Different people make hotel reservations, well, differently. Some people (*cough* like my husband *cough*) love to spend hours figuring out what hotel to stay at, based on how many points and free night certificates they have, and then they make their reservation directly with the chain. Others prefer to use a travel agent. Still others like to use an online booking engine.

However not all online entities are alike. You’ll hear horror stories about OTAs (Online Travel Agents) and hotel aggregators (read: meta-search engines) over on Reddit’s “Hotels” subreddit. We’re talking about threads like:

Hotels.com canceled reservation
Expedia reservation didn’t exist. They don’t care
Will never use booking.com again – and you shouldn’t either
Agoda charged my card more than what was on the billing page
3rd party website booked the wrong dates for my stay
STOP USING THIRD PARTIES

Meanwhile, some people use OTAs on a regular basis and have no problems whatsoever. Which brings one to wonder which booking sites are the best and which…aren’t. Frommer’s intended to find out.

The history of Frommer’s

Frommer’s travel guidebooks have been around since 1957 – so over 65 years.

In 1957, Arthur Frommer was a corporal in the U.S. Army. He wrote a travel guide for American GIs in Europe, and then produced a civilian version called Europe on $5 a Day. The book ranked famous landmarks and sights in order of importance and included suggestions on how to travel around Europe on a budget. It’s said to be the first travel guide that showed Americans they could afford to travel in Europe.

Upon his return to the U.S., Frommer became a lawyer. However, he continued to write and self-publish his guidebooks, expanding to destinations such as New York, Mexico, Hawaii, Japan, and the Caribbean. The collection continued growing when Arthur’s daughter, Pauline, began writing her additions to the series.

From 1977 onward, the Frommers series was sold several times over. Google purchased the rights to the series in 2012, but when they announced in 2013 that they would no longer publish the books, the Frommers bought the rights of the series back.

By the way, Arthur Frommer is still alive. Born in July 1929, he celebrated his 95th birthday a few months ago.

How Frommer’s determined their ranking

From Frommer’s:

We threw 54 room reservation scenarios at the major sites to determine which ones could find the lowest prices and the most options. We used the standard, non-member rates for all our tests, and when testing aggregators, we discarded price quotes from websites with sketchy reputations and only considered the prices from reputable resellers.

To start, we tallied the number of choices each contender could rustle up in four price categories in six major cities: San Francisco, Philadelphia, Rome, Paris, Hong Kong, and Buenos Aires.

Then, for each city, we searched for the lowest rates each site could find at four specific downtown hotels in varying price ranges for a mid-week, shoulder-season stay on the same date three months out. That advance purchase requirement assured we would see a level playing field for the same rooms on the same date, and it removed the influence of both high-season spikes and last-minute discounts.

We awarded points to hotel websites that found the lowest rates on a given hotel—and subtracted points if it returned higher prices than the others—in a rigorous, weighted system designed to determine which hotel reservations site saved us the most money consistently. We also paid extra attention to how honest websites were about disclosing mandatory added fees. If websites try to make rooms seem cheaper than they really are, we warn you.

The best hotel booking sites, according to Frommer’s

#5: Agoda.com

Frommer’s said that Agoda.com was THE BEST OTA for hotels outside North America and Europe, which would make sense since it originally specialized in Asia. However it had a tendency to not even mention taxes and fees until you’re up to the final booking page. They also mentioned that Agoda has sometimes not been the best at customer service.

Pros: Consistently low-priced for Asia and South America; decent filters; map view differentiates between hotels (blue) and rentals (green)

Cons: Omits taxes and fees until the last moment; merely fair results in the U.S. and poor results in Europe; can only search by city (most other sites also allow searches by region or state); clutters window with marketing ploys implying scarcity and sprinkles 4% of the results with “Just missed it!” hotels that aren’t even available on your dates

#4: Kayak.com

Kayak.com is an aggregator. During Frommer’s research, it was one of only 3 sites that never gave them a price or hotel count that was lower than average. They gave thumbs up at the site’s extensive filters, including the ability to see taxes and fees up front.

Pros: Offers optional option to include taxes and fees; average-to-better rates; nice filters

Cons: Doesn’t always lead with lowest price; often returns fewer listings than its corporate sister site, Booking.com even though it claims to check it

#3 HotelsCombined.com

This aggregator allows you to seetaxes and fees included in the price. They also gave the site kudos for its easy-to-use filters.

Pros: Fast refresh; best filters; occasionally finds lower “book direct” rates from hotel; offers option to see prices with or without taxes

Cons: Shorter results list than our top OTA; sometimes beaten on price by our top two; sometimes shows low rates from third-party sites that aren’t actually available once you click over

#2 Booking.com

Frommer’s has been ranking these sites for several years and Booking.com was typically in the lower half of their ranking. Now it’s at #2, so good for them.

Booking.com did best when looking for hotels in North America and Europe. And you can trust their reviews to not be AI or bots, because they’re guaranteed to be from actual guests – you can only post a review on Booking.com if you’ve booked through the site and finished your stay. Take THAT, 1/3 to 1/2 reviews on Tripadvisor that are fake!

Pros: Includes taxes from the start (except in North America); usually finds many more properties other sites, especially in the lower price brackets; decent selection of filters and sort-by options

Cons: Occasionally returns a below-average price; doesn’t calculate taxes and fees for North American properties until the final booking page; jumbles pages with tacky and manipulative sales tactics (“Only 3 rooms left on our site!”)

#1 Google.com

Another aggregator, Google was noted to have a user-friendliness (except for its filters; Frommer’s felt it needed more). It was also the best at finding the cheapest rate. However it didn’t include taxes and fees until you were further long in the booking.

Pros: Found the lowest prices, often direct from the hotel; very fast

Cons: Fewer results than some competitors; no option to calculate taxes and fees until deeper in booking process; leads with planted “sponsored” results from partners

Frommer’s list actually included the 10 best hotel booking sites; #6 through 10 were:

10. Trip.com
9. Tripadvisor.com
8. Trivago (was previously #3…they dropped to the bottom half)
7. Skyscanner.com
6. Momondo.com

You can read all of Frommer’s full reviews for these sites on this page of their website.

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The 5 Best Hotel Booking Sites, According to Frommer’s

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