Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Which Is Better And Why? [2024]

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Hotels.com and Booking.com are two of the leading competitors in the online travel bookings market. Especially when you visit the internet for booking hotels, these two platforms are guaranteed to come into your vision with amazing offers and hotel deals highlighted.

The question is – which among the two is a better booking site? If you do not know which is more suitable for you, no worries as in the article below, we have presented you with a comparison between Hotels.com and Booking.com.

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Overview 

Hotels.com

Hotels.com is a leading hotel booking service provider that focuses on providing customers with quality services in lodging and hotel reservations directly by its website or telephone.

At Hotels.com, you can find B&Bs and hotels along with different types of commercial lodging including condos. And since it is one among the most famous booking site, it has a huge inventory including rooms for all budgets.

Moreover, it guarantee you cheap hotels and with the increasing promotional discounts they offer all the time on their site, you are set to grab an amazing deal through them.

Booking.com

Booking.com is one among the topmost hotel booking websites that helps you with accommodation and travel products.

It ensures you the best prices on hotels and offer deals for all types of budgets with numerous offers launching frequently on their website.

So, it is like an all-rounder platform where you can plan your entire trip perfectly, including booking flights, car rentals and more services.

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: What do they offer?

Hotels.com

As you might have already guessed from the name, Hotels.com only focuses on offering you lodging services. But, if you look for details, you can find hotels, apartments as well as guest houses for stays.

You can simply search by star rating and compare the prices before going for booking.

Booking.com

Unlike Hotels.com, Booking.com is a multi-purpose site that provides services for hotels along with flights, car rentals and bundle bookings.

Under this section, you can search for a good variety of hotels based on the location you are visiting, the number of people who are travelling and your check-in and checkout date.

Under the flights section, you can search for the available flights on the specific dates for the destination you are visiting. Or simply search by the type of your trip, the class you are looking for and based on the number of people travelling.

Under the car rental section, search for different cars you can hire in the new city according to the filters, such as pickup and drop-off location along with the dates. Furthermore, it let you to put up a different return location.

Under the bundle booking category, you can find savings deals where you can Book 2 or 3 things through Booking.com and save a good bunch of bucks. It also offers services for attractions where you can see which place you can stop by once you land in that city.

Clearly, Booking.com has much more to offer than Hotels.com. Although both the platforms offer quality services, if you want a website that can help you book the flight ticket, hotels and cars altogether then Booking.com is your ultimate choice.

Winner: Booking.com

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Pros and Cons

Hotels.com

Pros:

1. Hotels.com has released 85 sites in 34 globally spoken languages.
2. It has listed over 300,000 hotels in about 19,000 locations across the world.
3. Free cancellation and flexible bookings.
4. You can check for unbiased ratings by customers under listings.
5. Offer an amazing filter box that helps in saving time and narrowing down your research.

Cons:

1. Extremely poor customer service.
2. Does not offer elite benefits.
3. There is no enough transparency.

Booking.com

Pros: 

1. Booking.com’s website is available to access in 43 globally spoken languages.
2. Its website has listed over 28 million hotels, properties, etc.
3. For any kind of booking, when you tap on the dates of reservation, Booking.com will tell you the approximate charges for services on different dates on the calendar.
4. Offers easy and quick refunds and cancellations.
5. The dashboard of your profile will help you manage your history of bookings and a few other crucial things separately.
6. Booking.com offers clarity and accurate details about services.

Cons:

1. Booking.com of your misleading listings with wrong prices and details at times.
2. It offers poor customer care service.

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Rewards

Hotels.com

Hotels.com Rewards is a free-to-join membership program that obviously comes with a good set of benefits like unlocking instant savings where users will get to pay less prices on eligible properties. Since it is free to join, anyone can join the membership.

The highlight of the Hotels.com Rewards program is that if you choose to spend 10 nights in one place, you will be rewarded with one extra night. In simple words – With every 10 nights you stay, you will get 1 reward night free.

The more you book from Hotels.com as a member, the higher you will go in the membership tiers. When you become a silver member of the rewards program, you will get a free pass to VIP Access with premium features unlocking.

Booking.com

Booking.com offers a Genius loyalty program where users get rewarded according to their level of membership. The membership is free to join and you can unlock free lifetime access to all the discounts at participating properties globally.

For instance, the first three levels include genius discounts where for the first level you will get 10% discounts on all your bookings, in the second level you will get 15% discounts and in the third level, you will start getting 20% off on all your bookings.

To have a look at the entire genius loyalty program, you can visit this page.

When you look at the 1-night free reward for users, it is sufficient to enlighten the customer’s mood. 

But, if you are going to choose Booking.com for booking everything through one site, the more you book the more you will earn at its Genius loyalty program which is definitely not an ordinary thing.

Winner: Both

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Which is more Cheaper?

When we did our research, we saw that for 1 room in a five-star hotel for twin beds cost $170 at Hotels.com and the same was charged at Booking.com. The prices for other rooms and other hotels seem to appear similar with just a few bucks increasing and decreasing.

However, based on the customer comments, Booking.com seems to be charging $10 to $15 approximately more than Hotels.com in most cases. They also mentioned that Booking.com charges additional fees which you cannot find at Hotels.com. 

We did our research and barely found any difference between the prices in both the booking agencies. But, based on the customer reviews, Booking.com is slightly more expensive than Hotels.com.

Winner: Hotels.com

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Which is better?

Starting with the pricing and deals, Booking.com is losing against Hotels.com with being just a little bit more expensive than Hotels.com. 

But when we talk about promotional offers and deals, Booking.com offers enough promotional offers and bargains to help users save money.

Also, when we talk about what both the platforms offer, Booking.com clearly has an upper hand over Hotels.com since it offers all the services you need to book a full trip. 

Lastly, Hotels.com’s Rewards program is more than just satisfactory because no one gives off one free reward night. However, the discount offers and great rewards like free breakfast, free room upgrades, etc will only come if you opt for the Genius loyalty program at Booking.com.

So, based on all the information available in this article and customers' reviews about Booking.com and Hotels.com, you must decide which among the two sites must be the winner according to your preferences.

Hotels.com vs Booking.com: Customer Service

Hotels.com

Hotels.com will only prioritise your complaint if you gave them a call within 10 days of reservation. This is to make sure they mainly focus on urgent cases first. 

In case you did not call them within 10 days, according to customers, they will take their sweet time to receive your complaint, respond to it and eventually, you will be left neglected.

Booking.com

Although Booking.com offers customer service 24/7 all the time, you are unlikely to get your complaint through that easily. 

On top of that, even if someone picks up your call within a few seconds, you are likely to wait for hours to get your complaint understood and solved. 

In short, Booking.com may receive your complaint and review it, but they are not guaranteed to solve it on time. And, in most cases, your complaint will be left hanging.

Since both the booking platforms offer bad customer services, none of them deserves to be the winner of this section.

Winner: None

Final Words 

In our comparison article between Hotels.com vs Booking.com, we saw how both the booking agencies have several pros and cons. None among the Hotels.com and Booking.com is a perfect website to book from.

However, looking at their popularity, the pricing, deals and rewarding features, we will suggest you book from Hotels.com if you are only interested in booking hotels, properties, etc.

However, if you want to book services for your entire trip, then choosing Booking.com is your sole option.

We hope this comparison article of Hotels.com vs Booking.com has helped you decide which among the two booking websites is more suitable for you.

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