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When it comes to planning vacations, I’m the doer in my household. I like to have all of the major details — flights, accommodation and a few activities — planned in advance to take some of the pressure off while away.
Like most modern travellers, I book everything online. When digging through the endless options, I tend to value cost-savings, user-friendly booking sites and convenience. I was planning a family trip to Mexico when I learned that (almost) everything could be booked through booking.com’s platform.
I’ve had a Booking account for many years, at least 15, and I had unknowingly enrolled in its free Genius program. The program offers returning travellers rewards such as discounts, free breakfasts and room upgrades, depending on your level. It starts at level one (upon creating an account) and goes up to level three (upon completing 15 bookings in two years). Cost-savings — check.
The Booking.com website is user-friendly. The main navigation takes you to book stays, flights, car rentals, taxis and attractions, where you’ll find activity options at your destination. You can book flight and hotel combos too, though when I looked into it, it seemed more costly than booking separately. The app is even better, with a 4.7-star rating in the app store, the highest I’ve seen for a well-reviewed travel platform. I love the convenience of being able to book almost everything in one place — all that was left to book were restaurants. Check, check.
Lastly, I appreciate Booking.com’s approach to sustainable travel, which often feels like an oxymoron. The company releases an annual sustainability report and aims to make booking sustainable trips easier for travellers while consistently working on a climate action plan.
After booking my flights, accommodation, car rental and activities through booking.com, these are my thoughts on the service.
Fabulous. I got the lowest rate I could find on the internet, matching or below the rates I could find on Air Canada, WestJet, Sky Scanner, Expedia and any other flight aggregator. The process was quick and easy.
Great in the end, with some hiccups. After searching through all of the options on the platform, I was happily surprised to find so many different property types. Hotels, but also vacation homes, apartments, B&Bs and hostels. The variety makes it a great choice for varying budgets (I’m pretty sure my first booking was a hostel in Thailand in my early 20s). Some of the vacation homes rival what you might find on Airbnb or Vrbo.
I managed to find the most amazing accommodation, right by the beach near a lovely little surf town called Todos Santos. I can’t say enough wonderful things about Cerritos Surf Residences, a block of gorgeous condos with what felt like our own private pool and bar (these were both shared, but we managed to book during off season, so had them both to ourselves often). Our condo was equipped with two large bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge living space with a new kitchen and appliances and a large patio overlooking the pool. Perfect for a family of three or four.
Booking accommodation wasn’t as smooth as I’d hoped. We initially wanted to stay in a private home, but learned of recent scams impacting the site. According to an interview with The Guardian, a Booking.com spokesperson confirmed many of its accommodation partners had been targeted by phishing emails aimed at taking over the partner’s computer system.
“In some cases this has led to unauthorized access of their Booking.com account, which enables these fraudsters to temporarily impersonate the accommodation and communicate with guests via email or messages,” the spokesperson said to the Guardian.
My suggestion is to steer clear of any accommodation with less than five reviews to avoid a potential headache.
I booked through the platform and all seemed smooth until we showed up at the rental company to pick up our vehicle. They ended up charging us an additional $400 on top of the $167 we’d already paid.
Since Booking.com is a third-party supplier, this issue is difficult to police. After reading a bunch of reviews, it sounds like this is a very common issue in many countries and likely would’ve happened regardless of where we booked.
I suggest booking with a reputable company like Avis or Enterprise, to avoid unexpected fees. This can be done through the Booking.com platform, but avoid companies you’ve never heard of and read the reviews ahead of booking.
There’s a great range of activities (called “attractions”) on Booking.com and everything we booked went smoothly at our destination (Glass Bottom Boat Tour — highly recommended for the kiddos if you’re in the Cabo area!). I suggest comparing against Tripadvisor options and pricing to ensure you’re finding the best deal.
Overall, the experience with Booking.com was positive and saved me money, thanks to my Genius membership. I saved 10 per cent on both the car rental and accommodation and found the cheapest flights on the internet through the platform. Each of these bookings will get me closer to the next level of the program, unlocking more savings.
Next time, I’ll go into the booking experience armed with more knowledge about car and accommodation scams but look forward to free room upgrades and breakfasts on my next trip.
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