Traveling to Europe is always fun, but looking for places to stay without breaking the bank is a different story. With hotel costs soaring, it pays to do your homework when finding out where to spend the night. Here’s where websites to book hotels in Europe come in.
While reserving a room on a hotel website is the most convenient option, it often isn’t the most effective, especially when you have plenty of options to choose from.
The best hotel booking sites can help you save hundreds of dollars while comparing hotel prices between accommodations in the same region. I’ve gone through the best and most popular websites to book European hotels, selected according to reviews, ease of use, and quality of deals.
Ready to start your European vacation? Here are the best hotel booking sites for your Europe vacation when you’re planning your next trip.
The best hotel booking sites for your Europe vacation
1. Booking.com
Why it’s the best: Includes taxes from the get-go and finds a larger number of properties compared to other online travel aggregators (the website is exceptional in finding hotels in the lower price brackets). Travelers will also find the great selection of sorting options and filters to be incredibly useful.
The lowdown: Booking from a hotel website can be easier, but you’re often missing out on better deals. If you want to explore cheaper hotels in a certain region, this hotel deals website is your best bet.
Booking.com is a great place to start if you’re seeking the best hotel booking websites in Europe. Travelers will have no trouble finding a place to stay for the night with over 1.5 million hotel listings globally.
Booking.com is part of the Priceline family of hotel booking sites, so search results will be remarkably similar to those on Priceline.com.
Upon inspection, Booking.com looks to be efficiently designed for business travel, as a prompt pops up asking travelers if they’re going on a business-related trip every time they book. This enables the website to suggest hotels that include complimentary parking, breakfast, and Wi-Fi.
Booking.com also allows European passengers to book European rail and bus journeys, airport taxis, and restaurant reservations through OpenTable.com.
While other hotel booking sites bury costs in the fine print, behind secret filter options, or on subsequent pages, Booking.com discloses taxes on the first rates travelers see.
Each listing contains user reviews that are guaranteed to be from genuine visitors, unlike other crowdsourcing sites. Booking.com only allows customers to post a review after booking through the site.
2. Kayak
Why it’s the best: Kayak has a cleaner website that makes it easier to research hotels than some of the other booking sites within the Priceline family.
Looking for the cheapest prices? Unless you want to save money with one of Priceline’s Express Deals by booking a mystery hotel, you should almost always find the lowest prices on Kayak. By joining Kayak’s email list, you can save up to 35% with their Private Deals on a variety of travel opportunities.
The lowdown: Kayak, one of the best hotel search websites, is a travel search engine that is much like Google Flights. It aims to help you find the best travel alternatives quickly.
To book a reservation on this hotel booking site, go to Kayak’s search results and click the “View Deal” button. This will lead you to the airline, hotel, or third-party booking site where you can complete your trip dates and payment details.
If you’re looking for cheap hotel bookings and the best deals, Kayak can help you locate the best travel schedules and costs for flights, rental cars, apartment and condo rentals, cruises, holiday packages, and trains, much like other hotel booking sites.
Priceline, Booking.com, and RentalCars.com are all members of the Priceline group, so they all utilize the same information. Users should expect similar search results among all three when booking hotels in Europe.
3. Skyscanner
Why it’s the best: Over 100 million users rely on Skyscanner to save money and get the best discounts on car rentals, flights, and hotels every month, making it one of the best hotel booking sites.
This implies that companies can’t pay for “better ranks” on Skyscanner’s search results page. Users may use this metasearch engine to find non-traditional lodgings such as hostels, B&Bs, flats, and guest homes, with a variety of filtering options.
The lowdown: Skyscanner is most known for its airline search engine, but it can also be used to find hotels. Users like how the website provides a variety of filtering choices on the left-hand side of the page. The rates you see on Skyscanner include taxes, something you won’t necessarily see upfront with other online travel companies and airlines.
Go to Skyscanner’s home page and click the Hotels option at the top to begin your hotel search. Enter your destination, trip dates, number of guests, and room count. You can’t search with variable dates as you can on Skyscanner while looking for a flight. To continue, click Search hotels.
You’ll see several filtering options to the left of the search results list. Price, rating, lodging type, cancellation policy, meal plan, and facilities are just a few of the options available.
At the top, you may then filter your results by price, distance to destination, rating, or stars. After you’ve made your decision, click View details or go to the site to book your room immediately.
See Related: Best Skyscanner Alternatives to Book Travel
4. Momondo
Why it’s the best: Looking for the best hotel booking sites for your Europe vacation? Momondo is a good search engine that might become your favorite if you want to compare bookings from 30 different travel sites in real-time utilizing in-depth search options.
There are no intrusive pop-up advertisements, and the UI is speedy, clear, and simple to use. The option to search for non-hotel accommodations such as holiday rentals, apartments, villas, and campsites is a fantastic feature of the Momondo hotel tool.
The lowdown: Momondo, which began as a Danish airline price search engine in 2006, has grown to become a popular destination for many travelers looking for low-cost flights and the best deals on hotels.
Momondo has been rated the top travel search engine in previous years by publications such as Travel + Leisure, Frommer’s, and Travolution Awards. The company was bought by The Priceline Group in July 2017 despite being launched as an independent metadata flight search engine.
Momondo analyzes millions of hotel offers in over 120,000 locations across the world to get the best rates. The way content is displayed to you is appealing since it is accompanied by in-depth user reviews, similar to those seen on TripAdvisor.
You’ll also see a variety of room options for a specific hotel all on one page, which is really convenient. There are also frequently asked questions regarding the hotel which usually cover breakfast options and parking availability. In addition, hotels with a lot of reviews include a summary section that breaks down important information.
5. HotelsCombined
Why it’s the best: HotelsCombined, a popular hotel deals website in Europe, can scan several booking sites in one simple search, consolidating more than 5 million deals. If you discover a better deal elsewhere, the company promises to give the best price guarantee.
Users can find a good hotel in Europe with several filtering and sorting possibilities. Taxes and fees are included in your search, instead of burying them until the very end.
The lowdown: HotelsCombined is a metasearch engine for hotels that was launched in 2005. The website’s technology searches all of the largest travel websites across the world for availability and pricing, including Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Agoda, AccorHotels, Hilton, and many others.
Like a typical hotel deals website, HotelsCombined greets you with a standard hotel booking page where you can input your desired destination, including the dates of your trip and the number of passengers. You may broaden it for a more detailed search, including price, star rating, home type, and guest rating.
The site provides a list of possible hotels as well as options to sort the list, change the presentation, and more ways to filter the available hotels.
The hotels may be sorted by price, guest or star rating, distance from a location or attraction, or traveler type. Switching the pricing display between taxes included and excluded is a valuable tool for seeing what you’ll have to pay upfront.
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6. Expedia
Why it’s the best: Looking for cheap hotels in Europe? When you book a vacation with Expedia, you can save money, especially if you buy a package of services for your trip. When you combine a hotel reservation with an existing airline reservation, you may save up to 43 percent.
If you’re short on cash, Expedia allows you to make monthly payments toward your holiday if you can’t pay in one go. The website also has special “Book Now, Pay Later” hotel rates that allow you to delay your booking fees, so there’s no need to let the cost of your lodgings prevent you from going on your vacation!
The lowdown: Microsoft created Expedia in 2001 as a third-party travel booking service. It began as a simple flight booking service and evolved into an official vacation planning platform over time.
At your destination, you may arrange anything you need for your holiday, including flights, hotels, and even car rentals. Aside from that, you may personalize your search by specifying various preferences.
The website’s user-friendly landing page is one of its main draws. Right in front of you is a search box where you may enter your destination, location, and trip date.
After that, simply click the search button to get the most affordable flights. Similarly, depending on your preferences, you may browse specific search pages for hotels, vehicle rentals, and whole holiday packages.
7. Hotels.com
Why it’s the best: Free nights, secret deals that allow you to save on accommodation fees, and membership discounts make Hotels.com a fantastic hotel deals website for those planning a Europe vacation.
The lowdown: Hotels.com is a subsidiary of Expedia, the same parent business that owns Trivago, Travelocity, Orbitz, and Expedia itself. Hotel prices for international chains, resorts, small hotels, and bed and breakfasts are displayed for both domestic and foreign locations.
If you’re looking for the best apps to book hotels in Europe, Hotels.com is a great choice. They claim to have over 20,000 last-minute deals available on their website and through their app.
When looking for the best hotel booking site in Europe, it’s difficult to overlook Hotels.com. Hotels.com’s rewards program is one reason you might choose to book your hotel stays with them.
After booking ten nights, you will receive one free night. Joining the program is free, and your ten nights do not expire. The free nights have no blackout periods and may even be utilized at more costly hotels and resorts.
All you’re responsible for are the fees and taxes. Users also get access to Secret Price fares as a Hotels.com Rewards member. This can also make booking a night cheaper than booking directly with a hotel. The Secret Deals, according to Hotels.com, may save you around $32 on an average stay.
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8. Priceline
Why it’s the best: Among most European hotel booking sites, Priceline is one of the services that will help you save the most. Priceline provides a loyalty program named Priceline VIP, which is free to join and gives you immediate access to VIP pricing and privileges.
Users of the Priceline App may get “Tonight-Only Deals,” also known as “Deals Tonight Nearby,” which are significantly discounted hotel prices available only through the app at the last minute.
The lowdown: Priceline is a travel reservation service that allows you to book hotel rooms, flights, and car rentals. Its “Name Your Own Price” approach lets you bid on lodgings with some data hidden from you. If your bid is approved, the specifics will be revealed.
Priceline makes it simple to keep track of your travel plans from beginning to end. You can book airline seats, hotel rooms, hire cars, cruises, and even full holiday packages.
When you reserve a hotel stay using Priceline’s “Name Your Own Price” feature, you’ll almost certainly be receiving a good deal. You can also join up for their email newsletter to receive unique discount codes that will help you save even more money! Some of these codes may even be available on virtual coupon websites!
See Related: Best Hotels in Prague, Czech Republic
9. Stay22
Why it’s the best: While not a typical hotel booking site, Stay22 allows those who are planning, organizing, and marketing an event, conference, or concert to efficiently take care of their attendees’ accommodations.
If you’re looking for hotel booking sites for your guests, this is a fantastic option. It comes with an embeddable widget that may be integrated into any website and pulls millions of rooms from various hotels and Airbnb.
The lowdown: Stay22 is a map-based, venue-centric lodging system for events. Like a YouTube video, the embeddable widget may be added to any website.
Stay22 makes over 7 million rooms in 196 countries available to event participants, ensuring that they get the best deals for lodging near the event location. The service offers a free embed that can be made by just filling out a form on their website.
Stay22’s inventory is sourced from hotels and Airbnb. Many participants choose Airbnb instead of hotel rooms for a variety of reasons, including affordability, flexibility, and the desire to stay somewhere other than a hotel room. This makes Stay22 one of the best alternatives to Airbnb.
Managing room blocks may be a time-consuming procedure. If rooms aren’t occupied, the event will be responsible for paying for any unused accommodations. By using Stay22, event planners can recoup part of those expenditures while also providing guests with more options for where to stay while staying close to the event.
Stay22 not only saves time for event planners by eliminating the need to book hotel room blocks, but it may also generate cash for them through affiliate partnerships. Affiliates split a portion of the revenue generated by bookings made through the widget.
10. Tripadvisor
Why it’s the best: While not exactly a hotel deals website, TripAdvisor is a great resource to turn to before booking a Europe hotel. With independent reviews on hotels, restaurants, and attractions, the website guides travelers with their booking and vacation planning decisions.
The lowdown: One of TripAdvisor’s biggest features is real guest reviews. Accommodations and destinations have been rated by users from all around the world based on their personal experiences.
TripAdvisor also allows users to contribute photos of their personal experiences in addition to reviews. How many times have you booked accommodation only to find that your accommodation looked nothing like the photographs on the website when you arrived?
TripAdvisor solves this problem by enabling users to upload their images, giving you a far more accurate picture of where you’re going before you book!
TripAdvisor.com is an excellent travel website that can assist any user in making informed judgments before booking their lodgings. You’ll never be disappointed by a resort again because it was grossly misrepresented on its website.
Types of websites for hotel booking
Are there such things as hotel search engines? Yup! There are three types of hotel search websites: OTAs (or online travel agencies), hotel websites, which may offer deals that OTAs can’t match (be sure to double-check these before booking); and meta-search engines or aggregators, which don’t actually handle reservations.
Aggregators trawl both OTAs and hotel websites to return a compendium of results, then send you to your preferred booking site. This article will mainly discuss meta-search engines or aggregators – the most popular way to book hotels in Europe.
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