Long ago the only way to plan a trip was to find a travel agency. It was an extremely tedious job that often came with not so generous costs. Luckily, with the dawn of the Internet and even more importantly, apps, you can easily plan a fantastic trip with much smaller costs. We bring you 3 apps that can help you save a lot more than a single dollar.
Our online search brought us to an interesting site that lists top 10 hotel booking apps. We found it extremely helpful for selecting our top 3 apps so if you need more options, here’s the link you can check out.
We wanted to give useful insight so for each app we tried to be as objective as possible and provide both the strengths and weaknesses of each one.
KAYAK – An Easy Way to Find Deals
Kayak is basically a Switz-knife for anyone who travels as it offers hotel booking, car renting and flight booking services. We found this to be particularly useful as it’s much easier to keep everything organized and not forget something important. Because of this, we found this app to be great for people who like to go on last-minute trips with little time to organize. This way, time becomes much less of a factor on which your trip depends. Also, the simple design makes it extremely easy to find everything you need no matter if it’s just a hotel or hotel, flight and car rental at once.
Although working perfectly when it comes to hotel booking and car rental when it comes to finding cheap flights, it faces the same problem like every other – the infamous the-price-isn’t-what-it-seems issue. Basically, it will give one price, but you’ll end up with a much higher one. Noted, most of the time you do get a cheaper price, but sometimes, you just don’t have luck. And having luck when it comes to travel is never a good idea.
Hotels.com – The Big Name in Hotel Booking
This one might seem a bit too obvious to more experienced travelers but we had to include it never the less. We mean, it’s a popular app for a reason. Where this app shines the most is where every other should and that’s finding great deals for hotels. The developers likely spend much time on ensuring the algorithm finds exactly what you need as quick and possible and they did a great job. No matter which destination we picked, when comparing the prices to the more regular means of booking a hotel room, hotels.com always found a cheaper alternative.
One thing we ended up not liking was something we didn’t notice but was told to us by a colleague who uses the app often. Hotels.com advertises you get a free night after 10 bookings. And you do, but what they don’t tell is the offer expires when the year ends. Also, the “free night” might not be completely free according to some reviews. It depends on the hotel, the time of the year when you decide to rent etc. So you might have to still pay a bit.
Agoda – Your Travel Finder & Wallet in One
One thing we instantly fell in love with this app is the way everything is sorted. Professional images, reliable search and helpful additional information made searching for hotels so much easier and enjoyable. Just like with the previous two, you can find great deals, so it all comes down to your preferences and what’s important to you. We’d suggest Agoda to anyone who doesn’t like too many unnecessary features but wants to find a great hotel deal as quickly as possible. Also, if you want to have painless payments, Agoda’s paying system is quick and snappy.
One thing we noticed is the app doesn’t seem to allow you to book two different rooms at once for example. Let’s say you’re going out with friends and you want one room type while they prefer another type. Instead of paying for all together, you’d have to browse and buy separately, which is a bit inconvenient. It’s not a big deal, but since it is already a great app, why not make it even better?
Thanks to these 3 apps, we are sure you’ll save tons of money on your next hotel booking. It’s always good to have extra cash in your pocket you can spend on more thrilling things like unique restaurants, mini-trips, experiences and so on. All in all, we wish you the best of luck and hope you’ll find the apps as useful as we did.