It’s the era of online travel booking, and two giants have emerged as quite the leaders of the industry; it’s the age of Trivago vs. Booking.com. These are both equally popular platforms for looking for and booking accommodations across the world, and that too from a wide range of options.
While they might sound similar, they differ in certain core functions and aspects, and these are important for us to consider. While Trivago acts as a metasearch engine, the other is an easy-to-use website where we can search for and book not just hotels, but also vacation homes, apartments, B&Bs, and hostels. Trivago also allows us to do the same, but by directing users to the website that offers the best prices. So, in a way, Booking.com is one of the websites that Trivago lists in its search for the best prices! Here’s a detailed comparison and review of both booking websites.
If you want a starting point, why not start with this Trivago Review: Is It The Best Hotel Booking Site?
Customer Service
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Customer support and service are essential aspects for any online booking platform. Since Trivago.com itself doesn’t make bookings or manage reservations, they don’t have a customer support number per se. However, they do offer support via email and the website through a help center page and email, and strive to respond promptly. On the help center page, there are links to how Trivago works, how one can see their bookings, how to search on the website, and even business support. Furthermore, there are also articles on canceling or changing one’s reservations, reporting errors, and even giving feedback.
Booking.com offers excellent 24/7 customer service via live chat, email, and phone, and their customer service is quite helpful and responsive. The only difference is that they have actual customer support agents since they make and manage bookings.
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Booking Process
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The actual booking process is where the distinction between the two websites becomes apparent. Since Trivago.com is a metasearch engine for hotels across the world, it helps travelers compare prices across a multitude of booking sites, including Booking.com, Expedia. Priceline, Trip.com, and more. So, it’s simply an aggregator where you in order to book a stay, you search for a specific destination, dates, and the number of guests. Trivago then displays multiple deals across different booking sites, and choosing a particular deal redirects you to that respective booking site to complete the payment and the reservation. So, it doesn’t manage or cancel your reservations or bookings, as the booking website handles it directly.
The Booking.com booking process involves researching and comparing hotels, selecting one, entering details, and making a payment. You’ll typically need a valid credit card to guarantee your reservation, but some hotels allow bookings without a card. You might also need to pay a deposit or prepayment at the time of booking, depending on the property.
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Filters
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Trivago.com has recently improved its filters a lot — and we loved how easy they made our job. We could really get into details such as price ranges, free Wi-Fi, breakfast, free cancellation, etc. However, what we really liked was the “distance from a landmark” filter, which allowed us to look for hotels around a place of interest. There’s even a “View map” icon, which took us to an interactive map view showing the location of all the hotels Trivago pulled up, along with the prices. It certainly was very helpful for deciding to consider two factors: prices and how far we wanted to be from places of interest.
We found Booking.com to be quite similar to Trivago in terms of the filters. In fact, even the map view was the same; it didn’t open in a separate page, but rather over the list or grid of hotels that both Trivago and Booking.com pulled up. The only difference was that Booking.com also offered to list hotels in a grid form, which we didn’t find very useful.
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User Interface and Ease of Use
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When it comes to ease of use and user interface and ease of use, both Trivago and Booking.com have their own set of strengths. We loved Trivago.com‘s simple yet eye-catching and effective design that allowed us to quickly search for hotels and stays based on our preferences. What’s more, we found the website to be intuitive, making it easy for even non-tech-savvy individuals, such as older people, to navigate. However, what we loved the most was the fact that Trivago compares prices from different booking websites. It meant that we didn’t have to check Booking.com and Expedia just to make sure we were getting the best rate — because Trivago did that for us.
Booking.com, on the other hand, also offered price comparisons, but since it’s not a metasearch engine, it also allowed users to complete the booking process right on their website, which was quite easy. Additionally, travelers could also book car rentals and flights along with accommodations. However, this is where both websites differ, as Booking.com’s prices and results are one of the options that Trivago provides when one searches for hotels on it.
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Accommodation Options
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While both Trivago.com and Booking.com offer a wide range of stays, there are some important differences. Even though it does display options for vacation homes and bed and breakfasts, Trivago focuses mainly on hotel bookings. So, if you’re looking to specifically book hotels, then Trivago is the better choice. This is the case with nearly 90% of travelers in urban destinations like cities, where hotels are preferred and one wouldn’t even find unique stays such as villas, yurts, etc.
Meanwhile, Booking.com offers a wide variety of accommodations, including vacation homes, hostels, villas, apartments, and even unique stays like yurts and treehouses. While it makes Booking.com more appealing to those who’re looking for something unique, the fact is that a majority of travelers are looking for standard hotels, especially when it comes to cities and towns. That makes Trivago a bit better in terms of filtering out lodging options that you anyway aren’t looking for.
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Price Comparison
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The price comparison is where we feel Trivago.com has a real edge over Booking.com. One of Trivago’s best features is its ability to pull prices from a plethora, and we mean plethora, of booking websites, allowing us to compare prices side by side. This feature made it very convenient for us to pick the best deal without having to physically search across multiple websites. In fact, it won the pricing game more than once by pulling a rate directly from the hotel, which was usually average or better in terms of price.
“We liked the fact that when searching with Trivago, we didn’t have to check other wesbites for competitive prices.”
WOW Travel
While Booking.com also offers price comparison, it focuses on providing competitive rates directly from hotel partners or via loyalty rewards or exclusive discounts for frequent users. This makes Booking.com “one of the” results that Trivago pulls, which means that sometimes, it might not have the best rate. That gives Trivago the better hand here, especially since we don’t have to compare prices from other websites.
Also read: How to Find Cheap Hotels with Trivago?
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What are the disadvantages of Booking.com?
While Booking.com does have some great choices, it does charge a fee based on the total booking value for all non-refundable and confirmed reservations and bookings.
Whose price match is better?
While Booking.com has a generous price-match guarantee, Trivago ends up showing prices from every possible website in one place, which also includes Booking.com.
Can Trivago handle my reservation?
No. Trivago helps travelers compare hotel prices. The payment and booking are managed by the booking site you eventually end up choosing.
Some images on this article are copyrighted by Trivago.
