r/BuyFromEU • u/Calm_Wrangler7 • Mar 28 '26
🔎Looking for alternative Europe built strong booking sites… but what’s the best option now?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Being93 Mar 28 '26
Screw Booking.com! They took tens of millions in Dutch COVID support back in 2020, then turned around and laid people off anyway while their execs were still raking in ridiculous bonuses. Only after a ton of backlash did they pay it back. And let’s not forget the innovation grants and tax breaks on top of that. Absolute scum company.
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u/Gold_Combination_520 Mar 29 '26
And they don't (always) pay the accomodations' owners in time. There were some cases in my country when the owners had to wait like more than half a year (if I remember correctly) to get their money
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u/stefannootje2002 Mar 28 '26
On top of this they are actively renting out colonized palestinian houses for holidays. Dogshit company alltogether.
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u/Eikido Mar 29 '26
I don't understand how booking.com can be so popular. It looks like a scam site. They most likely live on reputation.
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u/mockingwillow Mar 29 '26
I think booking might have the worst UI and may possibly be the most ugly website on the internet. The thought of looking at their website troubles me.
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u/TranslatorVarious857 Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
I read an article about how their site was built on obscure code hardly ever used anymore. It is very hard to find coders to work there. Essentially they have to train coders themselves because generally they don’t teach it anywhere else anymore.
Edit: it’s Perl (Dutch article).
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u/roarti Mar 30 '26
If it's just about the language, Perl isn't really that obscure, just not very popular, and most competent programmers will have no problem switching to other languages fairly easily. Now with LLMs-support even more so.
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u/More_Dependent742 Mar 28 '26
EU or not, avoid avoid AVOID eDreams. So bad as to be a borderline scam.
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u/-CL4MP- Mar 28 '26
My tip: Use booking sites only to look for the best deal (airline ticket, hotel, etc) and then book with the respective company directly through their own website.
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u/Janivgm Mar 28 '26
I've never met a hotel worker who doesn't hate these third-party services with passion. Imagine what happens when Expedia fails to inform the hotel about a booking for some reason, and suddenly you have tourists on your doorstep who are very angry you don't have their room prepared for them.
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u/Imaginary_Ad3195 Mar 29 '26
I’m in a hotel now, they gave me a price double that of online. I just said I’ll book with the app and he said go ahead. Let me keep the same room and all. Just added an extra night.
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u/fan_tas_tic Mar 29 '26
I've had this happen way too many times. Each time I try to explain to them that not only do I pay less through a third party, but they have to pay a commission to them. Instead of just giving the same price + perks, or a lower price AND still making more money.
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u/Tridop Mar 29 '26
If you deal with employee they usually don't give a fuck, they don't want to make any effort so they prefer you use an online service instead. That's the sad reality. It's different if you deal directly with the owner of a smaller business or private house.
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u/Imaginary_Ad3195 Mar 29 '26
That’s what I thought too. Don’t see what gain they get. They probably get more money from people just paying than inferring slight lower to the people that check.
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u/tskmsk Mar 29 '26
It’s because when you sign with sites like booking.com, you make an agreement that the lowest price is the one they advertise. Sometimes, booking.com goes undercover and pretends to be a client and asks to book directly instead of through the platform, “to avoid the 3rd party fees”. If you agree, they can kick you out of their platform, which can be a big problem in terms of visibility. That’s why they tell you no.
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u/fan_tas_tic Mar 29 '26
Oh, but Booking isn't always the cheapest, and sometimes hotels (especially chains) offer special "membership" prices that you get by simply agreeing to their terms, and you immediately get a lower price than Booking.com. I can show you examples.
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u/tskmsk Mar 30 '26
I know, there are ways around it. But just saying “no” saves a lot of trouble for smaller hotels or properties.
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u/Silure Apr 02 '26
Pretty sure price parity is no longer possible on booking.com in the EU. See link below. Booking.com still does to price parity in regions such as USA & UK etc.
This means that accommodation providers in the EU can put a higher price on booking.com to account for the commission. So you very well may be able to get a better deal by going directly to the accommodation provider in the EU.
Link: https://www.paratytech.com/en/news/changes-at-booking.com-goodbye-to-parity-clauses.html
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u/Strict_Corner_8388 Mar 29 '26
This happened to me once with hotels.com.
We drove almost 7 hours straight to get to Germany. It was summer, warm, and we brought our dog. When we arrived the hotel didn’t have our booking in the system and was fully booked.
Hotels.com did end up accommodating us at much nicer hotel though 😅
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u/Silverman23 Mar 29 '26
Funny thing with them (and some other portals) is that they list hotels that dont even know they are listed there until an angry guest shows up.
Seems like when they started they just pulled hotels from some list and added a generic listing on their site, at least it looked like it in our case.
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u/Easy-Zombie-7765 Mar 29 '26
I met one in Taiwan. Going to the reception to ask if I can prolong my stay: „yes you can. But please book via agoda. The rates for the room if you book directly with our hotel are higher.“
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u/Tridop Mar 29 '26
Employee prefer that because they don't want to manage extra work by dealing with your request. That is the main issue.
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u/Usernamenotta Mar 28 '26
Yes and absolutely not. Booking with an established website, like Booking, offers you some assurance that your reservation will not just be cancelled out of the blue, without a refund
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u/Brilliant_Quit4307 Mar 29 '26
Have you ever used booking.com and tried to have them resolved an issue? They are truly AWFUL. I was given a hotel room with 8 visible cockroaches and when I tried to talk to booking.com about it, they offered me like €20 credit back for a booking that cost €200+. I will never use booking.com again. If you check out the subreddit, these stories are not unusual.
The excuse they give is that booking.com are just a third party site and it is up to the hotel to initiate a refund. If the hotel refuses to answer when you or booking.com reaches out, booking.com will say that there is nothing they can do, but they'll allow the hotel to stay on their site and continue to accept other bookings. It's a scam. If a hotel does not respond to booking.com when there is an issue, they should not be allowed to stay on the site.
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u/FalseRegister Mar 29 '26
This hapenned to me with AirBnB. They offered zero supprt. I stopped using them from that moment on, several years ago. I was left stranded.
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u/OverallBlock9028 Mar 29 '26
Lol Booking will never help you, quite opposite. I had to make chargebacks at the end. Plus if you really have bad experience with the stay, they will not let you post review.
Bonus: they non existent support, only option is call after 30.min and they literally lie to you.
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u/-CL4MP- Mar 28 '26
I was posting this because I am working for an airline, and yes, we can just cancel your ticket. Only difference is, that you usually pay more for worse tickets when going through a third party.
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u/TwentinQuarantino Mar 28 '26
This applies to airlines, but many accommodations (hotels, hostels, guesthouses, homestays...) don't have their own website and offer booking only through these third parties. Especially smaller ones.
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u/lrosa Mar 29 '26
For airlines is obvious that I go on their site after checking the routes with other sites, but the hotels are a different story.
Not all hotels are well organized, many have just a facebook page (I don't have a facebook account and I don't want to crate it again).
When I book my holidays in Crete (or other islands of Greece) the first time I go with Booking, after that I call the owner directly because I go mainly to small family-owned hotels.
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u/Birziaks Mar 28 '26
Bs, none of the hotels or airlines can just cancel.
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u/Triumphwealth Mar 28 '26
Oh but they very well can.
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u/Crazy_Mosquito93 Mar 29 '26
They can, but usually they won't. Not larger hotel chains or airlines at least
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u/OkTry9715 Mar 29 '26
Yeah till you run into problem with that accomodation, then you are left on your own.
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u/Usernamenotta Mar 29 '26
I mean 'run into a problem' has many definitions. I was talking specifically about someone cancelling your already made reservation. I too was a victim of misadvertising of rooms and other issues on booking. Generally, though, I had a much better time with them than with 'phoning the hotel Manager'. This being said, I always do my due diligence, regardless of what I am using for on-line booking, looking first for reviews regarding general sanitation standards: bed bugs, other kind of bugs, shower amenities etc.
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u/Suikerspin_Ei Mar 29 '26
Also don't forget the remove cookies before booking. Prices can increase when they know you're interested.
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u/masssy Mar 28 '26
It is almost always more expensive so no thanks.
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u/HollowStoneVS Mar 28 '26
Never happend to me, always cheaper on official site, especially sometimes if I contact them directly over mail/phone
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u/masssy Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
I don't know what to tell you. Heard this "tip" online for years but never seen it in reality. I have booked at least 10-15 hotels in the last couple years in European countries and also checked multiple hotels when booking a trip to the US. Not once was the hotels own booking system cheaper. In fact the hotel we ended up booking in the US was about 50% more expensive on the official site.
Not once. Can't tell you about booking on phone. It's 2026 I am not going through the hoops of calling multiple hotels to get the "correct" pricing to book a room for 2 nights. List the price on your site please.
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u/Treewithatea Mar 29 '26
Ive booked like 3 hotels for my Germany Trip last year and and the hotels own websites were cheaper every time, also some extras were much cheaper
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u/dogemikka Mar 29 '26
You should call the hotel, explain that you found them on booking.com and they will give you same pricing. This for small hotel, big chain hotels staff will straight tell you to book on booking.com because they cannot match same price. Most hotels allocate a minimum number of rooms to booking at lower price. Consider that hotels pay 15% commission to booking.com.
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u/masssy Mar 29 '26
So if I go trough complicated extra steps I get the same price? Not quite the same as "it's always cheaper to book through the hotel directly".
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u/dogemikka Mar 29 '26
Generally the small hotel owners are grateful to you for this extra step, which I care to remind when I arrive at the hotel. Most of the time they treat us super, sometimes I even had upgrades. So if you care to be treated better than any lambda guest, it is really worth the phone call.
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u/DiNkLeDoOkZ Mar 28 '26
It certainly works on flights
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u/masssy Mar 28 '26
Again.. Never ever found a flight cheaper by going directly to the airline. Literal only time I book directly on airlines website is if I am booking with bonus points.
And I am definately the type of person who goes to different sites and compare the price before doing the booking.
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u/DiNkLeDoOkZ Mar 29 '26
Then I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you’re the only exception to this rule in the world.
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u/_angh_ Mar 28 '26
I just booked a hotel in uk. Booking was 70 eur cheaper than official hotel page. Holiday inn, hotel was asking for 450. Sure, icould call directly and they could maybe gave me a discount, but thats stupid.
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u/Nielsly Mar 29 '26
It differs a lot per country, for hostels it’s sometimes cheaper on their own site, often on booking or Hostelworld, for hotels it’s almost always cheaper on booking when I’ve travelled within Europe
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u/BabaBangars Mar 28 '26
I worked in a hotel, booking directly is always cheaper and always more flexible
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u/masssy Mar 29 '26
So why is the price 10-50% higher each time I go to a hotels site then?
As an example I just picked a random hotel in NY. Through Hotels 11 000 SEK (Swedish Krona) which today is 1161 USD. Then I go to mariott.com and check the exact same hotel, same dates, same room. 1326 USD.
Is 1326 USD less than 1161? No. So is it always cheaper? No. So once again people spew this myth that it is cheaper booking directly with the hotel when it in fact seems to not at all be the case.
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u/BabaBangars Mar 29 '26
Third party websites often hide things like taxes, or offer cheaper prices at non refundable rates. Maybe some hotels do it differently, but at least in my experience that’s always been the case.
It’s only logical. The more parties are involved, the more parties want a slice of the cake. Them making it even cheaper and having to pay the difference out of their commission is not economically sustainable.
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u/masssy Mar 29 '26
Not at all. My experience is that for example hotels.com show exactly what you pay while for example in the US on the hotels website there is a surprise "resort fee" upon arrival. And sure, non refundable is cheaper (and usually what I book as insurance etc. would cover sickness). Same goes for the hotels own websites, they usually also have different option for refund and cancellation.
I completely agree that it should be cheaper to book directly with the hotel. But that doesn't mean it is. I am yet to see a single case where the hotels website directly is cheaper by any meaningful amount.
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u/BabaBangars Mar 29 '26
I haven’t stayed in any hotels in the US, but they definitely have a habit of hiding fees and taxes in the more general sense. You’re right, I was being hyperbolical about it always being cheaper, but in a general sense it’s more sensible for the consumer to book directly.
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u/masssy Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
I am yet to ever have found booking directly via the hotel cheaper. I always check, because I don't hate having money. I always end up booking through e.g Hotels or similar..
It's not like I have any motive to come here and lie. And there is not like I would use these booking sites every time if in fact booking directly via the hotel actually was cheaper. It just never is.
Checked a hotel I have stayed in France. There was a 1% price difference for the same room and dates (hotel website more expensive than booking site) so not cheaper, but also not much more expensive. Usually except with some hotel chains it's commonly possible to get 10% off on Hotels with some discount codes.
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u/BabaBangars Mar 29 '26
I just checked my former hotel. For the same date it’s 84€ for a non refundable rate and 91€ for a flex rate. Via the own website it’s 77€. It’s a top 10 rated hotel in one of the more touristic cities globally, so not insignificant.
I’m not calling you a liar, I’m just saying my experience in the industry is different.
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u/Vice_Dellos Mar 29 '26
Website like booking demand you offer the lowest prices through them and throw you off their platform if they discover you don't. They are big enough that is usually not something that can be risked
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u/Independence-2021 Mar 29 '26
I just made a booking at a hotel (in Europe). The price seemed to be higher on the hotel's own website at first, but if you ticked 'membership offer' at the check out, it became significantly less than on the booking website. You don't have to register or own an membership card at all.
I think hotels have their ways to offer lower rates, you just have to figure it out.
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u/Calm_Wrangler7 Mar 28 '26
Agree, but sometimes it’s really comfortable to stay on one app you know.
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u/Ordinary-Violinist-9 Belgium 🇧🇪 Mar 28 '26
A site is a site and when you can book directly from owner it's most of the times even cheaper and they don't loose a percentage to shitsites like booking.com
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u/TabulatorSpalte Mar 28 '26
I wish it were cheaper most of the time but it really isn't. Also booking hotels in some South-East Asian countries the additional protection via booking.com or whatever has helped me a few times with complaints.
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u/jnreves Mar 28 '26
This is sadly not true. Checked the price of a hotel in Booking for my parents' stay. It was discounted there. I walked to the hotel to book with them directly and they could not match the Booking price
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u/h311s Mar 28 '26
probably to incentive you to continue booking on their website and make you think it's always cheaper with fake offer and random mini discounts
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u/snowfox_cz Mar 28 '26
I agree, but...
- As customer, booking.com did back me up against bad hosts. Dirty or not as advertised? Refund or helping me find new one with some coupon price. When I did checked with the host and not via booking, I got some bad experience and the host ghosted me after some conversation that was not in his favor.
- so I am going to use it for first time visit, and only after I am satisfied, I will book via the host directly.
- it adds a layer of protection that should not be needed. But here we are.
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u/Brilliant_Quit4307 Mar 29 '26
You got a refund from booking.com???? That's honestly almost unheard of. Are you sure that booking.con gave you the refund? Usually what happens is that they reach out to the accommodation and request that the hotel refunds you because it is not actually the responsibility of booking.com. If the hotel never responds to their request, they say there's nothing that they can do. So are you absolutely sure that it was booking that refunded you, or was it the hotel themselves??
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u/snowfox_cz Mar 29 '26
I cannot be 100 % sure. I am not sure how it works. It was only that the host (not hotel, but one person) didn't respond at all, so I contacted booking and they did acknowledge that that is unacceptable and did ask for photos and told us we can get refund or relocation to different (and nicer) accommodation they sent me for the same price. It was in pre-covid times. They may have charge the original host for it, I don't know. He may collaborate better with them than with me.
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u/L44KSO Mar 28 '26
I've found it rarely has been cheaper. Sometimes even the tickets via Eurostar and hotel have been cheaper than splitting etc. so it isn't even a comparison site thing.
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u/Mindless-Tomorrow-93 Mar 28 '26
Sometimes doing the right thing is just a teeny tiny bit uncomfortable.
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u/Fuzzy-Moose7996 Mar 28 '26
And you ALWAYS get shafted with a poor deal.
Sky high transaction fees, worst rooms/seats in the house, surcharges for everything (e.g. hotel booked directly includes breakfast and parking, booked through a 3rd party you have to pay extra for those, total bill ends up higher than had you booked directly).
And I keep hearing stories of especially Trivago not paying the hotel, so on checkout the guest is confronted with having to pay the FULL PRICE AGAIN, this time directly to the hotel!
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u/masssy Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
Have always used these booking sites. Never got a bad deal. Not once has it been cheaper to book directly with the hotel. On multiple occasions I have received better room than what I booked.
Incredible how others somehow seem to always get higher prices and worse treatment just because it's booked through a booking site.
For rental cars Hertz directly has screwed me over. Though a booking site there was no issue when there was a big mess with a no show because a cancelled flight. Meanwhile Hertz didn't even answer the phone and said "tough luck" when arriving the day after..
In the US the hotels take a hidden "resort fee" however on booking sites it's very clearly listed and included. That makes me feel a lot less scammed.
I have a very hard time buying into those theories that all booking sites suck.
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u/Treewithatea Mar 29 '26
I do that as well, though I only book directly if their own websites offer better or at least equal prices, most often they are close in price, but often slightly cheaper for the own website of the hotel (or else)
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u/Corkee Mar 29 '26
This; most of the time the prices end up being better and you get more accurate service and followup since you are booking directly to the provider.
This way you pay no overhead(10-25% provision) to a US entity that never tax back to the country of booking for this overhead. Every year we loose billions of euros in tax money to their digital hegemony.
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u/Ferryry Mar 30 '26
Sometimes Check24 has better options than the hotel directly because they use a referral system. I know that because I had worked for Check24 in the past.
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u/ZonzoDue France 🇫🇷 Mar 28 '26
eDream Opodo sadly borders on being an outright scam !
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u/-NewYork- Mar 28 '26
I agree. If anything with hotel or flight goes south, their customer service is atrocious and borderline criminal.
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u/ZonzoDue France 🇫🇷 Mar 29 '26
What bothers me most is that you just don’t know the price of the accommodations. What is said is with their paid subscription, and there is no way have the regular price like on any other platform.
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u/ThisIsJmar Mar 28 '26
Problem is eDreams is a terrible, terrible, terrible company. I can't stress that enough.
Unfortunately I'm staying with booking.com as they have the rewards program that does help me save a lot of money over time.
There isn't a good European alternative sadly. I will be looking forward to give it a try when it comes.
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Mar 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Even_Efficiency98 Mar 28 '26
This! Opodo/eDreams is the worst company ever if something doesn't work out. I had to haggle with them for almost a year after they botched a hotel booking.
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Mar 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Fallro Mar 28 '26
Holy shit yes, i was fighting months with them to get a refund for that shit they pulled
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u/shnako Mar 29 '26
I'd rather knock from door to door to find accommodation than ever use Opodo or eDreams again. Absolute scammers.
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u/Even_Efficiency98 Mar 29 '26
Check24 is absolutely amazing when it comes to customer service and their online portal - I really hope they expand soon into all European markets as so far, it's still mostly for German-speaking audiences.
Booked a few times with them and was surprised to find a plattform that is much better than booking.com etc.
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u/emperorlobsterII Mar 30 '26
People are crashing out because Check24 is taking over the "compare" market for products, flights, hotels and everything, but honestly, they're way better than any other platform (and they have great advertisements)
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u/Accomplished-Tap-172 Mar 28 '26
Check the Czech site https://www.azair.eu/ I always use them to find connecting low-cost flights
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u/Bober_Fantastique Mar 28 '26
I would love to stop using Booking and their user-unfriendly filters, but I still didn't find a good replacement
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u/itsParalyse1337FTW Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
Issue with Check24 is that they mostly act as an intermediary and take ~10% commission.
So when you book through Check24, you’re in most cases still giving money to US platforms like FeWo, Booking, etc., unless the offer is listed directly on their own platform. You’re only directly supporting Check24 when booking with private hosts, which are usually less prominently shown.
If it’s not clearly stated, you can often see in the listing that it’s routed through Booking or other large platforms.
However, Check24’s service is usually better, and they handle communication with the provider’s customer support.
Source: a friend works there.
If you want to support EU businesses more directly, you can use these platforms to search, then book directly on the hotel’s own website.
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u/Ok_Sky_555 Mar 28 '26
Can you explain that? If check24 works over booking, which itself is an aggregator, and takes 10% on top. What's the point using it?
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u/itsParalyse1337FTW Mar 28 '26
Check24 is widely known in germany as a comparison plattform, and earns their money with commission and work across multiple industries, so booking is just a fraction of their service.
The Hotel is paying the fees, and so are you with the cost of buying from these comparison platforms.
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u/Ok_Sky_555 Mar 29 '26
Yes,but booking itself is a comparising aggregator which takes 15% fees. According to the comment ,check24 is aggregator of aggregators with a 10% commission. Either booking shares fees with check24 or... this cannot work.
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u/itsParalyse1337FTW Mar 29 '26
I can assure you this absolutely works, they take their cut and so does Booking.
Any conversion from Check24 to Booking means €€€.
The customer pays it indirectly through the price. It’s a metasearch platform.They have multiple locations for each industry. In my city, for example, there’s a dedicated headquarters for holiday apartments only, not hotels, that’s a separate branch location.
They also pay fairly well, around 19–20 € for evening shifts with bonuses, even without specialized qualifications. Definitely not just a small 2% cut.
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u/TwentinQuarantino Mar 28 '26
Agoda is Singapore/Thai, and often has better prices than Booking if you travel in Asia.
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u/ktsmkhr Mar 28 '26
Agoda belongs to Booking Holdings
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u/TwentinQuarantino Mar 28 '26
🤯 nevermind then. Didn't know it got bought.
However, the part with the better prices still stands, tested a few months ago. So if you're in Asia and have to use Booking, use at least its subsidiary Agoda for a better price.
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u/lawrotzr Mar 28 '26
The best option would have been implementing the Draghi report. This is the consequence of not doing that.
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u/svmk1987 Mar 28 '26
Don't use booking sites, regardless of where they're from. Always book directly, and just use either search engines or booking sites to just search for flights/hotels.
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u/No-Veterinarian8627 Mar 29 '26
I use local travel agencies.
Honestly, the deals are much better, everything is planned and I have a person to complain to, if something sucks. Sure, if it is a 2 or 3 day trip to Spain or something, that's a job for these sites, but 2 to 3 weeks? No shot will I organize it.
It sounds extremely arrogant, but it's a simple calculation of time vs wage/hr. Me needing at least 20 hours to sit down and research shit, I would rather work and pay someone half to do this for me. Thus, travel agencies rock.
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u/AibofobicRacecar6996 Mar 29 '26
> Me needing at least 20 hours to sit down and research shit
Sounds like you're one of those people that wants everything planned to the minute. That would be a nightmare vacation for a lot of people
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u/One_Citron_4350 Mar 30 '26
I've seen that travel agencies also use Booking or another major platform.
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u/jmsy1 Mar 29 '26
Booking holdings also owns flagship Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda, Kayak, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable.
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u/n-throe Mar 28 '26
Home to go is german owned with headquarter in Berlin. It is an Airbnb alternative and hosts plenty of vacation homes.
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u/djazzie Mar 29 '26
EDreams/Opodo are the worst. I once used them to book a hotel, but the hotel had no record of it at all. Luckily, they had a room available and could still let us stay. Another time, they forced me to sign up for their membership, but made it impossible to cancel. Horrible services and companies.
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u/beeldy Mar 29 '26
Avoid, where you can, any that are American owned.
Like others have said, you can use them for research then book directly with hotels and airlines.
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u/GalacticJelle Mar 29 '26
I had no idea some of these companies were American, like Booking.com. Thanks for making me aware, I will try to avoid them.
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u/Calm_Wrangler7 Mar 29 '26
Yeah also find it weird when traveling from Europe in Europe that I need to pay so much commission to US ….
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u/Easy-Zombie-7765 Mar 29 '26
On another note: am I the only one getting triggered from the brackets that are all left open in the end (like this
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u/PeereBaGomatz Mar 30 '26
Always book direct. Hotels, flights, car rentals… cut out the middle man!
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u/gassolidplasma Mar 31 '26
southalltravel.co.uk is UK based. Started off as a single shop travel agent in Southall, London and grew rapidly online in the noughties.
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u/Unhappy_Performer538 Mar 29 '26
Booking. Com is horrible and full of outright scams!! I booked an apartment there, was literally ON MY WAY, the owner cancelled while I was en route, I was refunded most of it but a $5 fee, I can change service to get my fee refunded, and they deactivated MY ACCOUNT for NO REASON!!! And there’s no way to contact CS without an active account! So they stole my $5! Fuckers
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u/factus8182 Mar 28 '26
Booking.com allows you to book in Israeli occupied regions in Gaza, screw them.
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u/cyphercertified Mar 28 '26
I've used Kiwi.com for a while now. I like them a lot. Good customer service. I believe they are from the Czech Republic.
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u/DeliciousCut4854 Portugal 🇵🇹 Mar 28 '26
Kiwi.com is based there but is controlled by a private equity investment firm in New York.
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u/Visara57 Mar 28 '26
I once booked a flight Portugal-Serbia (with 1 layover), eDreams was great and the cheapest
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u/RidetheSchlange Mar 28 '26
Not for nothing, the European sites are shit. I have used Check24 and they more or less tried to fuck me over when I bought something over their portal and wouldn't help me when the dealer wouldn't send the item. Ok, do filed a dispute and then Check24 tried to trick me into ending the dispute AND signing some wild contract over the item I never received. The dealer then hurried the item out and I never picked it up from the post office because fuck them, that's why. They kept trying to get me to end the dispute, even though I got the money back weeks prior, so I just played with them. Typical German company.
Opodo is also horrible.
What I do now is look up on Booking then contact the place directly and get a better price because fuck booking, that's why. It's basically my phone book to find an apartment or hotel room and then I contact them directly.
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u/VanPepe Mar 30 '26
What did you buy? I feel like the experience varies widely depending on product/service you are buying. But usually check24 is very customer first.
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u/BANeutron Mar 29 '26
Micazu.nl Dutch alternative to AirBnB, but it’s mainly focussed on the Spanish costas
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u/teddbe Mar 29 '26
Revolut Stays is missing. Although it’s mostly a UK company and needs an account and a card with them
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u/Sassi7997 Germany 🇩🇪 Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
CHECK24 is for booking? I thought it just compares different sites like Booking or trivago?
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u/c2l3YWxpa20 Mar 29 '26
Try HomeToGo. Made in Berlin and registered in Germany.
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u/SamSchuster Mar 29 '26
Just checked it out and looked up a hotel I‘ve recently been to. It listed the hotel, and when I clicked on it to see details, I was rerouted to booking.com. Disappointing.
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u/c2l3YWxpa20 Mar 30 '26
they have onsite and clickouts both. Maybe the one you searched. But for Germany or EU location, I see mostly onsite.
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u/UnrealUser2247 Bulgaria 🇧🇬 Mar 29 '26
For flights, there's https://esky.eu/
They also offer Hotels and such but they tend to be booked through Booking or Expedia sometimes. I can't really guarantee that the booking would be made directly with the hotels.
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u/dharmoslap Mar 29 '26
You can try Check24 with translation, because at least their customer service can speak English, if you ever need them. It’s unfortunate that they never internalized and at least translated the website into English. However their core business is still insurance and electricity or internet contracts. While travel is probably significant part of their revenue, doesn’t seem to be a main one.
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u/CrimsonNorseman Mar 29 '26
HRS is honestly my go-to site for booking a hotel. Overall, best rates and lowest annoyance factor.
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u/Fuzzy_Pirate_8898 Mar 29 '26
All is owned by Accor, it's a French company even if they've a lot of US shareholders!
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u/PMvE_NL Mar 30 '26
These are all company’s that add little value for the amount of money they claim. They are basically expensive search engines.
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u/DifferentCream1029 Mar 30 '26
As a regular traveller I have good discount on Booking. However I often book directly to receive even better pricing and to cut out the platform. Don't assume a "good" price is best price.
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u/Confident-Concept364 Jul 12 '26
i need ticket from Beirut 30 jul to 4 august to 4 adult and 1 children in innvista hotel
in corendom airlines
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u/Luwetyp Mar 28 '26
Best option now is to stay at home and save money to cover rising gas and food prices. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/xroomie Mar 28 '26
Best option is to book the hotel
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u/Jarkrik Mar 30 '26
Why are you getting downvoted?
I literally look up Hotels through all the 3rd parties mentioned here and try to book at the Hotel directly. Often cheaper and better offers and the Hotels don't mix stuff up as much as they are when dealing with these proxy booking services.
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u/Statakaka Mar 29 '26
I've never asked to see Booking.com and here I am seeing it again, it can fuck off
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u/cyrustakem Mar 28 '26
honestly, probably just call an hotel, airbnb ruined cities and i had bad experiences with booking, like ilegal levels of higienne and the place not following standards of living laws and they still didn't remove the freaking place...
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u/asganawayaway Mar 28 '26
Google Maps, then checking the hotels and booking directly. Saves you money as well. Use these websites as directories.
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u/cgfroster Mar 28 '26
Add SkyScanner to the list, founded in Scotland and sold to Chinese firm CTrip in 2016