - USHI) $260+
  • Super 8 by Wyndham San Diego Hotel Circle $87+
  • California Suites Hotel $95+
  • Best Western Seven Seas $105+
  • Flight Phoenix - San Diego (PHX - SAN) $45+
  • Flight San Francisco - San Diego (SFO - SAN) $48+
  • Flight San Jose - San Diego (SJC - SAN) $57+
  • Shared Living Not A Hotel $38+
  • Super 8 by Wyndham Phoenix West $53+
  • Hometowne Studios by Red Roof Phoenix - Dunlap Ave. $56+
  • Flight Dallas - Phoenix (DFW - PHX) $47+
  • Flight Ontario - Phoenix (ONT - PHX) $48+
  • Flight Los Angeles - Phoenix (LAX - PHX) $55+

Los Angeles

  • Boutique Hostel $34+
  • Freehand Los Angeles $41+
  • City Center Hotel $104+
  • Four Points by Sheraton Los Angeles International Airport $108+
  • Rotex Western Inn $108+
  • La Quinta Inn & Suites LAX $116+
  • The Dixie Hollywood $137+
  • Flight San Francisco - Los Angeles (SFO - LAX) $48+
  • Flight Oakland - Los Angeles (OAK - LAX) $58+
  • Flight Dallas - Los Angeles (DFW - LAX) $75+
  • Flight Denver - Los Angeles (DEN - LAX) $77+
  • Flight Houston - Los Angeles (IAH - LAX) $86+
  • Flight Houston - Los Angeles (HOU - LAX) $95+
  • Flight Portland - Los Angeles (PDX - LAX) $99+
  • Selina Gold Dust $59+
  • Motel 6 Miami. Fl $76+
  • La Quinta Inn by Wyndham Miami Airport North $77+
  • Miami Gardens Inn & Suites $82+
  • Days Inn by Wyndham Miami International Airport $91+
  • La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Miami Airport East $93+
  • The Palms Inn & Suites Miami, Kendall, Fl $108+
  • Holiday Inn Miami West - Airport Area $109+
  • Holiday Inn Express & Suites Miami-Kendall $111+
  • Radisson Red Miami Airport $113+
  • Courtyard by Marriott Miami West/FL Turnpike $118+
  • Flight Atlanta - Miami (ATL - MIA) $40+
  • Flight Philadelphia - Miami (PHL - MIA) $47+
  • Flight Chicago - Miami (ORD - MIA) $51+
  • Flight Dallas - Miami (DFW - MIA) $57+
  • Flight Baltimore - Miami (BWI - MIA) $60+
  • Flight Chicago - Miami (MDW - MIA) $64+
  • Flight Raleigh - Miami (RDU - MIA) $68+
  • Flight Houston - Miami (HOU - MIA) $75+
  • Flight Houston - Miami (IAH - MIA) $75+
  • Flight New York - Miami (LGA - MIA) $75+
  • Hometowne Studios by Red Roof Denver - Glendale/Cherry Creek $64+
  • Super 8 by Wyndham Denver Stapleton $78+
  • Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Denver Airport $97+
  • Baymont by Wyndham Denver International Airport $101+
  • Days Inn & Suites by Wyndham Denver International Airport $102+
  • Quality Inn & Suites Denver International Airport $103+
  • Hyatt Place Pena Station Denver Airport $104+
  • Flight Minneapolis - Denver (MSP - DEN) $38+
  • Flight Dallas - Denver (DFW - DEN) $58+
  • Flight Chicago - Denver (ORD - DEN) $67+
  • Flight Houston - Denver (HOU - DEN) $68+
  • Flight Houston - Denver (IAH - DEN) $68+
  • Flight Seattle - Denver (SEA - DEN) $68+
  • Flight Los Angeles - Denver (LAX - DEN) $77+
  • Hi Boston - Hostel $65+
  • Found Hotel Boston Common $107+
  • Ramada by Wyndham Boston $158+
  • Flight Baltimore - Boston (BWI - BOS) $61+
  • Flight Orlando - Boston (MCO - BOS) $71+
  • Flight Chicago - Boston (ORD - BOS) $73+
  • Ramada Plaza by Wyndham Atlanta Airport $66+
  • La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Atlanta Airport North $98+
  • Sonesta Select Atlanta Cumberland Galleria $99+
  • Flight Orlando - Atlanta (MCO - ATL) $35+
  • Flight Houston - Atlanta (IAH - ATL) $43+
  • Flight Philadelphia - Atlanta (PHL - ATL) $45+
  • Generator Madrid $33+
  • C&h Aravaca Garden $40+
  • Toc Hostel And Suites Madrid $46+
  • Flight Newark - Barcelona (EWR - BCN) $349+
  • Flight New York - Madrid (JFK - MAD) $380+
  • Rodeway Inn Fairgrounds-Casino $64+
  • Tampa Inn - Near Busch Gardens $68+
  • Econo Lodge Airport at RJ Stadium $69+
  • Flight Dallas - Florida (DFW - USFL) $57+
  • Flight Baltimore - Florida (BWI - USFL) $61+
  • Flight Newark - Florida (EWR - USFL) $61+
  • Flight Atlanta - Tampa (ATL - TPA) $49+
  • Flight Cincinnati - Tampa (CVG - TPA) $58+
  • Flight Baltimore - Tampa (BWI - TPA) $75+

New Orleans

  • Ramada by Wyndham New Orleans $69+
  • Wyndham Garden Hotel Baronne Plaza $95+
  • Hampton Inn & Suites New Orleans Canal St. French Quarter $101+
  • Flight Dallas - New Orleans (DFW - MSY) $43+
  • Flight Atlanta - New Orleans (ATL - MSY) $56+
  • Flight Houston - New Orleans (HOU - MSY) $60+

Frequently asked questions about KAYAK

How do i find travel deals on kayak.

Simply use one of our travel search engines to scan for prices gathered from hundreds of travel sites. KAYAK’s search results pages have loads of filter options to help you find deals, discover exactly what you’re looking for and make booking seamless. Plus, there’s no extra fee from KAYAK.

How can I use KAYAK to manage my travel bookings?

KAYAK Trips creates a travel itinerary for you that will give you flight status alerts, can be shared with friends and more. Simply forward your booking confirmations to [email protected] or use the KAYAK app and sync your email account to keep all your travel plans organized in one app, even if you didn’t book with KAYAK. You can share your holiday plans with friends and family and also check out your travel stats for past vacations, like how far you’ve traveled, your most popular cities and how many times you’ve traveled around the world. Even if you don’t have signal, don’t worry, as you can access Trips to check out your itineraries whilst on the road. Your data is safe and secure with us and you won’t have to re-enter credit card info when booking future trips. If you want to make changes or cancel bookings, then you should contact the travel provider, which is provided on the booking confirmation.

What makes KAYAK a great travel app?

On the KAYAK app for iOS and Android you’ll find all the great travel offers found on the website and much more. There are special mobile rates and app only deals that allow you to save even more money. Plus, you can get notifications straight to your phone letting you know when prices for your next trip have dropped. But the KAYAK app is much more than just a travel app. Use the Trips function to manage your travel itinerary and get up to date status alerts on flights, check-in changes and to store your boarding pass. Even if you’re in the middle of nowhere on your travels, you can still access your travel notes via Trips, as no internet connection is required.

What are KAYAK Price Alerts?

Instead of manually checking back in on the price of your next flight or stay, let KAYAK do the hard work for you with KAYAK Price Alerts. Once you’ve saved your search, our data will determine how the price will rise or fluctuate over the coming days. You’ll then get a push notification letting you know when’s the perfect time to book.

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6 Best Websites for Booking Cheap Flights

JT Genter

Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page. However, this does not influence our evaluations. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here's how we make money .

The desire to get a good deal unites practically all travelers. Whether you're looking for a cheap getaway or a luxury vacation, no one wants to spend more than necessary. When it comes to booking flights, travelers may naturally head to an airline's website. However, that's not always the best site to book flights.

Whether it's taking advantage of credit card perks, earning bonus miles or saving money, the best flight booking site can vary depending on your situation and willingness to get creative. Let's take a look at six of the best sites to book flights and when each is the best option.

» Learn more: The best travel credit cards right now

The best flight booking sites

1. google flights.

For ease, speed and features, Google Flights is arguably the best website for flight searches. Search results appear almost instantly. Filters let you narrow down to nonstop options, select a subset of airlines, limit by price or factor in the price of a bag. Similarly, you can use Google Flights filters to avoid certain airlines, multi-stop itineraries, long layovers, early flights or pretty much whatever you might want to avoid.

You can easily check flexible dates, and if you're flexible on where you go you can use the Explore map to see prices for a variety of destinations for certain dates, a certain month or anytime in the next six months.

best booking site for travel

Google Flights partners with hundreds of airlines and online travel agencies (OTAs) to pull current flight prices. That way you don't have to search each of these sites to be able to see the options. Once you select your preferred trip, Google Flights links you to the top booking options for actually booking your flight — including the airline itself and the best OTA booking options.

best booking site for travel

The downsides of Google Flights are few. One is the lack of Southwest flight prices. Although Southwest flight schedules will show in flight search results, Southwest flight prices aren't available. That's because Southwest chooses to publish flight prices only on its website.

» Learn more: Why Southwest is not on Google Flights

Another downside is that Google Flights doesn't always show the cheapest prices — particularly for international flights. That means it's worth double-checking prices on another site before booking through Google Flights.

Like Google Flights, Kayak searches hundreds of other websites and flight booking platforms to find the best deal. Kayak generally doesn't let you book flights directly. However, one benefit of Kayak is the streamlined process. Rather than having to click through several pages to confirm your selection, clicking "view deal" on the results page can take you right to the cheapest booking option.

best booking site for travel

Also, some travelers may find Kayak's flexible date search a bit easier to work with as you can see results from several days in the search results — eliminating the need to check each day's results separately.

best booking site for travel

But perhaps the most important reason to use Kayak instead of Google Flights is that it can catch better deals. For example, we found a $550 round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Barcelona using Google Flights. Kayak found a way to lower that price to just $472 round-trip — at least once you scroll past an advertisement.

best booking site for travel

Note that Kayak manages other flight search sites — including Momondo and Cheapflights — so the results may be very similar between these sister sites.

» Learn more: Is Kayak legit?

So far, we've focused on ease in flight searching, and that's going to be enough for many travelers. However, now let's add in some additional elements to consider when choosing the best flight booking site: earning rewards and saving by booking packages. Expedia excels at both of these.

Through the new One Key rewards program , travelers can earn 0.2% in OneKeyCash from flight bookings made through Expedia. That's not much, but it can stack on top of the awards you earn from the airline and those that you earn on your credit card purchase.

Even better, you'll earn credits toward One Key elite status by booking your flight through Expedia. As you climb up the tiers, you'll unlock up to 20% savings on hotels, get hotel upgrades, priority support and even price drop protection.

Plus, Expedia boasts that travelers can "save up to 30%" when bundling a hotel with a flight booking — although actual discounts are likely to vary.

» Learn more: The pros and cons of Expedia

4. Capital One Travel

For many Capital One cardholders, Capital One Travel might just be the best flight booking site. Part of this is to take advantage of cardholder benefits.

Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

For example, Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card holders earn 5x Capital One miles when booking flights through the Capital One Travel portal. Plus, Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card holders get up to $300 off travel booked through the Capital One Travel portal each cardholder year.

» Learn more: How to maximize the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

Also, Capital One Travel can help you truly get the best price for your flight. Capital One partnered with travel data company Hopper to show suggestions about when it's the best time to book.

best booking site for travel

Capital One backs up these recommendations with money. If you book a flight through Capital One Travel when Hopper recommends doing so, you'll get up to a $50 credit toward future travel if the price drops within the next 10 days.

best booking site for travel

» Learn more: How the Capital One Travel portal works

Would you be willing to book a trip as two separate tickets in order to save money? That's the idea behind Kiwi. Instead of simply searching flights from your home airport to your destination, Kiwi checks all potential options to get between A and B. That could mean taking a bus or train from your home city to another to catch a flight to your destination. Or, Kiwi might pair a low-cost domestic flight with a cheap international flight from another city to lower your total cost.

Protect your upfront travel expenses by booking with a card that has travel insurance or by purchasing a separate policy .

For example, when we priced out a round-trip flight from Phoenix to Tokyo, the cheapest option when booked as one ticket cost $1,353 round-trip — and that's with an overnight stay in Vancouver.

best booking site for travel

Pricing out the same itinerary and dates through Kiwi drops the price to just $789 round-trip. The secret? Booking this as two round-trip flights: One from Phoenix to Los Angeles on Frontier and a separate round-trip from Los Angeles to Tokyo on Zipair.

best booking site for travel

Keep in mind that there are risks with booking separate tickets to get where you want to go. If a delay or cancellation causes you to miss your connection, the second airline/bus/train company isn't obligated to honor your ticket and rebook you on the next option. So make sure to factor in all of the risks of booking travel like this.

» Learn more: When to use Kiwi for your next flight booking

6. BookWithMatrix

ITA Matrix is a very powerful and ultra-customizable search platform for finding exactly the flight itinerary you want — whether that's booking a longer layover, avoiding certain aircraft types or booking nerdy trips such as the Alaska Milk Run .

The catch: Travelers can't actually book flights through ITA Matrix. And, unlike Google Flights, ITA Matrix doesn't even link to the best flight booking site for that itinerary. Instead, travelers are left to attempt to re-create the same itinerary through another flight booking website — which can be hard in the case of certain complex itineraries.

best booking site for travel

Enter BookWithMatrix. Travelers can copy-paste their perfect itinerary from ITA Matrix into BookWithMatrix to get bookable links through the airline or select OTAs.

best booking site for travel

Alternatively, travelers have the option to install the PowerTools extension in Google Chrome .

best booking site for travel

This extension adds booking links right on the ITA Matrix itinerary page, avoiding the need to browse to another page.

Final thoughts on the best flight booking site

There's not a one-size-fits-all best website for booking flights. Instead, the best flight booking site for you is going to depend on how simple you want the process to be, whether you're willing to get creative with your booking, and even which credit cards you have.

For most travelers, the simplicity of Google Flights is going to make it the best one-stop shop for searching and booking flights. However, it's worth considering other options if you're flying internationally, want to book a flight-and-hotel package or have a Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card .

How to maximize your rewards

You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are our picks for the best travel credit cards of 2024 , including those best for:

Flexibility, point transfers and a large bonus: Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card

No annual fee: Bank of America® Travel Rewards credit card

Flat-rate travel rewards: Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Bonus travel rewards and high-end perks: Chase Sapphire Reserve®

Luxury perks: The Platinum Card® from American Express

Business travelers: Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card

Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card

on Chase's website

1x-5x 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries, 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases.

60,000 Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. That's $750 when you redeem through Chase Travel℠.

Chase Freedom Unlimited Credit Card

1.5%-6.5% Enjoy 6.5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel; 4.5% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and 3% on all other purchases (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year). After your first year or $20,000 spent, enjoy 5% cash back on travel purchased through Chase Travel, 3% cash back on drugstore purchases and dining at restaurants, including takeout and eligible delivery service, and unlimited 1.5% cash back on all other purchases.

$300 Earn an additional 1.5% cash back on everything you buy (on up to $20,000 spent in the first year) - worth up to $300 cash back!

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

on Capital One's website

2x-5x Earn unlimited 2X miles on every purchase, every day. Earn 5X miles on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel, where you'll get Capital One's best prices on thousands of trip options.

75,000 Enjoy a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.

best booking site for travel

Expedia Rewards is now One Key™

Expedia travel: search hotels, cheap flights, car rentals & vacations, search for travel.

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Save 10% or more on over 100,000 hotels with Member Prices. Also, members save up to 30% when you add a hotel to a flight

Discover your new favorite stay.

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Save on adventure travel

Go off the beaten path and save with deals for one key members., explore stays in trending destinations.

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Yosemite National Park

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South San Francisco

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17 Best Travel Sites for Hotels, Flights, Tours and Car Rentals

Booking.com tops our list for the best travel booking websites, but there are a few others we recommend for specific purposes.

17 Best Travel Sites for Hotels, Flights, Tours and Car Rentals

With so many travel booking websites on the market today, finding the best deals for your travels can be tedious. Thankfully, there are several top travel websites you can use when booking flights, hotels and tours.

From flight aggregators to hostel and hotel booking sites, the websites in this list will make planning and booking your travels a little easier. Whether you’re trying to score cheap flights or find the best tour on the other side of the world, these are the best travel sites for making it happen.

I realize all of this information can be a little overwhelming. Every online travel site out there seems to do something different, and sifting through hundreds of search results to find something you like is time consuming. The offers are endless, but the ideal booking site doesn’t overwhelm its users with options or questionable services.

I have personally used every single company on this list for booking travel , and most play a crucial role in allowing me to adventure around the world. These are the best travel booking sites for helping you plan the ultimate trip.

  • Best to Find Cheap Hotels: Booking.com
  • Best Hotel Rewards Program: Hotels.com
  • Best Site for Vacation Rentals: Vrbo
  • Best Booking Site for Hostels: Hostelworld
  • Best Booking Site for Hotels in Asia: Agoda

Best Hotel Search Engines & Booking Sites

Finding the right accommodation is one of the most important decisions to make while traveling. Location, amenities, and cost are all factors to consider when looking for the right hotel or hostel for your adventure.

And while there are dozens of hotel booking websites to choose from, finding the right place doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here are the best sites I’ve used for fining hotel deals:

Booking.com : Best to Find Cheap Hotels

Booking.com Logo

Booking.com has, by far, the largest number of hotel search results. With over 5.7 million listings in 227 countries, they’re the first place you should look to find hotels online. In addition to hotels, Booking.com also has hostels, guesthouses, apartments, vacation rentals, and all-inclusive resorts available.

With Booking.com, the advertised price is the final price you pay. Other travel websites may have hidden taxes and fees that aren’t explicitly stated, so you’ll end up paying more than you thought at the reservation desk. But with Booking.com, there are no unexpected fees or hidden resort charges. This makes budgeting and trip planning much easier.

All reservations come with a price match guarantee. That means Booking.com will refund the difference if you find a lower price for your hotel on another website after you book. This best price guarantee is an unbelievable perk that could save you a lot of money in the long run.

And once you make your second booking, you’ll automatically become a Booking.com Genius, which rewards you with member-only discounts and offers (even freebies). It’s like accessing a whole world of insider information without actually having to sign up for anything. Genius members receive 10% to 15% off rates, free breakfast, and free room upgrades.

Plus, Booking.com also lets you search for and book your flight, rental car, and attractions, so you can just put in your travel dates and create full vacation packages from one site!

Hotels.com : Best Hotel Rewards Program

Hotels.com Logo

Although they aren’t as big as Booking.com, Hotels.com is still a great option when looking for the best deals on hotels. They have over 300,000 hotels in over 19,000 locations around the world. Besides traditional hotel rooms, they also have apartments, cottages, hostels, motels and all-inclusive resorts.

Like other travel sites, Hotels.com lets you filter the search results by date, price, and amenities. You can also sort by distance to find hotels close to certain attractions or neighborhoods. Plus, look at hotel reviews by real, verified users.

Despite the name, Hotels.com lets you search and reserve more than just hotels. They also have a wide range of vacation rentals available including chalets, condos, and full houses.

One of the main reasons for booking with Hotels.com is to take advantage of their unique rewards program. Once you sign up and book 10 nights, you’ll get to stay one night for free. Your free night can be redeemed at one of their 200,000+ properties in popular destinations around the globe without restrictions or blackout dates. Hotels.com also shares a rewards program with Expedia and Vrbo, so you’ll be able to take advantage of savings with any of these sites.

Hotels.com reward members or app users can also unlock secret deals on accommodation. These are specially negotiated discounts that will save you even more money for certain hotel or accommodation listings.

App users can also find last-minute deals using the “Deal for Tonight” feature. You’ll find huge discounts (up to 40%) when looking for a room with same-day check-in.

Vrbo : Best Site for Vacation Rentals

Vrbo

If you want the comforts of home while you’re halfway around the globe, then Vrbo is an excellent alternative to traditional hotel booking websites. Vrbo is a search engine that lists thousands of homes, vacation rentals, apartments, and condos for anyone who wants to experience a country while living like a local, whether staying in the city center or out in the woods.

Ideal for couples, families, or those needing a bit more privacy, Vrbo lets you relax without the hassle of dealing with a host or other travelers. They also tend to list more luxury vacation rentals that have a much higher standard compared to other rental sites.

For this reason, the vacation rentals on Vrbo might cost more than your average hotel from other travel sites. However, you’ll get much nicer accommodations.

Vrbo also has great customer service. All guests are protected by their Book with Confidence Guarantee, which comes with a 24/7 hotline, payment protection, and even last-minute cancellation coverage. So if your host cancels your booking before you arrive, the Vrbo team will try and find another place for you to stay. You can also buy travel insurance so you get a full refund in case you have to cancel.

In addition, Vrbo has a rewards program called One Key that lets you earn rewards on every dollar you spend on travel. This loyalty program is shared across Vrbo, Expedia, and Hotels.com, so you’ll be able to get package deals no matter how you travel.

Hostelworld : Best Booking Site for Hostels

Hostelworld Logo

Hostelworld is the top travel site for researching and booking hostels all over the world. They operate in over 178 countries and have a database of seemingly every hostel in existence.

When looking for a hostel, you’ll find accurate ratings and hotel reviews from real users on this booking site. The review score considers information about security, facilities, services, atmosphere and overall value for your money. And they only accept reviews from people who have booked through Hostelworld, so you know the reviews are genuine.

If you want to save money, Hostelworld is an excellent option for those on a tight budget. That’s because most hostels allow you to book a bed in a dorm room, which is far cheaper than booking a private room. But if you want some extra privacy, some hostels have private rooms with (or without) en-suite bathrooms.

You’ll be able to filter hostels by certain amenities, like free breakfast or on-site laundry. You’ll also see a list of different events happening at the hostel during your stay, from pool parties to pub crawls.

However, Hostelworld really shines when it comes to its great customer service. They will refund the price difference if you find your hostel on another site for cheaper. And if you can no longer go on your trip, you have up 24 hours before check-in to cancel without losing your deposit.

Agoda : Best Booking Site for Hotels in Asia

Agoda

Agoda started out as the top hotel booking site for hotels in Asia, but since has expanded its offerings worldwide. They also have non-traditional accommodation types like homes and hostels. From capsule hotels in Tokyo to private bungalows in Bali, Agoda has over 2 million properties to choose from.

Generally speaking, prices for Agoda hotels are comparable to other travel websites. However, you can save money by booking a hotel through their secret deals program.

With the secret deals program, the identity of the hotel will remain anonymous until you complete your booking. But you’ll be able to see the hotel’s star rating, neighborhood, and amenities before reserving. Some luxury hotels don’t like to advertise their cheap rooms openly, so this is a way to sell rooms at discount prices without making it too public. If you aren’t set on staying at a specific hotel or chain, this program is an excellent option for saving money on accommodation.

By booking on Agoda, you have the opportunity to maximize your earnings with the Agoda PointsMAX program. Once you sign up and link your Agoda account to one of your other mileage programs, you can earn up to 6,000 points per stay. Some of their current partners include American Airlines AAdvantage, United Mileage Plus and KLM/AirFrance Flying Blue.

Couchsurfing : Best for a Free Place to Crash

Couchsurfing

If all you need is a couch to sleep on, Couchsurfing will help you to find it. Instead of spending the night in a hotel, you’ll be using this booking site to find a couch to sleep on in the home of a friendly host. Trust me — it’s not as awkward as it might seem!

For those needing a bit more privacy, some people also list their private rooms through Couchsurfing. But generally speaking, you’ll usually be staying in the same living quarters as the host.

You’ll also be able to connect with like-minded people from all over the world who want to share their culture and show you the best parts of their city. They’ll tell you about the best local hangouts and restaurants so you can avoid the tourist traps. They might even be interested in joining you for sightseeing in the city or drinks at the local pub. In my experience, hosts are eager to interact with their guests.

When you’re browsing for places to stay, you can search for hosts by gender, age, language, and house preferences. Whether you’re allergic to cats or looking for wheelchair-friendly accommodation, you can easily find the ideal housemate. Remember, you should be looking at the host just as carefully as you look at the apartment itself. Make sure you read the reviews left by other guests. The more reviews, the more confident you’ll feel about staying with that host.

The goal, ultimately, is for you to return the favor whenever you’re at home, thus keeping the Couchsurfing spirit alive around the world. (Trust me, it can be just as fun to host as it is to surf.)

But best of all, unlike pretty much all other travel websites, Couchsurfing is completely free! It’s customary to bring a gift or cook for your host as a token of appreciation for letting you stay in their place, but besides that, you’ll be able to see the world without spending a single penny on accommodation.

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Google Flights

Dollar flight club, going (formerly scott's cheap flights), cheap flight booking websites & search engines.

In the world of online travel, booking a flight is one of the most important initial steps to having a great trip. And unless you’re planning on spending thousands to sip champagne in business class, the cost of your ticket will probably be a significant deciding factor in what you book.

Although you could book directly with the airlines, using online travel agencies (OTAs) allows you to compare pricing to find the best rates for your trip. To help you figure out where to book your next flight, consider one of the flight search engine travel sites in this section.

Keep in mind that these search sites are not booking sites . They simply compare rates for flights and redirect you to other sites to complete your purchase. You’ll get tons of results, but it’s up to you to sort through them. You should also take the time to use more than one website to compare pricing. Results may vary!

If they send you to a small website you’ve never heard of, do your research to make sure the company is dependable (although these OTAs don’t tend to deal with shady booking websites—a big reason these are the ones I recommend). It’s important to look at the fine print, as some companies might have their own cancellation fees or change fees in addition to the fees set by the airlines.

Google Flights

It seems that you can find anything you want from Google. There’s Google Maps, Google Scholar, Google News, Google Earth, and now Google Flights.

Google Flights is always the first search engine I turn to when I’m looking for the best flight deals. They scan through all available flight options for both major airlines and online travel agencies and then sort through the results to show you the best possible option for your trip. Like Google Maps, or anything else from Google, they’ve really mastered the art of searching, and this is one of the best sites to find deals.

The calendar view makes it easy to pick dates with the best price. And if you haven’t locked down your travel dates, you can check for flights with their flexible date tool. For example, you can search for the cheapest flights in January or even a one-week trip in the next six months.

You can also use the Date Grid in Google Flights to see the cheapest flight combinations for different departure and return dates. Or, check the Price Graph to compare how the prices are likely to change over the next few months. This is a great tool for identifying significant price drops for your desired route.

Many times you’ll want to search for a specific airport, but if you’re also flexible with your destination, you can search for flights by continent or country. This flexible search is an excellent option if you’re looking for a last-minute weekend getaway without a set destination in mind.

And unlike other travel websites, Google Flights will make sure you’re getting the best rates by offering money-saving recommendations. They’ll let you know that by flying in two days later — or to a different airport nearby — you could save even more money.

Whether you’re booking an RTW adventure, a weekend getaway to New York or simply browsing for inspiration for your next trip, start with Google Flights. And if you’ve got the time to really learn how to use Google Flights , I highly suggest it. Knowing how to squeeze the most out of this incredible tool is a skill well worth having.

Skyscanner

Skyscanner is a great travel site for cheap airline tickets, and it’s always my second stop after Google Flights. They search through over 1,200 different airline companies and smaller OTA sites to compare the best offers for your travels.

You can also use their “Everywhere” search engine to look up the cheapest flight going anywhere in the world. The results show the average price for a country, so you’ll need to narrow down the search by destination city to see the exact price for a specific airport. However, you’ll get a better idea of which countries tend to have cheaper flights.

It’s also easy to filter for nonstop flights, included luggage, nearby airports, departure/arrival time, and more so you can find deals on the exact flights you’re looking for.

I recommend downloading the Skyscanner app. Not only can you search and book flights through the app, but you can also use the “Explore” feature to find destinations for solo travel, quick getaways or last minute trips (which is especially handy if you’re traveling open-ended).

One last bonus: Skyscanner also lets you search for deals on hotels, vacation rentals, rental cars, and even complete vacation packages. This travel site has it all.

Momondo

Momondo is another flight search engine that should be on your radar. This company scans through thousands of airline companies and OTAs to display rates for both domestic and international flights. And unlike other sites, Momondo shows prices for many of the smaller OTAs overlooked by Google Flights and Skyscanner.

I also use Momondo to find out when the best time to fly is. I particularly love their matrix that highlights an entire month, meaning you can compare prices to find the lowest price possible.

On the search results page, Momondo offers bar charts that show prices for different departure and return dates. You can use this feature to spot any significant price drops for flights if your dates are flexible. Play around with these features — it takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, you can score some fantastic travel deals.

You can also look at the “Flight Insights” page to see price trends and analytics for your exact route. This page uses historical search data to show you the cheapest month, day, and even time of day to book. It will tell you the cheapest airlines that serve your route, along with how far in advance you should be booking to save the most money.

In addition, you can consult the “Price Forecast” feature to see if prices are expected to increase or decrease in the near future. If so, you can set a price alert to notify you if the cost of your flight drops.

Dollar Flight Club

Finding inexpensive flights can be time-consuming, but Dollar Flight Club simplifies the process by sending exclusive deals straight to your inbox. Most of their offers are 60-90% off the list price, with savings averaging around $500 .

Dollar Flight Club uses technology and historical data to find cost-saving deals. Although you can’t search for specific dates or destinations, you will still find great domestic and international deals if you’re flexible with your plans.

When you sign up for the free version of Dollar Flight Club, you’ll get one email a day for your selected departure region. Or, you can upgrade to premium to get four times as many deals for multiple departure airports. Premium members also receive instant SMS alerts as well as deals for cheap domestic flights over the weekend. Signing up for Premium Plus will give you access to their rewards program with more deals and offers for tickets for business and first-class flights.

Going Logo

Going was formerly known as Scott’s Cheap Flights, and it is another one of my favorite travel sites for finding affordable flights. Like Dollar Flight Club, they send emails for flight deals on domestic and international airline tickets. Most deals are 40-90% off the original price!

But instead of using an algorithm to find great deals, members of the Going team search all of the fares by hand to find deals. This goes a step above others to make this one of the best travel sites out there.

When you sign up for the free version, you’ll receive 15-20 selected deals per month. Even though you’ll select a specific airport as your preferred point of departure, it includes deals from an array of different cities. If you only want to see deals from your specific city, then you’ll want to upgrade to the premium version. Not only does the premium membership include an extra 30-35 deals per month, but it also includes error fare flights and offers for summer and holiday travel.

While Scott’s Cheap Flights has rebranded and changed the name, it’s still an awesome place to find flights for your vacation package.

  • How to Find Cheap Flights
  • Cheap Flight Hacks
  • How to Use Google Flights
  • 11 Genius Hacks to Take the Stress Out of Flying
  • How I Booked an $8,967 First Class Airplane Ticket for $5.60

GetYourGuide

G adventures, intrepid travel, recommended tour companies.

Sometimes, we all need a little bit of adventure to keep us on our toes while we’re on the road.

Maybe you’re a solo traveler interested in joining a group backpacking experience through Asia. Perhaps you want an action-packed itinerary full of hiking, diving, and bungee-jumping (just make sure you have travel insurance that covers those adventure activities). Or maybe you simply want an agency to take the stress out of planning by giving you a list of all the top places you must visit. Whatever your reason, here are the best travel sites for tours and fully guided vacation packages.

GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide is a search engine with a massive database of tours and attractions in over 7,000 destinations around the globe. I’m talking more than 40,000 activities like street food tours, skiing and snowboarding trips, skip-the-line museum passes, and boat excursions. You name it, GetYourGuide has it, and their one of the best sites for finding and reserving travel activities.

If you’re visiting a new city for the first time, GetYourGuide also takes the hassle out of planning the perfect itinerary. You can reserve your spot on a tour or purchase your tickets for an event directly through their website or mobile app.

Best of all, all tours come with detailed reviews full of handy insider information, so you can hear first-hand from past clients if the activity is worth it. Not to mention, most of the offers are more affordable than if you were to book directly at the attraction itself.

It’s not the best place for all-inclusive vacation packages, but when it comes to travel sites for tours, GetYourGuide tours are a great way to soak in the culture of a city. From wine tasting to helicopter rides to snorkeling, you’ll be able to get the lowest price (guaranteed) by booking on GetYourGuide.

G Adventures Logo

If group tours are more up your alley, then G Adventures is one of the best sites for you. Whether you’re traveling Europe by train, cruising through the Galapagos, or cycling through the countryside in China, there’s a tour for almost every traveler.

These aren’t your run-of-the-mill group tours. G Adventures are small groups (averaging 10 travelers) that all share a common desire to explore the world. When you look online, you’ll see tours organized by travel style. You’ll be able to book vacation packages specifically catered to 18 to 30-year-olds, tours focusing on health and wellness, and even active tours for adventure lovers.

Solo travelers are also welcome to join a tour with G Adventures. Whether you’re looking for full vacation packages or short day trips, you can expect to meet some awesome people along the way.

They’ve also partnered with National Geographic to create immersive tour experiences. Whether you’re learning how to tango in Argentina or cooking authentic meals with a local Thai family, these tours will give you a deeper appreciation for your destination’s history and culture.

Interpid Travel

Intrepid Travel is like G Adventures in many ways — they offer small-group tours for adventurous travelers in more than 100 countries. Tours are divided into themes, like adventure cruising, cycling, and culinary. And if you’re interested in meeting other like-minded travelers, they have also organized trips specifically for people between the ages of 18-30.

But Intrepid sometimes goes to places where G Adventures does not, and vice versa. Intrepid also has tons of amazing deals available year-round. Many trips are discounted up to 50% and some tours can be reserved with just a $1 deposit. And if you’re eager to leave ASAP, then you can browse a variety of last-minute deals.

They’ve also partnered with Lonely Planet to create unique, niche experiences. With hundreds of single or multi-day vacation packages, you’ll be able to get off the beaten path to see the world through the eyes of a local.

But the biggest perk of traveling with Intrepid Travel comes down to the group leaders and small group sizes. You won’t feel like you’re just getting carted around because every tour is led by a local guide, meaning you get a more authentic experience.

One important note, for many trips, Intrepid requires you to have travel insurance . That’s a good idea anyway though.

Rentalcars.com

Best rental car sites.

For many trips, you’ll need to rent a car to get around once your flight arrives. Finding rental cars can be frustrating and expensive.

Fortunately, by using one of these car rental sites , you can find the best prices and reserve your vehicle ahead of time, so there’s no stress at pickup. These travel websites let you search through many car rental providers, compare pricing, and make a reservation. Here are the best travel sites for finding rental cars:

Rentalcars

It’s all in the name here. Rentalcars.com is owned by the same company as the hotel site, Booking.com . It is a search site that lets you find car rentals and easily book them online.

Rentalcars.com has a great streamlined process for searching, filtering, and paying for your rental car. With just a few clicks you can find the best deal and have your car reserved. Plus, listings on Rentalcars.com typically have free cancellation when you book through their site. That’s a big win in my book because I hate stressing about what will happen if my flight is delayed or if I have to cancel my trip.

Rentalcars.com typically has great discounts available. In my experience, I’ve often been able to find the best prices compared to other rental car websites.

They also offer insurance directly though their site, though you may not need it if your travel insurance already covers rental cars.

Priceline Logo

Ultimately, one of the main things I look for in rental cars is the lowest price possible. Would I like to drive a BMW around on vacation? Sure. But typically I’m saving pennies for a trip and don’t want to spend them all on car rentals.

Priceline is one of the best travel websites to find low-price car rentals. They will often offer “Express Deals” which give you a much lower price than you’d get going directly through a car rental agency.

How do they do it? Priceline was the first travel site to offer “opaque rentals.” While that sounds complicated, it just means that you don’t know what car you’ll get until you pick it up. As long as you aren’t picky, this is a fantastic way to save cash on car rentals.

As a bonus, you can get package deals if you use Priceline to reserve flights, hotels, or even trips with a cruise line. They also have a loyalty program that can help you save on travel over time. For many travelers, this could be a one-stop shop for the ideal vacation package.

KAYAK

Unlike the other travel websites on this list, Kayak doesn’t let you reserve rental cars directly through their website. Instead, Kayak is just a big search site that filters through dozens (or maybe hundreds?) of other rental companies, travel websites, online travel agencies, and other related resources. You put in your travel dates, and Kayak gives you a list of options offering competitive prices. They then give you a link to book your car through the site or company that’s offering the deal.

The benefit of Kayak is that, because it is searching so many different travel websites, you can find great deals that other websites may not show.

If you want help with your entire trip planning process, Kayak also lets you search for flight deals, hotel deals, and even complete vacation packages.

Travel Booking Websites FAQs

What is the best travel site to book through.

Booking.com is the best (and largest) travel booking site.

Is it cheaper to book through a travel agent or online?

Booking online will almost always be cheaper than using a travel agent.

How do I get the best travel deals?

You can get great travel deals by comparing across multiple travel booking sites.

What is the best rental car site?

Rentalcars.com is our top pick for the best rental car website.

What is the best site for cheap flights?

Google Flights is always a good starting point when searching for cheap flights.

Jeremy Scott Foster

Jeremy Scott Foster

I’m curious why Airbnb is not listed, are they not a good option?

Given their high (and increasing) fees, lack of consistency and poor customer service, the TravelFreak editorial team can’t, in good faith, recommend booking with Airbnb. We do consider them to be a viable option, but can’t stand behind them as a company nor recommend them to readers.

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Planning a vacation or trip is undoubtedly stressful. You're bombarded with seemingly endless options for flights, lodging, and things to do, and it can be difficult to figure out where to start. Many travel aggregators strive to present you with the best deals, but they all end up looking very similar to each other.

These similarities make it easy to know what to do and expect when you first visit a site. Typically, you enter your destinations, dates, and number of travelers. After you click search, you can further filter based on price range, airlines, and departure times for flights; amenities, hotel stars, and location for hotels; and type of car and rental car company for cars. 

So what makes one site better than another?

It all depends on your priorities and preferences. Everyone travels and plans for that travel differently. Here are seven travel sites and the factors you should consider when choosing a site. 

Booking.com

best booking site for travel

Booking.com is a huge bank of information, offering more than 1 million properties in 117,000 destinations in 225 countries and territories. Wherever you'd like to go, you'll find it through this site. It offers booking for flights,  hotels, vacation rentals, and rental cars.  Clicking  restaurants will take you to OpenTable. 

Highlights:

I found their desktop homepage to be cluttered and a lot to look at compared to the homepages of other sites, but their app experience was noticeably simpler, which makes sense as travelers increasingly turn mobile. 

One feature on the homepage that stood out to me (shown above) was the "Are you traveling for work?" option. Clicking "Yes" will present popular business travel options like WiFi and breakfast.

Another feature was its flexible date suggestions if your chosen destination is a popular choice and accommodations are more than 50% reserved during your selected dates.

Best for: 

  • Wide variety of options, including hostels, homestays, and bed and breakfasts
  • Easy access to your plans and searches by syncing your account across your devices 
  • Getting the best deals with their Price Match offer 
  • Destination travel guides and articles 

Lacking or not the best for:

  • Bundling hotel, flight, and car packages

Book a trip with Booking.com

best booking site for travel

Expedia offers booking for  flights, hotels, vacation rentals, rental cars, cruises, and things to do. 

You can bundle flight, hotel, and car deals so you don't have to go through the headache of looking separately and trying to coordinate all the deals. 

The "My Trips" section is helpful for managing your entire itinerary in one place, so you don't have to search through endless emails and accounts to figure out your vacation plan. 

If you sign up as a member, you can earn Expedia+ points to use toward future trips. Use the mobile app to earn 2x Expedia+ points. 

Like Booking.com, Expedia also offers suggestions for date shifts, date extensions, and route changes to get you to the cheapest deal. 

  • Hotel, flight, and car bundles 
  • Coordinating your whole vacation itinerary 
  • Reward points system
  • Single bookings. The site is best utilized for its bundle packaging.

Book a trip with Expedia

Tripadvisor.

best booking site for travel

TripAdvisor offers booking for flights,  hotels, vacation rentals, restaurants, and things to do.

It's well-known for its user-generated reviews, so as you're booking, you get the added benefit of reading reviews all in the same place. While I'm partial to Yelp for food recommendations and believe it to be better for US destinations, TripAdvisor is much more widely used in the international community. 

TripAdvisor is the most experience-driven travel site. You are not just booking somewhere to live — you're signing up to experience and explore a destination. 

  • Detailed filtering (e.g. style for hotels and distinctive features for vacation rentals) 
  • Comparing deals across aggregators 
  • Strong user-generated review community 
  • Bundling hotel, flight, and car packages 

Book a trip with TripAdvisor  

best booking site for travel

CheapOair offers booking for  flights, hotels, and rental cars.  Clicking on its cruises  tab takes you to another site, Cheap Cruises.  

The "Travel by Interest" section offers special deals for senior , military , student , and last minute travel . The military and student discounts emphasize keeping costs low, while the senior discount focuses on senior friendly destinations at an affordable price. 

Whether you're coordinating a reunion, wedding, or corporate event, a Group Travel Request is a good option. You can work with an agent on your travel needs. 

  • Specific travelers like senior citizens, military, students, and large groups
  • Higher than usual service fees (e.g. $32 per night per room for hotel bookings)

Book a trip with CheapOair

best booking site for travel

Hotwire offers booking for  flights, hotels, and rental cars.

Hotwire gives you all the filters and options you need but maintains the balance of not giving you too much. It keeps its sections simple, so you don't need to worry about something you may be missing out on. 

Thanks to partnerships with other travel sites like Hotels.com and Expedia, Hotwire can offer extremely low prices. There is also a free 24-hour cancellation policy on most flights. 

  • Focused searchers who do not want to be distracted or overwhelmed by too many options, things to do, and city guides. Destination guides and inspiration can be found on a separate blog page. 
  • Travelers on a budget
  • Travelers with very specific preferences like hotel brand or car brand

Book a trip with Hotwire

Travelocity.

best booking site for travel

Travelocity offers booking for  flights, hotels, vacation rentals, rental cars, cruises and things to do.  And no, you're not seeing double. Expedia owns Travelocity, which may explain why the two homepages look almost exactly the same. 

From what we can tell, the most noticeable difference is Travelocity's Roaming Gnome, which represents the inspiration and wanderlust of traveling. The "Inspiration" section contains interesting articles like "Best Foodie Finds in Airports Around the World" and themes like "Luxury" or "Romantic." Expedia's travel blog, on the other hand, is relegated to an easy-to-miss link near the bottom of the page. 

  • All the benefits of Expedia but with a more exploratory inspiration angle 
  •  Single bookings. The site is best utilized for its bundle packaging.

Book a trip with Travelocity

best booking site for travel

Priceline offers booking for  flights, hotels, rental cars, and cruises.  

The " Express Deals " option rewards flexible travelers with up to 60% savings on hotels. The site will give you the location and star rating, but not the name of the hotel. You can still choose the bed type for many of the options. 

Another way to save is the Name Your Own Price feature where you input the location, star rating, and price bid for a hotel. 

For car rentals, you can also Name Your Own Price and bid for a car. If you don't have big preferences on the car brand, you'll be able to find a car for a price less than the search listings give you. For example, I was able to get an economy car with unlimited mileage for $30 a day, while the general search yielded cars that were all at least $37 a day. 

The cruise section is clear and easy to navigate. The search option is similar to searching for flights, with more dropdown selections than other sites. This feature is ideal for travelers who know exactly what they want for their cruise experience, and are not merely shopping around. 

  • Travelers with low hotel and car brand loyalty who want to find a great deal
  • Having a more focused cruise search process 
  • Travel inspiration or destination guides
  • Low risk takers who like to know exactly what they're getting

Book a trip with Priceline

best booking site for travel

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Best online travel sites 2022

Use the best online travel sites to plan your trip ahead of time so you can enjoy your time away.

Best Online Travel Sites

  • Buying advice
  • Testing process

The best online travel sites are wonderful not only plan your next trip for peace of mind, they're also a fun way to get excited ahead of your next adventure. You can simply go to one site and plan most of your trip's main parts from flights and hotels to rental cars and excursions. If what you're after is just hotel bookings, check out our list of the best hotel booking sites .

While what many of these sites offer is similar, it's the way in which they do it which is important. The last thing you need is a stress-inducing website when planning to go away to relax and unwind. So we've reviewed the best sites based on their price, of course, but also on the way they work, with the ease of use and clarity as important features. We also checked to make sure you won't suffer any extra charges added on top at the last minute. Plus, we took rewards schemes into account, which could help you save money upfront or in the longer term if you use some sites more than once.

With all that in mind, these are the very best online travel sites out there right now.

The best online travel sites

1. expedia.com: best online travel site overall .

Why you can trust Top Ten Reviews Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

Best Online Travel Sites: Expedia

Our expert review:

Specifications

Reasons to buy, reasons to avoid.

Expedia is a big name in online travel sites and hotel booking services and owns many popular sites like Hotels.com and Hotwire.com. We're fans of the original, though, thanks to its clean and straightforward to use interface. Hit the packages section of the site, and you can add up to five connecting flights, choose to add accommodation for all of or only part of your trip, and tag on car rentals too. 

It's all suitably well laid out, and it only takes a few seconds to start putting together your itinerary. However, we do wish there were a few more options for filtering out accessibility issues. Still, for most people, Expedia.com has everything they'll need, and there's even the option of a cruise too if you fancy it. It's as aspirational to look at as it is useful to, well, use and there are extra discounts for booking multiple parts of your vacation with the site. A Things To Do section rounds off the site's bid to help you plan your entire trip in one place.

2. Booking.com: Best for ease of use

Booking.com

Booking.com

Booking.com is a giant in the world of holiday bookings and not only offers over half a million properties in more than 207 countries but also offers flights and car rental services too. As such you can do it all from this one spot which makes it a very easy-to-use option. That said, there is a lot going on, and the user interface can be a little overwhelming at times. 

But with a superb rewards program, it is a great option that encourages you to keep coming back, making it easier to use as you become accustomed. You can even sort your taxi hire from this site meaning there is very little to think about when you get traveling as it's all been planned ahead of time. You also don't have to pay a booking fee on lots of hotels, allowing you to remain flexible – ideal if you're traveling about a lot on your journey.

3. CheapTickets.com: Best for finding things to do 

Best Online Travel Sites: CheapTickets

CheapTickets.com

CheapTickets is another site acquired by Expedia, but it does things a little differently. You can easily add on flight, hotel, and car or any combination of the three for package deals, although multiple flights are under a different option. So far, so Expedia (if less intuitive), but you can also clearly purchase event tickets from the site, which is far more useful if you want a one-stop-shop place to buy your trip. It's something other sites provide, but CheapTickets is that bit keener to entice you into the process, even if the site itself is a little cheesier looking than others. 

There's also the site's Vacation Value Finder, which lets you tweak how much you're willing to spend and what you're looking for from a vacation before making some fun suggestions. It's perfect for finding a last-minute deal if you don't have your heart set on one place. Students will also appreciate a section dedicated to them with extra discounts once you verify you're a student. All in all, it's a great varied site for numerous different needs. 

4. Priceline.com: Best for user reviews 

Best Online Travel Sites: PriceLine

Priceline.com

Priceline is a big deal in the online travel site world for a good reason. It's effortless to use with options available for flights, cars, hotels, or any combination of the three. It's mildly annoying that Priceline's super cheap Pricebreaker deals don't extend to bundles, so you won't get an incredible bargain like you would if you booked separately. However, combining the set is still a worthwhile deal with discounts offered for the more you bundle together. 

One thing we really appreciated is that every hotel we looked at had dozens of reviews, and they're all from verified customers. It takes seconds to gain a reasonably accurate picture of what to expect from wherever you're considering booking. That's the perfect peace of mind when you're booking online, and you can't be sure of what you're getting without user reviews backing hotel statements up. Clearly laid out, you can focus on enjoying rather than worrying. Finally, Priceline is keen to make its VIP scheme easily accessible with straightforward discounts offered to you over time -- something that not all sites so clearly highlight. 

5. Kayak.com: Best for aggregated results 

Best Online Travel Sites: Kayak

If you're short on time, Kayak is pretty useful. That's because you simply enter where you want to go, and it aggregates results from multiple different sources. While it means you never book directly with Kayak, it does mean you get results quickly and without having to search around yourself, even if you will feel a bit overwhelmed with adverts while you search. 

The site itself looks a little basic, but under the hood is a surprising number of different filters (although no accessibility ones to speak of) and all the critical information you could require, although obviously you'll be sent to another site for the full details. The site also has a deals section, which has some great bargains for things you can do once you reach your destination, along with cheap car rental deals. It might not be pretty, but if you simply don't want to do the groundwork yourself, Kayak has you covered. It can be a real time-saver, and we reckon it's particularly useful if you're mostly researching possible trips in the future and want rough price estimates. Just watch out for the fact you can’t bundle in car rental deals. 

6. Hotwire.com: Best for renting properties 

Best Online Travel Sites: Hotwire

Hotwire keeps things straightforward. All you need to do is enter what you're looking for, and a somewhat dated interface tells you what's available. It's not as pretty as some sites, but we really liked the extensive property type filters available. Want to stay on a houseboat or in a chalet at your destination? Hit the relevant filter, and you can find out if that's an option in the locale. That might not matter if your heart is set on a hotel, but it's a nice bonus even amongst the awkward site layout. 

Elsewhere, it's mostly business as usual, but that's no bad thing. Well laid out discounts are available to compare reasonably quickly, and most locations have plenty of reviews. If you feel like tracking down specific deals, you can do that too, with the site keen to offer up discounts to central locations if you're not quite sure where you'd like to visit next. It feels like the site needs updating when you compare it to its rivals, but it works well and speedily enough.

7. Agoda: Best for private home rental in Asia 

Agoda

Agoda is a great option if you want to look for accommodation that isn't a hotel as this specializes in offering apartments and private rentals. In fact, there are dedicated market managers that work on finding properties, especially in Asia. As such you can find unique destination rentals at decent rates and should you change your mind there is a helpful 24-hour free cancellation policy in place. 

Everything is very easy to use and if you want to make more than one booking you can make great savings. Customer support is also a plus, as there is a 24-hour multilingual customer support service available when booking. With millions of reviews, Agoda makes finding a property very easy with a feeling of trust that can offer great peace of mind.

What to look for in an online travel site

Booking Travel Packages Travel packages can let you combine flights, hotel reservations and car rentals together for a better deal than booking separately. Some companies, like Priceline, pick hotels and flights for you, to get you to your destination for the lowest price. Other companies let you mix and match flights, hotels and car rentals to fit your schedule.

Booking Airfare One of the biggest reasons for searching on a travel site is to find cheap airfare. While there are dozens of airfare-specific websites, travel sites also give you the option to add hotel stays and car rentals. The best travel sites combine flight information from over nine different airlines and let you sort flights by price, number of stops, duration and flight class.

Booking International Travel Finding airfare for international travel is the easiest part of booking an overseas trip. AirGorilla helps you find accommodations and rent GPS units with your rental car, so you can find your way around. Often, sites will recommend hotels that are far from your actual destination or event. Searching for reservations on a site that gives accommodation recommendations will help you schedule an international trip with less stress.

How we tested the best online travel sites

We looked at how easy each site is to use during our testing, such as how quickly the site loaded and how easy it was to find what we were looking for. We considered whether the site felt cluttered with adverts or seemed like a dated interface. We also looked at how easy it was to find Contact Us pages, price guarantee information, and any kind of special deals section. 

We also considered how easily bundle deals could be arranged and how extensive they were and any potential discounts tied to them. We checked filter options to see how flexible and easy it was to look up different needs along the way.

We looked at trips between Los Angeles and Miami, Paris to Lisbon, and New York City to Los Angeles during testing. We also looked at lesser-known routes to see if they were also catered for appropriately.

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Jennifer Allen

Jennifer has been freelancing for over 10 years. In the past, she's written about all things tech and gaming wise for outlets as varied as The Independent, Playboy, Eurogamer, and TechRadar. In her spare time, she spends far too much time watching films, attempting to train her pet guinea pigs, and mastering making the perfect burrito.  She's a full time freelancer, but a regular tech news contributor to Top Ten Reviews.

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All aspects of travel planning can be handled online, and the best hotel booking sites help customers find places to stay based on cost, availability, proximity, amenities, and more. By searching a range of dates in a specific area, customers can view hotels with vacancies along with details about those hotels and reviews from other customers.

The best hotel booking sites give customers the broadest range of options with as many details as possible about the listed hotels. In addition to competitive prices, sites offer rewards or discounts to frequent travelers depending on how often they book. They also allow customers to cancel reservations with little to no penalty, or they offer bigger discounts on reservations that cannot be canceled.

The Best Hotel Booking Sites for 2023

  • Best Overall: Booking.com
  • Best Overall, Runner-Up: Hotels.com
  • Best for Luxury: Mr and Mrs Smith
  • Best Budget: Hostelworld
  • Best for Spontaneous Travel: Hotel Tonight
  • Best for Membership Rewards: Marriott Bonvoy
  • Best for Social Impact: Kind Traveler
  • Our Top Picks

Booking.com

  • Mr and Mrs Smith
  • Hostelworld

Hotel Tonight

Marriott Bonvoy

Kind Traveler

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Final Verdict

Frequently asked questions, methodology, best overall : booking.com.

This hotel booking site sports one of the largest numbers of hotel accommodations around the world, and guests often gravitate toward it to find a great deal. In addition to hotels, Booking.com allows guests to search for car rentals, flights, and flight and hotel packages.

Broad selection

Reviews only by those who have booked

Customer service challenges

Booking.com is an aggregator site known for its volume of hotel options at all price points, though many travelers turn to the site to compare rates on hotels around the world. The site has been known to deliver some of the lowest rates on the internet. Reviews of hotels displayed on the website are written by individuals who’ve booked and completed travel through Booking.com. It also makes a point of including taxes as part of published rates for hotels located in Europe and Asia.

In 2022, the Amsterdam-based company eliminated a few thousand call center jobs, while existing positions were outsourced, which might mean customer service challenges on the consumer end during this transition.

Best Overall , Runner-Up : Hotels.com

A bulleted list of fees and policies makes listed hotels easy to compare.

Millions of listings

Detailed reviews

You may miss out on hotel brands' loyalty programs

Hotels.com is one of the longest-running hotel listing sites in the business and publishes more than 3 million different listings in nearly 20,000 locations around the world including in cities like Cape Town, Lisbon, countries within the Caribbean, and Japan. Use its search engine to filter hotel results by category, such as by accessibility requirements—like a roll-in shower or sign-language capable staff—preferred neighborhood, and must-have amenities such as an ocean view or free airport shuttle. Search also by type of accommodations, including motels and apartments. Its app also offers an additional 10 percent off bookings.

Its collection of 10,000 VIP Access properties are cream-of-the-crop listings that have received top ratings for exceptional service by Hotels.com guests. Hotel reviews by Hotels.com guests indicate how long and what type of trip users took (business vs. leisure) for additional context.

Best for Luxury : Mr and Mrs Smith

Mr & Mrs Smith

Discerning traveler-curated boutique hotel listings include exclusive perks when you book with this site.

Listed hotels must pass vetting process

Listings across multiple continents

Limited number of listings

The U.K.-based Mr and Mrs Smith considers itself a global travel club. Guests booking through its site receive access to a curated list of more than 1,700 upscale hotels and villas throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, among other locales. Peruse listings by categories, such as child-friendly hotels, properties ideal for a honeymoon, and pet-friendly hotels.

Each Mr and Mrs Smith property must be invited into its roster after passing a strict, anonymous review by one of the company’s in-house travel specialists. Most of the listings are boutique hotels with a penchant for considered aesthetics and lots of unique touches (such as an onsite restaurant that produces its own olive oil). Many unique accommodations are offered, with options including treehouse hotels and tropical retreats with both overwater and underwater rooms. 

The site offers three membership tiers. Its second and third tiers are paid options (choose to make either a monthly or an annual payment, beginning at $150 annually) and include perks like priority booking on exclusive offers, discounted access to airport lounges, and room upgrades as available.

Best Budget : Hostelworld

 Hostelworld

Socially minded and budget-conscious travelers turn to this hotel booking site for affordable rates and a flexible cancellation policy—24 hours prior to arrival.

Caters to budget-focused travelers

Can plan for large groups

Lacks the depth of larger, aggregate sites

Budget travelers looking for a hostel or cheap hotel should check out Hostelworld. It lists 36,000 properties in 178 countries, with more than 13 million verified guest reviews to back them up in backpacker-friendly locales from Amsterdam and Berlin to New Zealand. 

Filter results by room type (such as all-female dorms or en-suite family rooms), distance from the city center, and accommodation type. Although the site is called Hostelworld, you can also book bed and breakfasts, apartments, and campsites. Overviews of each listing are provided by the property owners and are accompanied by a Hostelworld description of the property, a summary of amenities like free WiFi or complimentary breakfast, and other travelers' reviews. Select your room type, pay a nominal deposit to reserve your room, and receive instant confirmation. 

Traveling in a group of 15 or more? Use the site’s group travel bookings feature to plan your friend-cation, reunion, and more. And since hostels typically have a social, communal vibe, in 2022, Hostelworld announced its platform now offers the optional capability to interact and connect with other Hostelworld guests checking in to the same city and hostel 14 days before arrival.

Best for Spontaneous Travel : Hotel Tonight

Travelers with flexibility and those in need of last-minute accommodations find this app-first hotel booking service offers heavily discounted rooms in a pinch.

Accommodates short-term needs

Loyalty program

Still must coordinate some details directly with hotels

Need a last-minute hotel room, or have a flexible schedule and like to make travel plans as they unfold? The HotelTonight app, owned by Airbnb as of 2019, is your answer to discounted hotel rooms in a pinch (though the app will allow bookings up to 100 days in advance). Search for a hotel by date and location, and if it’s available, choose your room type. Insider tip: HotelTonight lists excess hotel room inventory, which is why you aren’t always able to select your room.

Hotels are categorized with descriptors like Hip (stylish and quirky), Charming (intimate, and can include bed and breakfasts), and Luxe (for impeccable service and impressive amenities). Its tiered loyalty program unlocks steeper discounts the more you book with the app, and its Deals offers are occasional flash sales that offer even deeper discounts if you book within a 15-minute window. Note that as of October 2022, specific requests like early check-in can’t be made within the app, so you’ll have to coordinate with the hotel directly.

Best for Membership Rewards : Marriott Bonvoy

There are 30 brands under the Marriott name and growing, and you can sign up for its free travel rewards program to begin earning points and perks.

Includes all 30 Marriott brands

Compatible with Marriott Bonvoy-branded credit cards

No access to non-Marriott hotels

If you’re booking a hotel, chances are it might be a Marriott brand property. Marriott boasts 30 brands at all price points within its portfolio, from SpringHill Suites to Design Hotels, and Westin to the Ritz-Carlton. That said, travelers should take advantage of its free loyalty program, Marriott Bonvoy. When you sign up, rack up points to climb its tiered status levels. The more you stay, the more points you earn toward perks like free upgrades, access to club lounges, late check-out, and upgraded WiFi. And the higher up in elite status one goes, the higher the percentage increase in points you receive per booking.

There are a number of ways to earn points with Marriott Bonvoy in addition to booking a hotel room, including making purchases with a Marriott-branded or partner credit card (like The Platinum card by American Express), and booking a car rental with Hertz. Note that points expire after 24 months if you do not complete at least one of a host of actions to remain eligible in the program.  

Best for Social Impact : Kind Traveler

As of 2023, this hotel booking site is still arguably the only one out there with a business model that accounts for social and environmental impact.

Recommendations for nearby sites to see

Rewards charity donations

Limited to a niche market

Travelers in pursuit of peace of mind knowing their travel dollars are making a direct impact on the destination they’re visiting will enjoy perusing the hotels listed on Kind Traveler. This hotel booking site’s get-and-give model asks travelers to make a $10 donation to a charity in exchange for a dollar amount off nightly rates. Booking with Kind Traveler also means exclusive perks and amenities—for example, a reservation at pet-friendly Kimpton Armory hotel in Bozeman, Montana, includes a room upgrade and late check-out (though both perks are dependent on availability). At this property, your $10 donation goes toward funding day camp experiences for people with disabilities.

We also love that each hotel listing includes several recommendations to “do good for the day” near your selected hotel. In Bozeman, for example, Kind Traveler suggests a visit to the Emerson Center for Arts and Culture to support its art community, or a donation to No Kid Hungry Montana, an organization serving the food-insecure.

When it comes to hotel booking sites, there’s something for every type of traveler. Many of the sites key in on finding the best deals on the web, and some get super-specialized, such as presenting hotel room listings for last-minute travelers. Overall, for tons of options with an eye for affordability, Booking.com is our top pick for the best hotel booking site.

What Is the Best Hotel Booking Site?

The answer may vary depending on specific needs, but we found that Booking.com offers the broadest range of hotel properties along with ease of use and opportunities for discounts. Another aggregate listing site, Hotels.com, was a close second, and most travelers should be able to find what they need through one of those sites.

Is It Better to Book Directly With the Hotel?

It depends. If you can speak with someone at the hotel with authority to offer discounts, you may be able to negotiate a lower rate , a free room upgrade, or other amenities. However, this requires taking the time to reach out directly to hotels and the skill to negotiate such deals. If you're in a hurry or if haggling isn't your thing, a hotel booking site may be your best option.

What Is the Cheapest Site for Booking Hotels?

Most of the sites on our list allow customers to search by price. While Booking.com and Hotels.com have the largest listings and should be able to direct customers to cheap options, Hostelworld is specifically geared toward budget travelers .

What Days Are Cheapest to Book Hotels?

This is another question that depends on the details, such as the type of hotel. If it's a hotel that caters to business travelers , it's likely to be busiest during the week, meaning you might find weekend deals. However, if it's a hotel in the middle of a popular tourist destination, weekends might be the busiest time, meaning a weekday trip might fetch the best deal.

We evaluated the major (and some niche) hotel booking sites for the volume of hotel room listings, unique value propositions (such as steeper discounts for last-minute bookings), and guest reviews. We also considered travelers’ values, such as social- and environmental-impact opportunities, and budget preferences.

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The 14 Best Hotel Booking Sites

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Megan Johnson

Megan is a Senior Editor, SEO for SmarterTravel Media.

Megan started with SmarterTravel Media’s Airfarewatchdog way back in 2008, moved over to FamilyVacationCritic, and finally SmarterTravel in 2021. Originally from Massachusetts, she has lived in Nova Scotia, London, and New York City. She has spent nearly every summer (or at least part of it) on Prince Edward Island. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, two young children, and their dog, Indiana Bones (Indy).

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As with the best flight booking sites , there’s no shortage of resources available when you need to book a cheap hotel room. From metasearch engines (aggregator) that send you to company sites, to bookable OTAs (online travel agencies), to corporate hotel sites, the options for the best hotel booking sites can be overwhelming. But when doing your search, deciding which hotel booking sites to compare should depend on how often they offer the best hotel deals, and how you prefer to view and filter search results.

Some of the links featured in this story are affiliate links, and SmarterTravel may collect a commission (at no cost to you) if you shop through them.

The Best Hotel Booking Sites for Comparing Prices

For most travel planning, the best overall strategy is to compare prices from multiple sources including the hotel’s own website, as it will sometimes offer deals not shared with third-party sites, or offer the same rates as third-party sites minus pesky booking fees. Hotels sites will also offer package deals—bundled amenity inclusions and the like—that aren’t shared with third-party sites.

Bottom line: Whether you search with a hotel site on this list or a preferred hotel search engine of your own, always check the hotel’s actual website as well, or call its reservations line, to make sure you really are getting the best hotel deal. Don’t forget to check the cancellation policy as the best hotel booking site is one that has a flexible policy in case your plans change.

If you’re trying to figure out how best to search for cheap hotels: First, scan this quick list of the best hotel search sites, in no particular order. Then, scroll down to read in-depth summaries of each or click to jump to a particular site.

Booking.com

Bookingbuddy, hotelscombined.

  • Expedia (which owns Travelocity and Orbitz )

Tripadvisor

Mr. & mrs. smith.

No list of the best hotel booking sites is exhaustive, but these 15 represent a combination of great crowd favorites mixed with some newer, similarly performing hotel search options that you might not know about.

All of them fared well in tests: Prices for the same dates and destinations were fairly consistent from site to site, but the volatility of results may vary based on your destination, how far in advance you’re looking for the best hotel deals, and the time of year you visit (i.e., high season vs. low).

With that in mind, here are the best hotel booking sites to compare prices with for your next trip, plus the best feature of each one.

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Open laptop showing home screen of Booking.com, one of several listed hotel reservation sites

  • Insofar as keeping your options open goes, Booking.com returns the most eclectic search results by far, with a healthy mix of hotels, motels, b&bs, apartments, and hostels. But whether this is a good or bad thing depends entirely on your preferences. If you’re not a fan of hostels, for example, hotel search results like this mean that you have to filter them out, creating an extra step that other hotel booking sites don’t require. That said, Booking.com offers something for everyone. 
  • Its handy hotel search engine displays the total cost up front (except taxes) which is helpful when comparing cheap hotel rates; being able to see the total hotel cost up front helps you quickly determine which hotels actually fit into your budget.
  • Its filtering options are extensive, from price, cancellation policy, sustainability, specific neighborhood for that city, fun things to do nearby, amenities, room accessibility and much, much more. With this filter feature, you will be able to find exactly the kind of accommodations you want. 

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Open laptop showing home screen of Kayak, one of several listed accommodation booking sites

  • Like its flight search, Kayak ‘s hotel search offers a clean, easy-to-use interface with many available filters.
  • Shows other hotel booking sites’ rates so you can compare them all in one place. But the first hotel price result is often higher than better rates farther down the list, unless you specifically filter by price. Kayak’s hotel search results are automatically sorted by the vague factor of what’s “Recommended,” which is true of many hotel booking sites. Often, higher rates populate first while scrolling results, and sometimes that lead price is much higher than other comparable hotel options. Be sure to change sorting to price, so you can find the best deal. 
  • It’s search calendar is color coded to show you cheap, average, and high prices, which comes in handy if price is your number one priority when booking a hotel. 
  • If you are someone who likes to book by ratings, each hotel page on Kayak has the rating in a large box just underneath the hotel pictures. It’s easy to find, and may help you to make your decision quickly. 

Open laptop showing home screen of Priceline, a site where you can book hotels

  • Priceline has one of the more visually appealing design layouts of the major hotel search engines, and is definitely among the easiest hotel sites to navigate. None of these hotel search sites is dramatically different from the others in terms of rates or price comparison, so usability can go a long way toward improving the experience of searching for the best hotel prices.
  • Unsurprisingly, Priceline’s prices are on par with the other online travel agencies (OTAs), and its results are largely focused on downtowns and tourist-friendly areas. A big draw of Priceline is their “Express Deal” option: a flash deal that hides the name of the hotel until after you book. While somewhat gimmicky, this hotel search option can offer significant savings.
  • The handy map that is featured on each hotel page, which will show you other hotels in the area and the prices. This is particularly useful if you want to stay in the city center, by a specific landmark, or are visiting friends or family and want to be nearby where they live. 

Open laptop showing home screen of BookingBuddy, a site where you can make hotel reservations

Editor’s note: BookingBuddy is owned by SmarterTravel Media, SmarterTravel.com’s parent company.

  • Compare multiple hotel booking sites with one click to find the cheapest hotel stays on BookingBuddy . This site lets you quickly compare prices of as many other search sites (like VRBO or Trivago) as you want, without having to do a bunch of different searches. Simply select which hotel/vacation rental search sites you want to compare, and BookingBuddy opens up a new tab with your selected hotel stay dates and destination already filled in.
  • You can sign up for an alert for when prices drop. If you are in no rush to book, you just may find a super deal if you sign up for an alert! 
  • Like other sites on this list, BookingBuddy pulls in and displays the best deals from various booking sites and OTAs on their own search results page. However, BookingBuddy also lets travelers directly compare entire search result pages across multiple sites, allowing them to toggle between the pages from a lefthand navigation menu.

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Open laptop showing home screen of Hotels.com, a site to make hotel bookings

  • Hotels.com helps you find the best hotel deals via tons of filters that let you narrow down your search. Its initial results tend to show a healthy balance of lower- and upper-end hotels, mostly in or around city centers. That’s what most travelers want in a hotel search engine: a robust, easily refined list of well-located options. Prices were on par with other OTAs.
  • Like many cheap hotel websites these days, Hotels.com includes lots of non-hotel properties too, including condo hotels, guesthouses, and bed and breakfasts.
  • Hotels.com allows you to sort by the usual things: price, star rating, featured, and also has a way to sort by what is closest to certain locations in the city: landmarks, train stations and airports. 

Open laptop showing home screen of HotelsCombined, a site that takes hotel bookings

  • HotelsCombined is a meta search tool that searches a wide range of sources to find the best hotel deals, including OTAs, as well as the hotels’ own sites. 
  • You can also toggle between nightly base price, nightly price plus taxes/fees, or total stay plus taxes/fees. There is no option to display the total price of the stay without taxes/fees.
  • Easily see if your travel dates are during peak travel times with their color coded calendar showing you if your dates have “Cheaper, Average,” or “Higher” prices. 

Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz

Open laptop showing home screen of Expedia, a site where you can make hotel reservations

  • Short of the color scheme and fonts, you’d be hard pressed to find much difference between these three legacy hotel booking sites. Expedia , Travelocity , and Orbitz are all owned by Expedia Inc., and all three use the same layout, with a few minor tweaks. Interestingly, the hotel search results do vary slightly. 
  • The top hotel result for each test search was the same across all three of these hotel booking sites, but the order of the list of hotels below it varied. Prices, of course, were the same, since they’re all powered by Expedia. These perfectly fine hotel search engines are not all that different from Hotels.com .
  • They’ve got plenty of options, prices that are usually good but not always great (as with any hotel booking site), and useful hotel search filters. That might be faint praise for discount hotel sites, but there’s something to be said for consistency, right? 
  • Keep an eye on these hotel sites’ deals and limited-time offers, which is when any of these three hotel search engines are more likely to substantially beat their competition.
  • With these sites, you can easily add a flight or car rentals to your accommodation booking, making for easy one-stop-shopping. 

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Open laptop showing home screen of Agoda, one of many listed hotel reservation sites

  • Agoda began as a hotel booking site with a focus on Asia, and that focus remains apparent on the home page, where properties in Malaysia, Thailand, and other Eastern destinations get prominent real estate. But now that Agoda has come to the U.S., it delivers a hotel search experience that matches some of the best hotel sites on this list. 
  • There are even instances when Agoda had better hotel deals than its competition, including one hotel search result in which the total booking cost was more than $200 less than the same hotel on Priceline (with a coupon code). Don’t expect that sort of result every time, but it shows that Agoda, like all the rest of these hotel booking sites, is well worth checking for the best hotel deals.

Open laptop showing home screen of Tripadvisor, a site where you can book hotels and see user images of site bookings

  • Like HotelsCombined, Tripadvisor ‘s hotel search displays some of the very best hotel deals from a range of sites. The tool is built right into Tripadvisor’s general search function, letting you browse the site’s vast library of reviews, then begin your hotel booking seamlessly. The initial list of hotel search results is sorted by “best value” and shows the source of the given price, so that you know where (off Tripadvisor) your hotel booking is going to happen. 
  • Tripadvisor searches most of the major hotel booking sites, as well as some lesser-known ones; when applicable, it also includes the hotel’s own website. You can also book directly with Tripadvisor.
  • Sort your search by traveler ranking, so you can see the hotels travelers just like you prefer. Guest reviews often include pictures of hotel rooms taken by the guests themselves, not clouded over by staging, so you can see what the rooms actually look like before you book. 

Open laptop showing home screen of Trivago, one of several listed accommodation booking sites

  • Another aggregate hotel booking site, Trivago did surface that low price coupon found on Agoda. However, it did not lead with that price, choosing instead to prominently display a higher price from Booking.com in large, green text. Odd. The lower-priced Agoda deal was listed second in the hotel search results, displayed in small gray text along with several others. In fact, Trivago found multiple hotel deals lower than that Booking.com price, but none received top billing for some reason. This happened in several other cases too, where the lead price ended up higher than best hotel prices that Trivago could find.
  •  The good thing about conducting a hotel search on Trivago is that Trivago searches several lesser-known hotel booking sites, including Agoda, in addition to the usual suspects like Expedia, Priceline, and Booking.com . But travelers should take a close look at Trivago’s hotel search results to make sure that Trivago isn’t hiding a better deal farther down the list.

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Open laptop showing home screen of Google Hotels

  • Google’s hotel search engine works by simply entering “hotels in (insert city here)” right on Google.com . (You can also go straight to the Google Hotels page .) This feature is integrated into Google Maps, which makes it very different from any of the other hotel booking sites listed above. On Google, hotel locations are marked by prices on a map, rather than by name or any other identifying characteristic. 
  • From there, Google’s hotel search tool is fairly price-forward, which is what metasearch should be. Clicking on a price displays the hotel’s name, features, and booking options. Overall, it’s no surprise that Google offers a powerful, no-frills hotel search engine for travelers who don’t want all the hard-sell aspects of cheap hotel sites and more commercial hotel search engines. (And yes, Google did surface that low-with-coupon hotel deal from Agoda.)

Open laptop showing home screen of Hotwire, a hotel bookings site

  • One of the best hotel booking sites for last minute deals and “Hot Rates,” which hide the hotel name in order to give you a better rate (similar to Priceline’s Express Deals), Hotwire is a great option if you don’t mind a limited-details final booking; and you probably don’t if it’s short notice. 
  • Hotwire’s Hot Rates descriptions feature so many details about the property, as well as a pretty narrow location radius, that you can sometimes figure out the hotel you’ll be booked in, although it’s still somewhat of a gamble. Hotwire is also partnered with reliable global hotel brands like Kimpton and Hyatt, so you can be more confident that you won’t end up with a ramshackle property.
  • The savings vary depending on the destination, but Hot Rates are consistently much more competitive than the standard Hotwire rates, which aren’t always the best price compared to other hotel booking sites. The main qualm that most customers have with Hotwire is their “24/7 support,” which apparently can be pretty unhelpful despite always being available to you.

Open laptop showing home screen of TravelPony, once only a social media deals site but now offering site bookings

  • Formerly a social media-only deals site, TravelPony has since expanded to help anyone in need of a deal on a hotel. 
  • Great for domestic and international hotels, there are loads of filtering options to ensure you are getting exactly the type of place you are looking for. You can filter by type of establishment, (including hotels, bed and breakfasts, hostels, apartments, resorts, and even farms), facilities, districts, room options (free cancellation, free WiFi etc..), so even if there is only one option out there that meets all of your wants and desires, they’ll find it! There are some lesser-known booking sites that TravelPony links to, so make sure you do your research before finalizing!

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Open laptop showing home screen of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a hotel reservation site

  • Their price match feature goes above and beyond the usual. If you find a lower price elsewhere, they will not only match it, but you will also receive a $50 voucher. 
  • You must become a member to book through Mr. & Mrs. Smith, however, entry-level membership is free. Members receive “Smith Extras” upon arrival to their hotel—anything from a bottle of champagne to a spa service! 
  • Hotels must be invited to join this website, as they are carefully vetted by “undercover tastemakers” before being added to the site. 

Which Hotel Booking Site Is Best for Me?  

Consider what type of trip you are taking. If you are open to the type of place you want to stay at, then consider a site with more diverse options. If you are torn between a hotel or vacation rental, BookingBuddy is the site for you, as it will search for both to help you make your decision. If you rely heavily on peer reviews, then go with TripAdvisor . Check our best features of each site above to decide which site is best for you to make your hotel reservation. For 

What is the Difference Between an Online Travel Agency (OTA) and Metasearch Engine? 

An OTA allows you to book directly through them, and does not send you outside of their site to make your booking. a Metasearch Engine (also known as an aggregator) searches multiple sites including OTA’s, and will send you to a site outside of the aggregator to finalize your booking. 

Is It Cheaper to Book Directly with a Hotel or With a Hotel Booking Site?

It might be cheaper to book directly with a hotel, but this option really only makes sense if you already have a hotel you love and you want to book. Otherwise, the fastest, cheapest way to book a hotel is going to be by using one of the hotel booking websites. You will waste a lot of time calling hotels to see if you can get a better deal, and who has time for that these days?! 

When Should I Book My Hotel?

This really depends on your flexibility. If all you want is the best deal, and you aren’t picky about where the hotel is, waiting until the last minute (one to two days before you travel) could probably get you the best deal on your hotel. But, you might not want to risk that—I know I wouldn’t when planning a vacation! If you are booking for travel during peak times, book early so you don’t end up far away from where all of the action is, as hotels can book up quickly, especially during school vacation times. 

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Bottom Line

What is the best hotel booking website.

These days, we are inundated with choices, including the number of accommodation booking websites there are out there. These sites should all make your booking easier, but some will make it even easier. Our clear winner is HotelsCombined.com . It’s easy to read, you can choose from hotels and rentals, and its ability to search hotel sites gives it the edge over other sites. We’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention SmarterTravel Hotels as a runner-up—their prices were some of the cheapest we found. Booking.com is another solid runner-up, as they appear to have the other sites beat as far as the volume of hotels goes. 

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2016. It has been updated to reflect the most current information.

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The 12 Best Websites for Booking Flights at the Cheapest Prices [April 2024]

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The 12 Best Websites for Booking Flights at the Cheapest Prices [April 2024]

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4. priceline, 8. skyscanner, 9. travelocity, 10. google flights, 11. cheapoair, price comparisons, final thoughts.

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Searching for a flight can be a bit overwhelming. There are so many factors: dates, times, price, fare class, airline, and more. Even when you know exactly when and where you want to fly, where should you look for the absolute best price?

Unfortunately, no website consistently has the lowest prices. Most of the popular OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) are usually in the same ballpark for the price, but not all offer the same benefits or search functionality.

We’ve combed through many popular OTAs to compare prices and show you the benefits and drawbacks of each site.

More often than not, booking directly through the airline’s website will give you the best price, or will at least be the same as the OTAs.

Some airlines, like Southwest, won’t even show up on sites like Expedia or Orbitz, so you have to book direct. It can also be the most simple way to book. If a problem arises, you don’t have to deal with a third party to get it resolved.

Another reason to book directly through an airline’s website is to use those frequent flyer miles — hooray for award flights!

Of course, to book through the airline’s website, you first need to know which airline has the best prices. There are lots of travel search engines and OTAs that can help you find the best deals so you know which airline’s website to visit. Some OTAs even offer perks that might make it worth booking someplace other than the airline’s site.

Hot Tip: A card such as The Platinum Card ® from American Express earns an impressive 5x Membership Rewards points per $1 spent on flights booked directly with airlines or with  AmexTravel.com on up to $500,000 on these purchases per calendar year.

Momondo is a travel metasearch engine similar to Kayak. The home page displays a simple search box where you can plug in your travel details.

One of the things we love about this site is the visual way it shows you the price trends for your flight. At first glance, you can tell if you could save some money by shifting around your travel dates a bit. It also offers a price tracker and lots of filtering options on the left-hand side of the screen.

Monmodo flight search

Pros and Cons of Momondo

  • Great price tracking tools
  • Mix & Match fares require you to make 2 separate reservations; this is usually handled “behind the scenes” on other websites

Hot Tip: We cover the ins and outs of finding cheap airfare with this website in our guide to using Momondo .

Kayak is not an OTA. Rather, it’s a travel search engine — making it a great place to start your flight search.

The site compares prices from many websites in a single spot, so you can easily see the cheapest options . Most of the time, you’ll click through to a different site to complete your booking.

Kayak offers the ability to combine 2 one-way tickets (usually on different airlines) in 1 itinerary, which is a great way to save money on your flight. These itineraries can be pretty good deals and something that doesn’t always appear in search results of other websites.

A couple of new features were introduced in early 2024 — Kayak PriceCheck and Ask Kayak. Kayak PriceCheck allows you to upload a screenshot of an itinerary in the Kayak app, and Kayak will compare it to prices on hundreds of other sites to ensure you’re getting the best deal. Ask Kayak is an AI tool that helps you personalize your travel planning.

Pros and Cons of Kayak

  • Ability to combine 2 one-way flights on a single itinerary
  • Price Alerts to keep an eye on flight prices
  • Kayak PriceCheck
  • Kayak offers the most benefit when your travel plans are very flexible; many of its most valuable tools help you search for deals, so this site might be less appealing when you have a specific flight in mind

Bottom Line: For more information about Kayak’s travel search tools, check out the complete guide to booking travel with Kayak .

Daily Deals Special: Click here for up to 40% off at Expedia

Expedia is another tried-and-true OTA that people have been using since the 1990s. Back then, Expedia was a go-to source for searching and booking flights. But how does it stack up now?

You aren’t necessarily getting a better deal booking through Expedia, but you aren’t paying any more than you might on the airline’s website.

A nice perk of using Expedia is that it offers a rewards program called One Key. This program offers member pricing plus the ability to earn points for flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, activities, and more.

The One Key loyalty program is also used by Hotels.com and Vrbo.

If you’re a member of an airline’s frequent flyer program, you’ll be happy to know that you can still earn airline miles on a flight booked through Expedia . However, you often won’t be able to earn miles/points toward status or be eligible for seat upgrades.

Pros and Cons of Expedia

  • Earn and redeem points through the One Key program
  • Booking through Expedia may limit your mileage earned toward elite status
  • Your ability to be eligible for upgrades can be limited when you book through Expedia

Hot Tip:  For more information, check out our post about how to use Expedia to find great deals on flights, hotels, vacation packages (and more).

Priceline is a popular OTA that introduced the Name Your Own Price tool and opaque bookings. These types of bookings can offer discounts, but many of the details are hidden until after the booking. The Name Your Own Price tool was discontinued for flights in 2016, so now Priceline operates like most other OTAs .

One of the nice things about searching for flights on Priceline is that it has a nice color-coded calendar, so you can easily see which days offer the lowest prices.

Priceline color coded map

The search results on Priceline are clear and easy to navigate. As you scroll through your search results, you can easily see the cheapest nonstop options and things like flights with no change fees or early bird flights.

Priceline search results

Another way to save money is by looking at Priceline’s Express Deals . These opaque bookings are ones where select details of the flight (like the departure, arrival times, or even the airline) are hidden until the booking is complete.

Pros and Cons of Priceline

  • Express Deal flights can offer a good discount if you have some flexibility; many of the details of the flight, including airline and arrival and departure times, are hidden until the booking is complete
  • Color-coded calendar and easy-to-read search results
  • Price Match Guarantee
  • Free online cancellation within 24 hours of booking (except for Express Deal flights)
  • No rewards program
  • Express Deal flights can be good deals, but they can sometimes be even more expensive than a standard booking

Bottom Line: For more information, check out the complete guide to booking travel with Priceline .

Daily Deals Special: Check out Orbitz’s Daily Deals

Orbitz is another reliable OTA that has been around since 2001. One thing that makes this site a little different is that it offers its own rewards program called Orbitz Rewards . You can earn Orbucks when you book hotels, flights, and vacation packages through Orbitz. However, you can only redeem Orbucks for hotels.

When booking a flight through Orbitz, you’ll earn 1% of your purchase price back as Orbucks (or 2% if you use the Orbitz mobile app). If you book a $500 flight, you will earn 5 Orbucks, which is worth $5 toward a hotel booking. Joining the Orbitz Rewards program is free.

Earn Orbucks on flights

Unfortunately, Orbitz sometimes charges a 1% booking fee . Keep an eye out for these on your trip summary page before finalizing your purchase, and factor them into your calculations to see if you’re getting a good deal or not. While earning Orbucks is great, paying a booking fee could wipe out all of the benefits.

Orbitz booking fee

Pros and Cons of Orbitz

  • Orbitz Rewards lets you earn Orbucks that can be applied to hotel bookings
  • 24-hour cancellation policy
  • Low Price Guarantee: if you find a lower price for your flight on another website within 24 hours, Orbitz will refund the difference
  • Flight booking fees

Bottom Line: For more information, check out our guide to booking travel with Orbitz .

Agoda is an OTA owned by Priceline. This website doesn’t offer much more than a simple search with limited filter options when looking for flights. If you’re looking for unique accommodations such as an apartment or private villa, Agoda is worth checking out, but it doesn’t offer much when searching for flights.

One cool thing about Agoda is that the site is multilingual. You can select your language by clicking on the flag in the top menu bar.

Agoda

Pros and Cons of Agoda

  • Simple search functionality
  • Multilingual option
  • Limited filtering options for flights

Hot Tip: Agoda has a loyalty program called VIP, but it only applies to hotel stays. For more information, check out our guide to booking travel through Agoda .

Special: See these Hotwire Flight Deals

Hotwire is a popular OTA that has been around for almost 20 years.

The simple home page offers the main search box to input your departure and arrival cities as well as your desired dates of travel.

Hotwire can offer a great deal when booking a hotel along with your flight . Many times during the booking process, you’ll see pop-ups or prompts advertising great savings when booking a hotel at the same time. We tested it, and every time we priced out a Hotwire vacation package deal against purchasing a flight and hotel separately, the package deal was cheaper.

Hotwire flight and hotel deals

Bottom Line: If you need a hotel in addition to your flight, booking both together through Hotwire can save you money.

Another thing to remember when using Hotwire to find great flight deals is that sometimes a booking fee will be charged.

Pros and Cons of Hotwire

  • Package deals that include a hotel stay can save money
  • Low Price Guarantee
  • Hotwire can sometimes charge a booking fee

Bottom Line: For more details about finding great deals, check out our complete guide to booking travel through Hotwire .

Skyscanner is another travel search engine that does not sell flights directly. It shows you a list of flights and links to the airline’s website or OTA to complete the purchase.

This site excels for travelers with flexibility . In the search box, you can select Explore everywhere  to search for the cheapest destinations on your chosen dates.

Skyscanner search option

If you have a set destination with specific dates, Skyscanner operates like most other travel search sites.

Pros and Cons of Skyscanner

  • Flexible searches, including Explore everywhere  and Multi-city search
  • Easy to change language and currency
  • Price alerts

Hot Tip:  For more information, check out our in-depth piece on Skyscanner . 

Travelocity is yet another OTA that has been around for a while and is very similar to the other websites we’ve been looking at.

On the plus side, there are some nice filtering options to help you find the best flight for your needs. On the downside, prices can change between selection and booking. We did a dummy booking, and by the time we got to the payment section, the flight price had gone up from $157 to $338!

Travelocity flight price change

Much like other online travel agencies, Travelocity can also charge booking fees, so keep an eye out for those in the payment section of the booking process.

Travelocity booking fee

Pros and Cons of Travelocity

  • Price Guarantee: If you find a lower price on an identical itinerary within 24 hours, Travelocity will refund the difference in price
  • Free cancellation on flights within 24 hours of booking (on most airlines)
  • Travelocity sometimes charges a booking fee
  • Prices can change between flight selection and payment

Bottom Line: For more information, check out our guide to booking travel with Travelocity .

Google Flights is not an OTA. Rather, it’s a metasearch engine similar to Kayak. Once you find a flight, Google Flights will link you to the airline’s direct website or an OTA to complete the purchase. It is a powerful search engine built on the ITA Matrix , which was originally developed for travel agents.

This site shows you price trends and how your travel dates could affect the cost of your ticket. Plus, it allows you to track the prices of a route , so you can jump on low prices when they pop up. These features make Google Flights a great tool to help you feel confident that the price you’re getting is a good deal.

Google Flights Price Graph

Google Flights recently rolled out a price guarantee feature on select flights departing from the U.S. If you book a flight with the price guarantee badge and the price drops, you’ll get a refund of the difference (with a maximum of $500 per calendar year) from Google Flights via Google Pay. However, you can only receive up to 3 price guaranteed refunds at any one time.

Google Flights price guarantee

Pros and Cons of Google Flights

  • Price graph shows you the pricing trends for your route and allows you to see what days might be cheaper to fly
  • Price tracking will send you an email when your flight’s price increases or decreases
  • Automatic price guarantee on select flights
  • Since this search engine is so powerful with lots of options, it could get complicated for a novice traveler

Hot Tip: You can earn frequent flyer miles on flights booked through an OTA, but you might not earn miles toward elite status.

CheapOair is an OTA that offers its own credit card. Before applying for the card, we recommend considering a better travel rewards credit card  for more lucrative and flexible travel rewards.

This site might not be as cheap as you would think. That’s because it can charge expensive “agency fees.” For most flights, the fees can be up to $35; however, once you read the fine print, you’ll see they can actually be as high as $200 per ticket!

Cheapoair agency fees

In addition, CheapOair charges a fee to change or cancel any ticket, including within 24 hours, which is free on many other sites.

Pros and Cons of CheapOair

  • Price Match Promise: CheapOair will refund the difference in price if you find a lower price on the same itinerary on a major OTA within 24 hours of booking
  • CheapOair charges hefty booking fees in addition to fees to cancel or change your flight
  • Price Match Promise is very limited; the guarantee is only good for identical flights on Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline, and Travelocity

Bottom Line: CheapOair might not be cheap after all. It advertises low base fares, but it charges booking fees, which usually result in a higher price than the airline’s website. For more information, check out our guide to CheapOair .

Hopper is an app that tries to predict the right time to buy a flight. It claims that using its app can save you up to 40% on flights. The simple interface and color-coded map show you the cheapest and most expensive times to fly to your chosen destination.

Hopper Fare Calendar

You can also set up alerts to watch the prices for your specific dates or watch a whole month if you have flexible travel plans.

Pros and Cons of Hopper

  • Easy to use
  • Choose to watch prices for a specific trip or choose to watch prices over a whole month
  • No ability to search on a desktop
  • Few filtering options

Hot Tip: There are many credit cards with travel insurance and extra protections like trip interruption and cancellation protection and baggage delay coverage . We suggest looking at Chase credit cards or Amex credit cards for great insurance coverage.

We searched for a flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to New York City (JFK) across different travel booking websites to compare pricing head-to-head. Below is the cheapest ticket each website offered.

In this search, we weren’t taking anything other than price into consideration. When you are actually booking a flight, there will most likely be more factors that go into your decision of which flight to book.

In this example, Google Flights, Hopper, and Priceline tied for the cheapest flight cost with Expedia, Hotwire, Orbitz, and Travelocity coming in just $3 more expensive. CheapOair was by far the most expensive option.

There is no one-stop shop to find the lowest prices on a flight every time. Most OTAs are in the same ballpark when it comes to price.

If you’ve got some flexibility, many of these sites can help you find the lowest-priced travel dates and destinations.

If you prefer a more traditional booking, start out with a travel search engine like Kayak or Google Flights to search all of the other sites. That will give you a good idea of the best website to use to save the most money on your next flight.

Are you a student? Don’t miss our guide to the best websites for cheap, discount student flights .

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The Best Websites for Booking Flights at the Cheapest Prices

For rates and fees of The Platinum Card ® from American Express, click here .

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best website to use to book the cheapest flights.

There is no single website that has the cheapest flights all of the time. Most of the travel search engines and online travel agencies all have similar pricing, however you can find some really nice deals when looking at opaque (hidden) bookings or vacation packages.

What is an opaque booking?

An opaque booking hides many of the flight details, including arrival and departure times and the operating airline, until your booking is complete. Many sites including Hotwire, Orbitz, and Travelocity offer these types of bookings.

Will I earn frequent flyer miles when I book through an online travel agency?

Generally, yes, you will still be able to earn frequent flyer miles on flights booked through an online travel agency. However, miles earned to qualify for elite status may be not be awarded unless you book directly through the airline’s website.

What are the best websites to buy cheap flights to Europe?

Your best bet would be to start with a travel search engine like Kayak or Google Flights. You will be able to see prices from many different websites in one place and you can track flight prices to help determine the best time to purchase tickets. Be sure to check out our guide to the best websites to book European vacation packages if you want to bundle your flight with a hotel and/or rental car.

Is it cheaper to book directly on the airline's website?

Often, an airline will offer the lowest prices through its own website. However, you can often save money booking through an online travel agency (OTA) that has the ability to combine flights from more than 1 airline into a single itinerary.

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About Katie Seemann

Katie has been in the points and miles game since 2015 and started her own blog in 2016. She’s been freelance writing since then and her work has been featured in publications like Travel + Leisure, Forbes Advisor, and Fortune Recommends.

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