In 2024, global travel spend is set to soar to $2 trillion. That’s trillion with a capital T! Despite a 16% drop from last year, the travel industry remains ripe with opportunities.
We know the hassle people could experience in a bid to travel, most times it goes as far as losing travel capital. Hence, this post is drafted to uncover the top ten best online travel agencies.
Whether you’re jet-setting for work or pleasure, these tools ensure your journey is seamless and stress-free.
The top 10 Best Online Travel Agencies
Here we shall be categorizing ten best online travel agencies into separate lists for leisure and business travel solutions. And you might be asking ‘WHY?’, this is so because they cater to distinct needs, ensuring tailored experiences for every traveler. Here’s what we have here:
Online Travel Agencies for Business:
- TravelPerk
- SAP Concur
- MyCWT
Online Travel Agencies for Leisure:
- Booking.com
- Agoda
- Lastminute.com
- Expedia
- Hotwire
- Bookmundi
- Skyscanner
- Kiwi.com
Best online travel agencies for business travel
First up, let’s delve into the leading online travel agencies specializing in corporate travel. With a plethora of options available, we’ve handpicked our top three choices to simplify your business travel planning. These agencies are experts in catering to corporate needs, ensuring you find the perfect fit for your professional journeys.
1. TravelPerk
TravelPerk isn’t just another online travel agency; it’s a modern solution tailored for today’s corporate travel needs. Unlike the traditional clunky interfaces, TravelPerk offers a user-friendly experience that simplifies booking for employees. What sets TravelPerk apart is its flexibility in bookings and the ability to offset carbon footprints, making it a sustainable choice.
Beyond booking flights and hotels, TravelPerk serves as a comprehensive corporate travel management tool. It empowers teams to efficiently book, manage, and track business trips while ensuring a stress-free travel experience without compromising on quality. TravelPerk is your partner in enhancing corporate travel efficiency and sustainability.
Features:
TravelPerk offers a range of key offerings and features that cater specifically to corporate travel needs:
- User-Friendly Interface: A modern and intuitive OTA interface designed for ease of use, reducing the complexities typically associated with business travel management.
- Flexible Booking Options: Enables flexible and hassle-free bookings for flights, accommodations, and other travel essentials, ensuring convenience for employees and administrators alike.
- Carbon Footprint Offset: Provides the option to offset carbon emissions associated with business travel, supporting corporate sustainability goals and environmental responsibility.
- Comprehensive Management Tools: Acts as a robust corporate travel management platform, facilitating seamless booking, itinerary management, and expense reporting processes.
- Travel Policy Compliance: Helps enforce company travel policies by offering configurable settings and approval workflows, ensuring adherence to budgetary constraints and travel guidelines.
- 24/7 Support: Access to round-the-clock customer support for assistance with bookings, travel disruptions, and other travel-related inquiries, ensuring peace of mind for travelers.
- Data Insights and Reporting: Generates comprehensive reports and analytics on travel expenditure, patterns, and trends, empowering businesses to optimize travel budgets and strategies.
- Integration Capabilities: Integrates with other corporate tools and systems such as expense management software and HR platforms, streamlining overall business operations.
TravelPerk combines these features into a unified platform that not only simplifies the booking process but also enhances control, visibility, and efficiency in corporate travel management.
Main offerings and features:
- Industry-leading travel inventory
- Flexible booking with FlexiPerk
- Safety alerts with TravelCare
- Integrated travel policy & approval flows
- Centralized invoicing
- Easy & real-time expense reports
- Carbon offsetting with GreenPerk
- 24/7 fast customer support in target 15s
- VAT reclaim
- Integration with 3rd party tools, such as expense management or HR software like Expensify and BambooHR
TravelPerk empowers employees with the information and security they need to travel confidently. It provides organizations and travel managers access to competitive corporate travel rates, ensuring cost-efficiency and peace of mind across all business trips.
Save time and money on your business travel with TravelPerk. It simplifies managing business travel for your entire organization with an all-in-one platform for booking, easy-to-use reporting tools to monitor spending, integrated travel policies for enhanced compliance, and 24/7 human customer support whenever you need assistance. TravelPerk ensures a streamlined and stress-free experience for every business trip.
2. SAP Concur
SAP Concur, established in 1993, has earned trust from numerous businesses for its robust business travel solutions. Unlike many competitors, SAP Concur’s technology is self-owned and managed, ensuring seamless control over changes and updates without reliance on third parties. This independence enhances reliability and efficiency in managing corporate travel needs.
Main offerings and features:
- Works with some of the biggest brands
- Easy tracking and reporting of expenses for expense reports
- Many connected apps, such as Uber and Airbnb for cars and hotels
- One solution for a variety of business travel spending
While SAP Concur is ideal for organizations seeking a traditional approach to business travel management, it does come with certain considerations. Implementation of the platform typically takes 6-8 weeks, which requires initial patience from users and administrators alike. Additionally, some users have noted that the user interface (UI) can feel outdated, potentially affecting the overall experience for business travelers.
3. MyCWT
MyCWT is CWT’s dedicated corporate travel management solution. With specialized industry and country experts, MyCWT ensures that your employees receive exceptional care and support no matter where their business travels take them.
CWT has a rich history spanning over 150 years in the travel industry, and MyCWT stands as its seasoned travel management solution tailored specifically for business travelers worldwide.
Main offerings and features:
- Ample integrations
- Award-winning mobile app
- Employee-centric travel management
MyCWT is an excellent choice for companies with substantial budgets and extensive corporate travel requirements. However, it relies on third-party software to deliver deals to business travelers and organizations, which can occasionally slow down updates and changes to the platform. This dependence can lead to delays in progress and platform development due to frequent back-and-forth interactions.
Best online travel agencies for leisure travel
Next, let’s explore online travel agencies tailored for leisure travel. These platforms are designed for everyday users seeking to book their next big holiday or family vacation, whether it’s a trip to New York City or a getaway in the Caribbean.
1. Booking.com
Booking.com stands as the world’s largest accommodation booking website, offering customers the convenience to book not only accommodations but also travel and car rentals. It empowers travelers to discover a wide range of accommodation types, explore various destinations, and find enticing deals. Booking.com serves as a comprehensive online travel agency catering to the needs of everyday travelers worldwide.
Main offerings and features:
- Intuitive booking tool and website
- Flight + Hotel booking for easily planning trips with no cross-referencing travel websites
- Simple car rental options and taxi hire
- Available in over 40 different languages and offers over half a million properties across 207 countries
- You can book experiences in your destination city to entertain you on your travels
- Genius rewards program
Booking.com offers a comprehensive range of hotels and flights worldwide, making it a versatile online travel agency. However, users may find its user interface overwhelming and cluttered, requiring some focus to navigate effectively.
2. Agoda
Agoda is a rapidly expanding online travel agency (OTA) particularly renowned in Asia for its specialization in accommodation bookings. The platform stands out with dedicated Market Managers who secure the best deals in their respective regions.
While Agoda doesn’t emphasize flight bookings, it excels in offering a wide array of accommodations, including private homes and apartments, making it a preferred choice for travelers seeking lodging options.
Main offerings and features:
- Easy booking interface
- Discounts for multiple bookings
- Supports 38 languages with 24/7 multilingual customer service
- Free cancellation within 24 hours
- Millions of reviews to guide your choice
The flight booking tool on Agoda isn’t as extensive as some competitors, so if you prioritize comprehensive flight options, you may want to explore other platforms with broader coverage.
3. Lastminute.com
Lastminute.com ranks among Europe’s top three travel companies, capitalizing on the continent’s city-hopping culture. This OTA combines familiar elements: hotels are booked directly through the site, while flights are sourced from aggregator platforms.
Specializing in affordable flight-and-hotel packages and all-inclusive vacations, lastminute.com caters especially well to spontaneous travelers seeking great deals. If you’re up for a little adventure, lastminute.com might just deliver the travel experience you’ve been dreaming of.
Main offerings and features:
- Hotel filtering by budget, star ratings, guest ratings, and board types.
- ATOL protection on flight + hotel bundles.
- Flash sales for last-minute deals.
- Payment plans to spread out travel costs.
- Additional entertainment booking options such as theatrical productions and day trips.
- Gift cards for gifting travel experiences.
This is a great online travel agency for travelers who prefer to leave things to the last minute in pursuit of the best deal. You’re sure to find it here, plus a wide selection of other flight and hotel deals.
4. Expedia
Expedia has been a reliable agency in the travel industry since the nineties, offering travelers access to flights, hotels, and car rentals. As the largest travel agency globally, Expedia also owns Hotels.com, trivago, and Travelocity, ensuring comprehensive options and competitive deals under one umbrella.
Main offerings and features:
- Rewards programs for hotels, cars, and more.
- Experienced customer support.
- Comparison tools for cruise lines.
- Significant savings on flights, hotels, and car rentals.
- Presence in nearly 70 countries and supports over 35 languages.
- Luxury travel options for discerning travelers.
Expedia is an excellent choice for travelers looking to conveniently bundle payments for flights, accommodations, and car rentals into a single transaction.
5. Hotwire
Hotwire, established in 2000, is a well-established online travel agency famous for its ‘secret deals’. These offers provide travelers with significant savings on trips where specific details are disclosed only after booking. This approach appeals to adventurous individuals seeking budget-friendly travel options, albeit with some flexibility required.
Main offerings and features:
- Booking options for hotels, flights, cars, and bundled packages.
- 24/7 customer support.
- Lower prices available through the mobile app.
- Excellent last-minute deals perfect for spontaneous travel adventures.
If you’re making a late reservation with last minute, think about using Hotwire.
6. Bookmundi
Bookmundi is a quickly growing website where you can book trips to more than 130 countries worldwide. They help travelers find the right accommodation, stay within their budget, choose how long they want to travel, and even customize their tours.
Customers can ask tour operators to make changes to their itinerary to better suit their needs. Bookmundi’s customer service team connects travelers with tour operators, making sure everyone’s needs are met.
The booking platform is owned and run by Bookmundi’s own team, who work hard to keep it running smoothly 24/7.
Best online travel agencies for flights
1. Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a website that compares prices from various travel agencies, airlines, hotels, and car rental companies using a metasearch engine. It helps travelers find the lowest prices for flights and accommodation, potentially saving them money.
After you choose your option on Skyscanner, you’ll be redirected to the booking page of the third-party provider to finalize and secure your booking.
Main offerings and features:
- Extremely flexible booking filters
- Offers flights and hotels at lower prices than other online travel agencies (OTAs)
- Sends price alerts for selected travel routes
- Simple booking tool with user-friendly interface (UI)
- Provides hundreds of location and currency choices
- Options for one-way, return, and multi-city travel
Millions of people trust Skyscanner to discover the best deals with maximum flexibility. It gathers offers from every online travel agency (OTA) to present customers with the very best deals available.
2. Kiwi.com
Kiwi.com is a fresh online travel agency (OTA) that stands out by focusing on multi-city travel. Acting as an aggregator site, it specializes in finding the best deals for complex itineraries and provides insurance coverage in case you miss a connecting flight. Kiwi.com ensures consistently competitive prices and includes travel insurance for multi-city trips.
Benefits:
- Simple Flight Booking Tool: A straightforward tool for booking flights, making it easy to find and reserve your travel plans.
- Partnerships: Collaborations with Booking.com and Rentalcars.com, expanding options for accommodations and car rentals alongside flights.
- Wide Search Capability: Ability to explore deals globally, providing flexibility to discover travel options beyond specific locations.
- User-Friendly App: An intuitive mobile application for convenient booking and managing travel arrangements on the go.
Kiwi.com is an innovative online travel agency (OTA) ideal for frequent city-hoppers and avid travelers. However, it’s worth noting that some reviews mention challenges with cancellations and occasional concerns about unreliable customer service.
How do online travel agencies work?
An Online Travel Agency (OTA) is a website where customers can book various travel services such as hotels, flights, and car rentals. It serves as a digital counterpart to a traditional travel agent, offering convenience by consolidating travel reservations in one place.
OTAs cater to both leisure travelers and businesses seeking travel solutions. These platforms vary in their offerings but share the common goal of facilitating travel arrangements and managing associated expenses.
Hotels, airlines, and car rental companies partner with OTAs to list their services and gain visibility. In return, OTAs earn revenue through commissions or fees paid by these service providers.
The OTA model simplifies the travel booking process by providing a centralized platform where customers can browse and compare options from multiple providers. They act as intermediaries, collecting and presenting comprehensive travel details to help consumers make informed decisions, akin to a shepherd guiding sheep.
Overall, OTAs streamline the travel experience by offering a wide array of choices and facilitating bookings through a user-friendly online interface.
Benefits of booking through an online travel agency?
Before considering the corporate travel services of an online travel agency (OTA), here are the key details you should keep in mind:
- Corporate Travel Features: Check if the OTA offers specific features tailored for business travelers, such as corporate booking tools, expense management solutions, and customer support geared towards corporate clients.
- Pricing and Discounts: Compare pricing options and look for any corporate discounts or special rates offered by the OTA for business travel. Understand their billing and invoicing processes.
- Travel Policy Compliance: Ensure that the OTA allows customization to comply with your company’s travel policies, including preferred airlines, hotels, and budget restrictions.
- Booking Flexibility: Verify the flexibility of booking options, including last-minute changes, cancellations, and rebooking policies that align with business travel needs.
- Data Security: Assess the OTA’s data security measures to protect sensitive corporate information and traveler data during booking and transactions.
- Customer Support: Evaluate the availability and quality of customer support services, especially for urgent matters and support during travel disruptions.
- Reporting and Analytics: Look for reporting tools that provide insights into travel spending, patterns, and compliance with corporate travel policies.
- Integration Capabilities: Check if the OTA integrates smoothly with your company’s expense management systems, travel management platforms, and other corporate tools.
- Reviews and Reputation: Consider the OTA’s reputation and reviews from other corporate clients to gauge reliability, service quality, and satisfaction levels.
- Accessibility and Mobile Support: Ensure the OTA offers accessibility through mobile apps or responsive websites for easy booking and management of corporate travel on the go.
By considering these details, you can make an informed decision about which OTA best meets the corporate travel needs of your organization, providing convenience, cost-efficiency, and support tailored to business travel requirements.
Tips to Consider Before Booking Travel Services
When considering an OTA for booking travel services, here are the key advantages and considerations related to comparison tools, peer reviews, and cancellation policies:
- Comparison Tools: OTAs provide powerful search filters and comparison tools that allow you to quickly compare prices for accommodations, flights, and more. These tools help you target your search and find the best options based on your preferences and budget.
- Peer Reviews: Booking through an OTA gives you access to a review system where previous customers can leave ratings and written feedback. These reviews are typically reliable because they come from customers who have already booked and experienced the service. They provide valuable insights into the quality and reliability of accommodations, flights, and other services.
- Flexible Cancellation: Many OTAs enforce their own cancellation policies that hotels, airlines, and other service providers must adhere to in order to be listed on their platform. This policy is usually clearly communicated to customers via email or on the website at the time of booking, enhancing user-friendliness and customer satisfaction.
However, it’s important to note:
- Vendor Policies: Not all OTAs have their own cancellation and changes policies. Some, like Skyscanner, redirect you to the vendor’s website to complete the booking. In such cases, you are subject to the cancellation and changes policies of the specific vendor, which may differ from those of the OTA. This can affect the level of flexibility you have in modifying or canceling your reservation.
Understanding these few highlighted tips can help you make an informed decision when choosing an OTA for your travel bookings, ensuring you benefit from comparison tools, peer reviews, and appropriate cancellation policies that meet your needs and preferences.
Here’s a summary of the benefits and considerations when using an OTA for your travel needs:
- One Account Convenience: Using an OTA allows you to manage all your travel planning with one account, saving you from entering your details repeatedly.
- Intuitive Navigation: A good OTA is user-friendly and intuitive, allowing you to navigate through options easily without needing constant support.
- Third-Party Booking: Some OTA platforms, especially aggregator sites, may redirect you to third-party websites for booking. In such cases, you’ll interact directly with the third-party for any changes or issues.
- Localized Experience: OTAs personalize measurements and currencies based on your location, enhancing the user experience. This helps smaller, independent establishments compete globally by adapting to international booking standards.
- Best Deals in Local Currency: You’re offered the best deals in your area’s currency, ensuring transparency and clarity during the booking process.
- Rewards Programs: Many OTAs offer rewards programs similar to those of airlines or hotels, providing frequent users with access to special deals and discounts.
In conclusion, OTAs offer unmatched convenience for both business and leisure travelers. Whether you’re traveling to Hawaii, Peru, or anywhere else your travels take you, these tools can help you secure the best deals available. It’s important to leverage the features and benefits of OTAs to maximize your travel options and enjoy a seamless booking experience.
