Booking.com 2024 Industry Insider Review. Should you use it?

2023 was a huge one for Booking.com , as it continues to be the largest online booking platform in the world. With over 17 Billion dollars in revenue and an insane $122 BB market cap, it was truly a groundbreaking record year for the company.

But as a traveler, should you use it to book your next hotel destination?

I believe the answer is complicated; that's why I, with the help of RatePunk 's data, compiled a review for you that looks into the platform's performance FOR the users rather than the performance in the stock market.

Is booking.com the cheapest platform online? Short answer: No

Based on RatePunk 's data from analyzing around 200K user searches, booking.com rarely has the best prices online. Mobile Booking.com website has the best prices?only 16% of the time, and the desktop version offers you the best price even more rarely.

This means you should really look into using other websites when booking your next hotel destination.

Differences in pricing.?Mobile vs. desktop, different pricing models

Booking.com has a so-called "mobile rate," which basically means that booking a hotel through mobile is cheaper.

This is due to the cost of acquiring and maintaining a customer, mobile having the cheapest cost and desktop having the higher cost. This results in Booking.com increasing the price for desktop users upwards to 10%.

That's fine, but there's an issue - Booking.com doesn't let you know that you could book your hotel cheaper using another device.

Differences in pricing.?Different prices for different countries are based on your IP address.

Truly, one of the more disappointing sides of booking websites is changing the price for its users based on their IP addresses.

There have been instances when I saw savings of up to around $300 when switching my IP address from the US to Japan. It is not uncommon. The problem, once again, is booking.com doesn't let you know in any way, shape, or form that there's a potential to get a better price.

Not good for the average user at all

"This is the reason I have developed a one-of-a-kind feature for Ratepunk that tracks countries with the best prices and lets you know which IP has the best price. Industry problems became an inspiration for a new feature at Ratepunk!"

Ratings?

When you search on Booking.com , you might think that the top-rated results would pop up at the top for you, but that's not the case.

The top picks are purely selected with commercial reasons in mind, not user-generated reviews.?

It's always a good idea to check all of the available online reviews for the property to truly get an objective opinion about the state of the facility you aim to stay in.

Or just use Ratepunk with its combined Ratescore feature that packs all of the reviews online into a single score... wink..wink

There have been reports of suspicious ratings.

"We found a hotel in Menorca that topped the recommendations on Booking.com and was described as 'very good' in large font next to the listing. However, when we look at the reviews, we see that the words are used only three times in identical reviews from three non-English speaking countries. Everyone just said, "Very good." - Simon Heptinstall for Daily Mail News ("Should you Booking.com it?")

Even more reasons to check the reviews yourself to get a comprehensive opinion.

TLDR and a shameless CTA:

To get the best booking experience in 2024, you need to be extremely savvy and make informed decisions on many fronts: What IP to use, what device, what booking platform, and so on...?

It really shouldn't be like this; that's why apps and extensions like RatePunk work extremely well. The industry is technologically behind, and I'm simply updating the experience for you to fit this modern age.

Hope this was useful to you and will help you use Booking.com or its alternatives better in the future. Cheers!