Everyone wants to make sure they get the best deal possible when booking a vacation. With several comparison websites to choose from it’s important to use the one offering the best deal possible. At InsureMyTrip, we analyzed 950 hotels across 20 cities, within the U.S. and internationally to find which comparison site is the best and offers the most affordable way to book a hotel.
Which Site Has the Best Price in Each U.S. City?
The U.S. city with the best saving was Los Angeles when booked through Hotels.com, it can save you $45.45. The city with the least amount of savings was Las Vegas. When booking through Expedia, you will save, on average, $8.92.
When traveling to Miami and Honolulu we recommend booking directly through the hotel website. In Los Angeles we would recommend Hotels.com and in Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco we recommend Booking.com. In Orlando, Washington, and Las Vegas we would recommend using Expedia.com. New York had the same price on both Hotels.com and Expedia.
Generally, we found booking through Expedia gives you the best hotel deals. Hotels were assessed for the number of times they were the most affordable, and Expedia is the least expensive 294 times. However, Hotels.com has the lowest average price at $340.32 and is the least expensive 291 times. Booking.com was third on the list at 285 times and an average of $341.92.
Booking directly was the least affordable option across 10 U.S. cities. While direct booking was the cheapest 247 times – this was less than each booking site. It also had the highest average price of $352.35.
Which Site Has the Best Price in Each International City?
London was the city with the biggest potential saving – $121.17 on Expedia.com. The city with the smallest saving was Istanbul, Turkey – with only $6.26 potential savings when booking with both Hotels.com and Expedia.
We would recommend booking directly through the hotel when traveling to Singapore, Bangkok, Thailand, Dubai, U.A.E., and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. You would have the same saving on Hotels.com and Expedia in Paris, New York, and Istanbul. Expedia is the best for London and when traveling to Macau, China or Hong Kong we would recommend Booking.com.
Our general finding was Booking.com was the least affordable site across 10 cities internationally. Hotels were assessed for the number of times they were the most affordable, and Booking.com was only the most affordable site 129 times. It also has the highest average price of $342.96.
You can find the best deals when booking directly through the hotel website, as it is the least expensive 249 times. However, Expedia has the lowest average price at $328.31, and is also the least expensive 234 times.
Changes from Last Year
Data for hotel comparison sites was collected a year ago. In the list of U.S. cities, Booking.com was not the most affordable for any of them a year ago, while it now appears three times in the list. Likewise, Booking.com is the least expensive site for two international cities while a year ago it did not feature. Last year, booking directly was the best option for just one international city, now that number is four.
It’s clear that prices are always changing and where you can get the best deal depends on the location, but in general Hotels.com and Expedia have consistently affordable deals.
Methodology
We chose fifty hotels in nineteen cities, ten in the U.S. and nine international cities (New York was included in both data sets), based on the cities with the most international arrivals. Macau had 40 cities as there were no other hotels available on Booking.com. We searched for a double room for two people for one night between 18th-19th August 2023. We used these parameters to search on Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, and directly on the hotel website. All searches were done on the same day to avoid price fluctuations.
