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Booking your next vacation – and your hotel in particular – online can feel a bit daunting these days. There are a million travel search engines all trying to prove to would-be travelers why they’re the best.
EasyToBook.com has been in the game for quite some time – since 2004 to be exact – far longer than many of their competitors (YouTube wasn’t even online then – can you imagine?). In an online space where many travel-related websites are consolidating under ever-growing corporate umbrellas, they remain one of the last privately owned, independent online hotel booking providers.
When they invited us to conduct a review of their website, I was happy to help!
The Skinny
In brief, EasyToBook.com claims that their users book through them because they offer:
- Plenty of Choice: Over 50085 hotels worldwide
- Lowest Rate Guarantee: Discounts up to 80%
- No Payments in Advance: Book now and pay at Check-out
- Guest Reviews: Experiences of previous guests
- Multilingual: Available in 9 languages
- Multiple Currencies
- No Extra Charges: Making a booking is free
- Rate Match Guarantee
In Detail
To put the site through its paces, we searched for several “mock hotel bookings” (including the hotel search in San Diego screencapped below) using their simple process, which they assure us can be completed in less than two minutes.
As many similar websites continue to clutter their homepages and search results with upsell advertisements and “VACATIONS STARTING AT JUST $49!” bait-and-switch ads, ETB’s interface is streamlined and straightforward. The practice of trying to upsell travelers on everything from hotel shuttles to hot air balloon rides has become so commonplace nowadays, I was a bit shocked to find such a clean, no-nonsense interface. In fact, I couldn’t find any external/third party ads of any kind anywhere on the site.
Simply enter your booking terms from the homepage and you’re off. The search results pages are cleanly laid out with easy-to-read fonts, a variety of sorting options and proper color coding to make skimming the page a breeze. While they may seem trivial, all of these features are quite welcome when you’ve been staring for hours at countless property names, dates and prices trying to comparison shop your next vacation.
The site of course allows users to streamline their search with a variety of important options, including: Accommodation Type, Star Class, and what Features the property offers (internet, swimming pool, pet friendly, etc.).
Property detail pages are similarly streamlined with only the most pertinent info. They’ve made a conscious decision in fact to eschew many frivolous details in favor of only what’s most important to your booking: price, location, your travel dates and photos.
The devil is always in the details as they say. And one detail that always stands out to me as a credibility indicator is an easy-to-find phone number, accessible from any page on the site. It’s the mark of a company that actually cares whether or not their customer has questions or issues with their website.
Bottom Line
All told, we love the simplicity and ease of use that EasyToBook.com brings to the hotel reservation process. Coupled with their rate match guarantee and no-booking fee promise, we absolutely love the site. Highly recommended.